Read time: 8 min.

I was browsing a used bookstore in Anderson’s Southdale Plaza when I realized I was only a couple of doors away from a flea market in a former Marsh Supermarket. That was all the excuse I needed to take a look! I went in curious to see whether any evidence of the building’s grocery-store past still lingered beneath the flea market shelves. Here’s a look at what remains, along with the story behind the building.

Anderson’s Southdale Plaza opened in 1963¹. The shopping center brought together an eclectic mix of businesses, including an Arnold Palmer Putting Course, Excel Beauty Salon, Guarantee Auto, Hooks’ Drugs, Moore’s Stores, Southdale Plaza Barber Shop, United Oil Service, Valu-U Dress Shop, and Marsh². The plaza was anchored by a W.T. Grant department store and a detached, 76,000-square-foot K-Mart³. Marsh stood on the south side of the strip. As Anderson’s third, it showcased the grocer’s latest design with a distinctive roof supported by laminated wooden arches⁴.

Marsh eventually outgrew its original Southdale location. In 1973, it relocated to a new 25,704-square-foot store there. The larger supermarket boasted thirteen merchandise aisles, seven checkout lanes, and an express lane, giving shoppers considerably more room to spread out⁵.

By the early 1980s, however, company officials had concluded that even the ten-year-old store was no longer meeting their needs. Marsh considered abandoning Southdale altogether in favor of a brand-new supermarket at 38th Street and Columbus Avenue, but those plans stalled when the company failed to secure approval for a $3.5 million economic development bond from the City of Anderson⁶. 

As Marsh built ever-larger supermarkets across Indiana, many of its older, smaller stores were rebranded into a new concept called LoBill Foods. The locations remained full-service grocery stores, but offered fewer specialty departments than their larger counterparts. By 2003, two Anderson stores -the Southdale Plaza and Nichol Avenue locations- had made the transition⁷. 

The changes didn’t stop there. In 2007, a year after the Marsh family sold the company to a private equity firm, many smaller Marsh and LoBill stores were rebranded as Marsh Hometown Market⁸. The Southdale Plaza store carried that name for only a few years before another makeover arrived in 2011, when it became MainStreet Market⁹. The Southdale Plaza supermarket’s long run came to an end in 2012. Company officials announced the closure, but offered little explanation, leaving residents to speculate about what finally doomed the store after nearly four decades in the location¹⁰. 

The old Marsh/LoBill Foods/Marsh Hometown Market/MainStreet Market appears to have sat vacant for several years before AACT Indoor Flea Market moved in around 2018. Even so, traces of the building’s grocery-store past are surprisingly easy to spot. Along the front façade, large decorative X-braces still stretch across recessed wall panels behind brick columns. The barn-like detailing is a feature I’ve noticed on several former Marsh stores over the years, including one in Indy’s Eagledale Plaza, and it remains one of the easiest clues that the building wasn’t just any strip-mall storefront.

I’m almost certain I shopped at the Southdale Plaza store during its LoBill Foods years. Mine was a Marsh family, and this was the closest to my grandparents’ house when we lived with them. Unfortunately, my memories of the place are fuzzy, and I don’t recall that bright red stripe running across the walls today. Based on the interiors of other stores, my suspicion is that it was added during the Marsh Hometown Market era.

The antique mall’s provenance as an old supermarket became more apparent as I took a lap around the place. Running along the rear wall was a long, artificial roofline clad in faux shingles. I’m almost certain the bump-out once housed Marsh’s meat and seafood department. Unfortunately, confirming that hunch proved difficult: the space is now packed with shelves of collectibles, antiques, toys, and assorted bric-a-brac. From my vantage point, I could only catch glimpses of what lay beyond.

At the north side of the store, another decorative façade stretched across much of the the wall, complete with faux shingles and a series of shallow gables that gave the area the appearance of a stylized barn. Marsh supermarkets, even LoBills, generally weren’t kitschy enough to lean heavily into a barn theme, but they also weren’t known for leaving large expanses of exposed block visible to shoppers.

