BACKSTORY (July 17, 1955–Present): Located at 122 Main Street, U.S.A., The Swift Market House was sponsored by Swift's Premium Meats from 1955—1970, at which time the "Swfit" was dropped from the name. Typically, this has been a location to get kitchen supplies, cookies, candy, gourmet goods (such as pastas), pastries, pickles from a wooden barrel, as well as play a game of checkers near the potbellied stove. There are also a number of old-fashioned telephones on the wall with recordings of a party line conversation.
Famous for its free coffee refills, it was announced in December 2012 that The Market House would be converted into a Starbucks location, which opened in September 2013. The Party Lines, Stove, and Checkerboard survived the remodel.
I have good memories of the Market House. When I was in high school, we visited every year with the Honor Society. We would have fun listening to the phone conversations, which my Mother noted were authentic in the fact that you could hear others on the phone with the old party lines. Actually, I remember when we had that at home, but our phone was much more modern, of course.
In the back corner, there used to be blank books like ledgers or something, we would write silly messages in the books and write down the page numbers, then come back a year later to re-read the messages. Of course this stopped when I left high school and never came back to Disneyland for almost 20 years.
I worked at Disneyland in the summer of 1989 and I remember working in the Market House on the 4th of July. Another girl and I had traded shifts with someone and neither of us had ever worked there before. Someone ordered a pickle and we couldn't find a price anywhere, so we had to make one up!!
