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First opened in 1927, this popular grocery retailer once covered 38 cities in three states.
At one time, Mick-or-Mack was a household name in the Roanoke Valley.
The grocery retailer, whose name was inspired by Irish and Scottish nicknames, opened its first Roanoke Valley store in 1927 on Church Avenue in downtown Roanoke. Ten years later, it had 49 stores across 38 cities in three states.
The Mick-or-Mack corporate headquarters was based in the Roanoke Valley, though most of its stores were owned individually by franchise operators.
The grocer’s motto early on was “cash talks.” That’s because much of the region’s grocery business was credit based. Mick-or-Mack aimed to offer low prices, stock national brands, and sell groceries for cash, according to a Roanoke Times article published at the retailer’s 25th anniversary.
Pictured here is a Mick-or-Mack store at 5301 Williamson Road, located in what now is the Williamson Road Plaza. According to city records, the first listing for this Mick-or-Mack location was 1958. The last listing for the grocer at this address was in 1984.
The number of Mick-or-Mack stores began to dwindle in the 1980s. The last Mick-or-Mack in Roanoke, located on Winborne Avenue in the Grandin Village, closed in 2019.
The Williamson Road Plaza no longer houses a grocery store. Currently, its tenants include Advance Auto Parts, Southern Elevator, TLC Nails, Warehouse Billiards and Gator Hall.
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