Staines 104 - closed branch (1981)

Waitrose 104 Staines opened at 32-38 High Street, on Tuesday 12th November 1957. Mr A R Murray was Branch Manager.

With a frontage of 44 feet long, meaning rather more selling space than the other Supermarkets, there was more elbow-room for offices, services, stock rooms and a particularly attractively-decorated Rest Room and Dining Room.

The shop was easy to find, with the name “Waitrose” in black, edged with gold leaf on a panel of lime-green illuminated perspex. Inside were “stacks of gaily-coloured shopping baskets and equally gaily-coloured trolleys for those with large families and big larders.” The supermarket stocked a very wide range of foods including Eastern and Continental and a good asoprtment of non-food goods such as Cosmetics, Kitchenware, Stationery and Stockings, and with six customer check-out points, customers did not have to queue for long.

The branch closed its doors at 4pm on Saturday 28th February 1981. Miss Penny Huggett, Branch Manager said: “Morale has been good and Partners have remained cheerful.” All 49 full and part-time Partners were offered transfer to other branches, as were the 30 week-end juniors. The branch team had a farewell get-together at the town’s Packhorse Inn.