A new exhibit plaque for Keith’s Super Market will be unveiled at 1 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 21, at the Wake Forest Historical Museum at 414 North Main Street.
It was 1903 when Frank Keith began working as an employee at a grocery business in the Town of Wake Forest. This was the first step in launching a dynasty that eventually became a shopping mainstay for generations of local residents.
Going to Keith’s Super Market was a Wake Forest tradition for nearly sixty years. Frank Keith progressed from employee to owner when he founded his own grocery business on South White Street in 1933. After a fire damaged his rented building in the 1960s, he moved to South Brooks Street to put up a larger store. That location, which today houses the Forks Cafeteria, was Keith’s Super Market and became famous for its high quality food and friendly atmosphere. Frank—who owned and operated the business with his sons Bruce, Jimmy, and Edwin—led a family of entrepreneurs who loved serving their community and greeting customers.
According to an article in published in The Wake Weekly in 1992 as the store announced its closing, Keith’s Super Market was a place where you could order a special cut of meat from the butcher, ask if it was good quality, and get an honest answer. The place and the family (active leaders with the Wake Forest Volunteer Fire Department) were woven into the community. Keith’s catered to everyone: farmers who came to town on Saturdays, local families, Wake Forest College kids, and later students from the seminary.
Today Edwin Keith is the last surviving former owner of Keith’s Super Market, and for many decades he held onto one important relic: a carving knife used at both store locations. Rod Keith Steckel worked with family descendants to construct a large (approximately 3×3 foot) plaque to display the knife along with family photographs, newspaper articles, and important records.
The Keith family has generously donated this plaque to the Wake Forest Historical Museum. An exhibit unveiling will take place in the Dr. George C. Mackie and Kathleen Mackie Lake Exhibit Gallery on November 21st and the public is invited to attend. This brief ceremony will provide an opportunity to mark the Keith family’s contributions to the history of Wake Forest.
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