- 8/8/1973 – WINDSOR, ONTARIO: Detroit-area shoppers are crossing the Canadian border for beef in numbers that merchants say haven’t been equalled since the meatless days of World War II. Retailers said 8/8 that the vast majority of their customers in the past week or so have been Americans unable to find or afford beef in U.S. supermarkets.
A quick Google search reveals some information about the US beef shortage. Anyone remember the shortage? Did it affect prices in Windsor/other Border Cities?
Have a good weekend everyone, see you back here Monday.
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While I was a regular shopper at the downtown Windsor farmers’ market in ’73, I am ashamed to admit that I have no memory at all of the US beef “shortage”. I seem to have existed in a bubble for a few years when my kids were small! (I do remember watching Nixon’s exit from the White House on TV.)
One of my biggest regrets is that I never made it inside the place. Any chance you’ll have more photos of it in the future?
i remember the old city market when i was a kid i recall how amazed i was at the ramps that were inside the building that the trucks drove up and down from the different floors
OMG!!! I soooooooo remember this !!!! i went every week with my grandparents and parents lol omg !!! haaaaaaaaaa i loved going down and up them stairs and the service was to die for !!!!
I miss it !! sometimes when i go to the casino i really have flash backs !
I worked in the Ferry Seed Building in the mid-1970’s (directly kitty-corner across the street from the market) – Saturday mornings were very busy in the market area – parking was near impossible – and you would see hundreds of people walking with grocery carts full of the finest, fresh produce, meats, cheeses, fish, and flowers…. the restaurant on the second floor was impossible to get a seat in, at 7:30 AM – the cook/owner was a great guy – he knew your name, and was happy to serve take out if need be…. I recall the main and second floors filled with small growers selling produce that was still covered in garden soil… freshly pulled from the ground either the night before, or at sunrise that same day… The perimeter of the first floor was lined with permanent sellers – open sometimes during the week, but mostly just on Saturday.
There must be more photos of the market out there… I know I have a few taken from the roof of the building I was in at the corner of McDougall and Riverside Drive. – thanks for posting Andrew.
P.S. – forgot to mention – the US customers would flock to Canada to buy “Canadian Bacon” – I think we call it peameal bacon, but for some reason, it was not available in Detroit. There was a small deli located on the north-east corner of Wyandotte and Goyeau (now a parkette) that had a huge sign in the window promoting, buy you bacon here.
I’m pretty sure that deli was Toth’s – they specialized in cheese.
I have so many memories of going to the market with my dad every Saturday morning. And so remember running up that ramp, and up and down the cement stairs. It was always a great time going to the market and seeing so many interesting things for a kid.
I worked on Saturdays here in the late 70’s at a place that sold chicken on the 2nd floor.
The restaurant was called Benny”s..Great food. Used to butter the toast with a paint brush !
July and August were soooo hot upstairs. The side alley where we would dump garbage was not the best smelling place in the city, especially since the parked garbage truck was located next to Hy’s Fish Market. A ton of good memories working here as a kid…Lots of friendly folks and lots of characters !!!
I was born in 1926 amd lived at Janisse’s Funeral Home where my dad was an ambulance driver,embalmer etc. until I was 16 yrs. old. so I remember well tge Saturday and Wed. market days. One day I was coming home and it was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon so the market day was just about over. When I got to the ramp which was still open..a boy on a bicycle came down the ramp at full speed and knocked me flying out into the road. luckily there were no cars so I got up a little woozy but not hurt and continued on home.
I should have memtioned that Janisse’s Funeral Home was on the corner of Mercer St. and Sandwich St.now Riverside Dr.
My early days when I moved to Windsor (1950, when I was 16) I vaguely recall someone who lived, or worked, at Janisse’s by the name of Joseph St. Amore (I recall the name because there is an apt. bldg on Sherbourne St. in Toronto by the same name! I guess the timeline would indicate that your family had left by then. The St. Amore’s were perhaps there afterward.
yes Ken I remember the St. Amores…Jenny…Joes mother was the bookkeeper at Janisse’s when I lived there and his dad would work in the evenings answering the door. I
lived there from 1926 until 1942.
Wow, Benny’s Lunch. My first mother-in-law, Mary Talley, worked there for-e-ver! I helped behind the counter a couple of times and Benny and Mary were very patient with me because I was so slow. Well, slow compared to them. They knew everybody and had their orders going before they could park their butts on a stool. I still remember the smell; it smelled so alive, everything fresh and real. That would have been the mid-seventies. Everything changes, but still.