The smell of salted bacon reminds Diana Gaines of her childhood shopping with her mother at a Wingfield grocery store in the 1940s.

Her mother always carried a string bag with her, and when she presented her list to the grocery store, they put the exact amount in a paper bag.

No plastic, packaging or refrigeration.

“Bacon was preserved because it was well preserved,” she recalled.

“And the cheese was quite an eye-opener, because it was a hard cheese and not very palatable in my little 4- or 5-year-old book.”

At the time, the store, located on the banks of the Clarence River in McLean in northern New South Wales, had been in business for more than 50 years.

It was originally built in 1883 and named the Argyle Store by its first owner, John McLachlan.

When the area was declared a municipality in 1887, it supplied dry goods, hardware and haberdashery to the townspeople during floods and when their sons fought in World War I.

In 1898, the town’s first cash register was installed and it became a modern center.

Standing like a sentinel along the winding river in the middle of Main Street, the store had the advantage of being easily accessible by road and water.

Suppliers from far away and farmers within the area delivered their goods by boat, and stores made deliveries up and down the river.

In 1969, the dry goods and hat departments were eliminated to create a modern self-service supermarket.

Bob Little, historic curator and current owner of the building, said local residents were not impressed with the move, believing self-service shopping would never catch on.

“So many customers talk about tying their horses in front, ‘back in the old days,'” he says.

“It holds a lot of memories for a lot of people.”

down the memory lane

Ms Little said locals love coming to the place, which retains elements of the past with stamped metal ceilings and heritage signs.

The music playing from the store’s speakers rarely strays from 1950s and 1960s hitmakers like Frankie Valli and Buddy Holly.

“I’ve never thought of myself as owning the store. It’s part of the town, it belongs to the town,” Little said.

“We have always tried to maintain the tradition of the store because we believe that is important to this building.”

everything old is new again

Adele Wessel, a food historian at Southern Cross University, said it was interesting to see supermarkets returning to old ways as consumers sought more sustainable options.

Ms Wessel said since plastic bags were banned in New South Wales in 2022, people were embracing reusable bags and there was a growing focus on reducing packaging and food waste.

“They want to be able to buy it in a brown paper bag or bring their own jar and fill it, eliminating the need for extra waste and packaging,” she says.

Mr Wessel said dry goods such as flour, sugar and tea had changed little since the early days of Australian colonial settlement, but modern supermarkets would be unrecognizable to people walking into them after 1883.

At the time, it took 40 years for even Vegemite to be invented.

“I would love to go back and see what shopping was like back then,” she said.

“For all the things I might romance, I’m sure there were also a lot of challenges. That’s why these stores have changed over time.”

go back to the past

Wessel said the advent of modern supermarkets coincided with more people owning cars, making it easier to get to the “big stores”.

“If you think about 1883, people didn’t have electricity in their homes and couldn’t necessarily buy a lot of food and put it in the freezer.

“So they are buying small amounts of food and maybe even ice to store the meat.

“It would have been a completely different experience.”

The building is scheduled to undergo a major renovation in early 2026, with a new veranda replicating its 1890 façade.

Bob Little said he decided to invest in the refurbishment to further strengthen the supermarket’s “point of difference” and one of the town’s greatest reputations.

“It’s hard to believe it’s been here this long because it’s a small town, but it seems like it was a very successful place.”