Saul Rachelson and Abe Berger formed their wholesale operation, Berger & Rachelson, starting with a pushcart in 1920 on South Nebraska Ave. Berger-Rachelson was one of the first wholesale grocery distributors in Tampa and began selling to county school systems and the military. In 1926, they moved the firm to this section of downtown known as the Estuary, waterfront land developed by Col. Alfred R. Swann as an alternative to expensive lots along more prominent streets in downtown.  The section would lend itself better to industrial warehouses, boat docks, and shipping terminals, and by 1926, 27 commercial agencies had been established there.

Eventually, Berger’s son Melvin sold the business to Ocean Products, who renamed the company B & R Foods. Time was not kind to the estuary. By the 1970s, businesses were tattered, warehouses closed, and the area depressed. In the 1980s, the Tampa Port Authority positioned itself to begin developing what is now the Channel district. The Meridian Loft Apartments were built in 2005 on the corner of Whiting and 12th Street, where the wholesale grocer once stood as a part of that redevelopment.

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