Throughout Bellingham, convenience stores are a quick and easy way to treat yourself. “Convenience” lies in their food and drink selections, walking distance from neighborhoods, and their appeal to all ages.
Convenience stores emerged during the mid-twentieth century alongside the larger supermarkets that outcompeted small grocers in growing communities. In Bellingham, as elsewhere, neighborhood grocery buildings survived in this new form: stocking mainly snacks plus stations for coffee, deli fare, ice, or frozen desserts. Many are licensed to sell beer, liquor, cigarettes, vaping products, and lottery tickets to adults of legal age.
Most of Bellingham’s convenience stores are chains, both regional and larger ones associated with gas stations. Some occupy historic buildings, as in the chain JJ’s In N Out, which started in 2006 with a location in the Bellingham National Bank Building (circa 1913). New stores still emerge, such as Maple Market (200 East Maple Street), which started in 2023 by the owners of Naan and Brew.
Standalone convenience stores that date back decades, however, have shaped local character for generations.
Cornwall Corner Store
At 2230 Cornwall Avenue, the two-story Cornwall Corner Store has served as various grocery stores and housed tenants upstairs for over 100 years.
The original corner store dates from when Cornwall Avenue was called Dock Street after historic docks such as Sehome Wharf. In 1910, the Bellingham Herald mentions “Snyder’s New Grocery and Provision Store. Corner Dock and Carolina St.” owned by one G.A. Snyder and serving the industrial waterfront.
By 1920, the store was called “Cornwall Meat Market” or “Cornwall Avenue Grocery” under Axel Leaf of the Carsten Packing Company. It finally became “Cornwall Meat & Grocery” by 1929. Newspapers from the 1920s through 1930s included advertisements for their bargain meats, baking supplies, and other groceries, and even goats for sale.
The address appears in newspapers throughout the 1940s advertising its second-story apartment. By 1948, Reginald Matz is noted as operating “Reg’s Market” as a midcentury-modern convenience store.
Married couple Herbert and Sandra Rhea took ownership of Rhea’s Market in 1961. They created the modern store and its lasting slogan: “Small enough to know you, big enough to serve you.” By Herbert Rhea’s death in 1993, Sandra and their daughter Shannon ran the store for four more years. It was called Cornwall Corner Store by 1996.
Today, Cornwall Corner Store is a mainstay during the Whatcom Memorial Day Parade and popular with Bellingham High School students.
Elm Street Market
At 2404 Elm Street, today’s Elm Street Market recreates the memory of an earlier store with historic tributes.
Goddard’s Elm Market started in 1939 after its owner, Ernest Goddard, had bought and run other groceries nearby for over two decades. Locals remember stores along Elm Street, this one a full-service grocery with a meat department. Also called “Elm Market” and “Elm Meat Co”, the building had a service station until a 1941 remodel.
The store joined the “Cumming’s Market” grocery chain under Thiel M. Cummings by 1946. It became “Al’s Elm Street Market” or “Al’s Superette” under Al Clement in 1954. The Bellingham Herald noted at the opening ceremony, “it will feature a postal substation, drugs, magazines and other items as well as the groceries, produce and meats.”
The names cycled through “Al’s Save-Well” in the 1960s, “Super 24 Food Store” starting in 1974, and “Sunrise Market” by 1987. The store finally became Gifford’s Market and Deli (also Gifford’s Convenience Corner) under William Fred Gifford in 1992. Jong Min Park and his wife Sung Mun took over in 2002, and Gifford’s made headlines in 2004 when Park survived a gunshot during a robbery. Neighbors supported the owners with flowers, well-wishes, and even volunteer work. The reopening sign read, “Today we are reborn with our neighbors.”
In 2018, Manny Sidhu opened the current Elm Street Market after Giffords Market closed in 2015. Employees added historic photos above the beer aisle with the help of Jeff Jewell, archivist at the Whatcom Museum. The store includes Bellingham-based beer, Tony’s Coffee, and other local products such as honey.
Fort Bellingham and Marine Drive Markets
The Marietta-Alderwood neighborhood at Bellingham’s northwest boundaries includes two convenience stores: Fort Bellingham Market and Deli (1383 Marine Drive) and Marine Drive Market (746 Marine Drive). The former town of Marietta operated other grocery stores such as Baker’s Market for over 100 years, but it was demolished in 2006.
Fort Bellingham Market and Deli took its name from the original Fort Bellingham that operated nearby from 1856 to 1860. The U.S. Army built the fort for warfare with Native Americans, and Captain George Pickett led construction before his involvement in Pickett House, the Pig War, and leading his notoriously failed Pickett’s Charge for the Confederate Army. The blockhouse itself burned down in 1897.
The Bellingham Herald mentions George Myers owning the grocery at 1383 Marine Drive in 1975, called “D & S Market” by 1980. It gained the Fort Bellingham name by 1991.
Nearby, Marine Drive Market became a store after Stump’s Market took over from Coast-to-Coast Hardware in 1978. It was Marine Drive Market by 1986.
In every form they take, Bellingham’s convenience stores have kept service friendly and locally minded with their close community ties.
