Peet's Coffee and Tea

I have to wonder if Kroger had some issue with Starbucks in the past, as most of their older stores have non-Starbucks coffee kiosks (unlike Safeway, or newer Krogers, which only ever have Starbucks kiosks). It was formerly quite common to see Peet's, Tully's (out of business), or Seattle's Best (now owned by Starbucks, but maybe not when they were installed?) instead, all of which generally get swapped out for Starbucks during remodels (or, in this case, relocations).

Back to the store we're actually looking at -- this place has a large, built-in Peet's counter just inside the front right corner. It's clear that this space has always been here, which is a little strange since I've always thought of the in-store coffee shop as a relatively recent thing. It's very possible that QFC was a bit ahead of the curve here -- Seattle is a famously coffee-loving place -- but when I was here, I really felt like this was once something else, perhaps the strangely-absent service bakery (it is embedded into the current bakery sales area), or a real customer service counter (which it seems to somewhat function as today). It's probably impossible to know for sure, but regardless, this is an interesting little spot here.