From Groceries to Spirits: Amarillo Stores History

I spend a lot of time in my car. I end up driving all around the city and I tend to notice things. Or I like to think I do. My home base is in the Georgia Street area. I would have to say I spend the majority of my time around there.

When I am leaving Market Street I hate making a left hand turn out of that parking lot. So I have a backway I always go to get to my house. There is one building I drive by quite a bit. I have been inside it a few times as well.

I just never stopped to think what was there before. As long as I have lived in Amarillo it has always been Pinkie's. You can definitely tell it is an old building. So there has had to be something else inside that building before Pinkie's Liquor. So I started to do some searching.

This location of Pinkie's Liquor is at 2751 Civic Circle. It has been there forever. Now it didn't take too long to find my answer. I would have never guessed that it used to be a grocery store.

Apparently it used to be a Skagg's. They had a location in downtown Amarillo and from what I could find this one on Civic Circle. Skagg's eventually became Albertson's. Skagg's was more of a drug store. Then it just made sense to combine and become a grocery store as well. That partnership began in the seventies. Apparently that partnership lasted until the late seventies when Albertsons decided to go their own way. They are still around. Skagg's is not.

Skagg's has been in Amarillo since the sixties. I moved to the area in the late eighties. Moved to Amarillo in the nineties and it has always been Pinkie's. I remember having Homeland stores in the area. That was the grocery store to shop at.

Over the years we have had transformations of Albertsons and them buying United. So this is a great store to know got it's start a long long time ago.