New street art, old store: Johnson’s Grocers

Johnson's Grocers was a Christchurch institution, and many remember the overstuffed shelves of this Colombo Street store with fondness. It is now commemorated in a new mural near to where it was located at 787 Colombo Street.

This is not the first time that Johnson's has been the subject of a street art homage, as a miniature version turned up late last year on the outside of Little High.

As someone who lived for in the neighbourhood for a number of years I remember Johnson's Grocers as a place that seemed out of a different era. The staff in their white coats brought to mind Ronnie Barker in his brown one in British comedy, Open All Hours. From the checkerboard tiled entrance, to its blackboard signs and vintage delivery bicycle parked out front, Johnson's had its own specific vibe.

As the purveyor of a "wide range of imported goods", Johnson's was the place to go if you had a hankering for foodstuffs not carried by mainstream supermarket chains. I remember it as a source of the world's best jelly babies (Bassetts. English. Superior), McVitie's Jaffa Cakes, and as a friend suggested, the world of culinary exoticism that is... British crisps. And according to one of the blackboards in the image above..."HAGGIS".

The new mural raised questions for me, though, with its suggestion that the store was "Est. 1911". Johnson's Grocers celebrated its 50th birthday back in 1999 and you don't have to be a maths whiz to notice that those years don't line up.

Our own write up about the store in Canterbury Stories confirms that Stan Johnson started his business in 1949 (and basically kept to the same aesthetic forever after), having taken over an earlier business called "Leigh and Co" (also know as Leigh's Popular Cash Store).

Advertising for the store (a little further down the street) turns up in newspaper advertising from 1918 and into the 1920s. 

A 2010 lifestyle article in The Press states the date of Leigh and Co.'s establishment as 1911 but doesn't give the source. We do know the name of the company is correct though because it featured on the aforementioned delivery bicycle and the name "Leigh and Co. Grocer" can be seen painted on it in the image above.

However (or whenever) this business that became Johnson's came to be, what's for certain is that Johnson's Grocers is no more, having shut in 2016 after a stint in a new location in post-quake Christchurch's Re:Start Mall. The shelves in the new digs there were still well-stocked but with lower ceilings they prompted less quake anxiety than the legendarily lofty and bountiful shelves of the original store. And they kept on with their trademark white coats, bringing an air of the old world to the new container-based post-quake one.

So whether you count Johnson's as having existed since 1949 or prefer to mark the beginning of its predecessor (supplier of sliced pineapple and lemon cheese, alike), there's no doubt that the Johnson's Grocers mural is a fine addition to Ōtautahi's street art landscape. And that the memories of Johnson's Grocers have lasted longer than the jaffa cakes.

Read more

• Johnson's Grocers (history) and Images of Johnson's Grocers Canterbury Stories
• Selling staples since 1911 The Press, 29 November 2010
• New mural pays tribute to Christchurch’s beloved Johnson’s Grocers, after small tweak, The Press, 29 September 2026