N & P Suprex Food Market, 122 West Palm Avenue

N & P Suprex Food Market, 122 West Palm Avenue. 1956. Burgert Brothers. Courtesy, Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System

Heights Union retail space, 122 West Palm Avenue. 2021.© Chip Weiner

The corner of Palm and Highlands Avenues has hosted a grocery store as far back as 1914 when the Highland Grocery Company was here. By the early 1920s, the owners, possibly due to illness, tried to trade the property for a large house or a grove, and by the late 1920s, it had become a part of the Profit-Less Stores Incorporated chain. The chain had over 30 independently owned stores in the Tampa area by 1930. It was not unusual for mom-and-pop grocery stores to be part of a larger conglomerate that afforded better pricing and organization. The chain morphed into Better Food Stores by the early 1930s when this store became known as N & P Grocery. The Suprex Markets company took the lead in the late 1940s, and the store was known as N&P Suprex Market.

By the late 1960s, the Tampa Heights area where the building was located had declined. In the early 1990s, the property became home to the Dessesseau and Dessesseau Memorial Funeral Home, which was liquidated in 1994, and in early 1998, the Jackson Memorial Chapel opened here. It didn’t last. In 2014, 100 years after groceries were king here, a renaissance began in Tampa Heights.  The former Tampa Electric Company trolley born on the banks of the Hillsborough River and near this site, was fully renovated and now houses Armature Works, a food hall, event space, and waterfront park. As part of the area development surrounding properties were also renovated and a roundabout was added to this intersection where the N & P Grocery once was. The six-story Heights Union building now stands in its stead

 © Chip Weiner. All rights reserved

From Burgert Brothers: Look Again, Vol.2

Heights Union retail space, 122 West Palm Avenue. 2021. © Chip Weiner