Waitrose Slough
John Lewis Partnership Archive collection
John Lewis Partnership Archive collection
Waitrose took over an old cinema in Slough and turned it into one of its first supermarkets. The cinema projectionist’s room became the branch manager’s office allowing him to see the shop below in the area which had formerly been the stalls.
Slough was one of the branches to show the ever widening Waitrose assortment, everything from shopping trolleys to packets of seed. It often ran competitions for its customers.
Comments about this page
Having spent time at Slough training on the office side in the late 1970’s the view in the photo was from the ‘branch office’ which was probably the projection room of the cinema.
The Branch Manager at the time had a good view over the shop-floor and if he spotted shoplifters he would request that the store detective move to that aisle over the tannoy. There was, of course, no store detective present but the shoplifters would soon return the goods and leave the store !
The Palace cinema was ‘partially’ demolished and the new Waitrose was built around certain areas.
The foyer of the old cinema became the entrance to the shop, and the auditorium was transformed into the main shopfloor with the offices overlooking from what would have been the projector room.
(information sourced from The Gazette, 31st August 1957 and 27th September 1958)
Pretty sure the supermarket was a new build and that the cinema was demolished, so I don’t know where the manager was actually looking down from.
Add a comment about this page