The mismatch suggests that something more elaborate once occupied this space and was later removed. I bet it was fridges and freezers for the dairy department. Here’s another photo of the erstwhile dairy area, with the fringes of the meat department to the left. The faux-shingled wall treatment continues uninterrupted around the corner. I’m almost positive that the red lines on the floor denote where sections of shelving once stood.

This view, looking northeast, reveals more of the Hometown Market-era paint scheme. What stands out just as much as what was changed, however, is what wasn’t. The remodel left the original flooring, drop ceiling, and fluorescent lighting largely untouched. Sun Capital Partners frequently highlighted the money it invested in upgrading its newly acquired Marsh stores -sometimes up to half a million dollars¹¹– but the results were modest at Southdale. Nothing about this space resembles a modern supermarket. In fact, its dated finishes and worn appearance have more in common with the vacant Kmart just down the road than with the sleek grocery stores shoppers expected of bigger Marshes.

After ten minutes, my lap around the old supermarket came to an end. I hadn’t found much that piqued my interest, so I headed back outside to meet the approaching rain. In doing so, I passed through one of the building’s most recognizable surviving features: the enclosed brick entranceway that served as a Marsh hallmark from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. Today, visitors enter the flea market through the north side of the building, but a matching entrance still exists on the south. Unfortunately, that doorway has been blocked off with shopping carts and other clutter, putting it out of reach.

In the end, my detour into the old Marsh didn’t uncover many hidden treasures or forgotten supermarket relics. There were no abandoned checkout lanes, no vintage signs tucked away in a corner, and no obvious clues that screamed “grocery store.” Instead, what I found instead were subtler things: a building that still carries the bones of its former life nearly fifteen years, especially near the meat and dairy departments, nearly fifteen years after the last carton of milk left its shelves.

For longtime Anderson residents, this place has worn a remarkable number of identities. It spent decades feeding families as Marsh, LoBill Foods, Marsh Hometown Market, and MainStreet Market before finding a second act as a flea market. Yet even beneath layers of merchandise, paint, and remodeling, the old supermarket hasn’t completely disappeared. The faux rooflines, the barn-inspired details, the enclosed brick entrances, and even the worn interior finishes still hint at what once stood as the main reason to go to Southdale Plaza.

I’ll admit that seeing an old Marsh reduced to this makes me a little wistful. My grandfather started there as a young man and built it into a lifelong career, eventually retiring as a warehouse superintendent. Places like this aren’t just old buildings to me; they’re tied to family stories and memories. Even so, buildings rarely forget what they were built to be. Sometimes all it takes is a closer look to spot the clues. Southdale Plaza’s former Marsh may no longer stock groceries, but for anyone willing to wander its aisles and look past the flea market booths, some of its history is still evident.

Sources Cited
1 New Marsh Supermarket In Southdale Opens Wednesday (1963, June 24).  The Anderson oDaily Bulletin. p. 3. 
2 Let’s go to the Opening (1963, October 3). The Anderson Herald. p. 13. 
3 Parcel 48-12-31-200-001.000-003 (2026). Office of the Assessor. Madison County [Anderson]. Web. Retrieved June 17, 2026. 
4 (See footnote 1).
5 Marsh To Open Anderson Store (1973, November 3). The Muncie Star. p. 16. 
6 Marsh decides against building new city store (1983, February 17). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 2. 
7 LoBill Foods (2003, April 23). The Pendleton Times-Post. p. 2. 
8 Marsh’s new owner: experts in ‘refresh’ (2007, September 14). The Indianapolis Star. p. C1. 
9 Roysdon, K. (2011, April 6) Marsh Stores Become MainStreet Markets. The Muncie Star Press. p. 1. 
10 Hayes, M.D. (2012, July 11). Marsh replacement at Southdale Plaza possible. The Anderson Herald Bulletin. Web. Retrieved June 17, 2026. 
11 Henry, J.L. (2007, November 1). Marsh Supermarket now Marsh Hometown Market. The Tipton County Tribune. p. 1.