Like a lot of small-town Safeways, this store features Lifestyle v2 decor, which always looks a little weird in tiny stores like this. I didn't get a ton of interior pictures of this store, since as you can see here, it's rather cramped, plus we've all seen Lifestyle all too often!
Wow, I was really surprised when I saw this photo because it really looks like it could have come from my local Randall's except that we probably wouldn't have a cutout of a Seattle Sounders player here! I was wondering if the Northwest Retail Blog became the Northwest Houston Retail Blog, lol. It's interesting how two different supermarkets in two very different areas and two very different sets of lineage could end up looking somewhat similar on the inside.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the Randall's chain here in Houston is owned by the Safeway half of the Albertsons-Safeway marriage. However, my local Randall's opened as a Randall's way before Safeway had anything to do with Randall's (at the time Randall's opened the location in question in around 1980, Safeway was a major grocer in the Houston area under their own name and Randall's was still independent). In fact, the Randall's initially opened as a Handy Andy in the early 1970s. Handy Andy was a grocer out of San Antonio who got crushed under the weight of San Antonio's other grocer, HEB.
But, yeah, as you can see in the link below, both my local Randall's and the Clatskanie Safeway have a gable roof and a similar Lifestyle decor package (v2 I suppose, I'm not completely familiar with Safeway's decor packages as they are now a smaller player in the Houston area). In fact, your photo shows aisles 7 and 8 and the photo of my local Randall's on Google shows aisles 7 and 8, but they're going in the opposite direction. That's an interesting coincidence though! My local Randall's initially had a gable looking exterior, but Safeway gave the store a more modern looking facade some years back.
I'm sure the Clatskanie Safeway is smaller than the Randall's here, but the Randall's is on the small side for a modern full service grocery store by Houston standards. I really enjoy shopping at the local Randall's though. It's a lot easier shopping at it than, say, a big Kroger Signature store (much less a Kroger Marketplace store!).
Here's a picture of my local Randall's: https://goo.gl/maps/z9EpvA8rcWSfN3fq9
One Lifestyle oddity I experienced a couple of years ago was when I went to Banff, Alberta (if you get a chance, you should visit there because it's beautiful). There was a small IGA grocery store next to my hotel. To my surprise, the interior of the IGA is 100% the Lifestyle decor! Although IGA is an association of independent grocers in the US, IGAs are a major chain in Canada (though the nature of the chain is different in different provinces). In Alberta at least, it's part of the major Sobeys chain of grocery stores and Sobeys bought out Safeway's Canadian operations a few years ago. I suppose Sobeys gave that store the IGA name and kept it fully Safeway on the inside. Link: https://goo.gl/maps/kK4n42GammtHWpuY7
Not only was the Banff IGAway very small, but it was also packed with shoppers (tourists like myself mainly) when I went.
Ha, that is strikingly similar, but must be quite a bit larger if 8 is in the center of the store instead of the extreme edge! I know some people out there have an issue with the uniformity of Safeway stores (particularly in areas where Safeway took over an existing local chain), but while it's kind of boring, it's something that I've always appreciated when traveling, since in most cases I already know what Safeway has and where in the store things are. (That's much less true following the Albertsons merger, which seems to have put them back to more local control as well as introducing all sorts of weird stores from the Albertsons side, but I haven't done much traveling since the merger.)
DeleteThat is quite an interesting oddity up in Banff! That is on my list of places to visit at some point, though I'm not much into traveling these days. There are a lot of curiosities that came out of the Safeway Canada sale, and one that I've shopped at (back before this blog was a thing) is the Safeway turned Save-On-Foods in Tsawassen (south of Vancouver), which kept some parts of its Lifestyle v1 decor when it was remodeled and converted to Save On. There aren't many pictures of it online, and the Google Maps pictures are clogged up with a bunch of ones from a completely different store, but you can see some of it here. There are some other interesting places that I was hoping to get to this summer, but of course, that trip never happened.
I suppose I don't mind uniformity if I like the uniform design. In the case of the Lifestyle decor used above, I find that it generally works well so I don't really mind it. I know that with our Randall's stores using that version of the Lifestyle decor, they all have some differences to them so it's not like they're completely cookie cutter designs. It probably helps that our Randall's stores are of varying ages and having varying histories. A few of our Randall's stores in Houston started life out as Albertsons stores which is quite ironic given how things turned out.
DeleteI'm not too familiar with modern Albertsons stores. Albertsons has been gone from Houston since around 2003, but they still have Albertsons in Dallas and Albertsons is very strong out in west Texas. In Dallas, Albertsons stores co-exist with Tom Thumb stores. Tom Thumb is Randall's sister banner (they were separate chains at one time, but Randall's bought out Tom Thumb back in the early 1990s when Randall's was still independent). I'm not totally sure how those two chains co-exist since they are under the same umbrella. I've heard it said that Tom Thumb stores are a bit more upscale, which is probably true, but I don't think typical Lifestyle Safeway stores are much more upscale than the typical Albertsons store. I don't know.
Albertsons recently made an investment into the El Rancho grocery chain out of the Dallas area which is designed to cater to Hispanic shoppers and has recently expanded into the Houston area. I believe Albertsons is only a minority partner as of right now in El Rancho so they're not technically under the Albertsons umbrella, but the chain has started to carry Signature Select products and an area Randall's store was converted into the El Rancho format. The store started as a Kmart, then was turned into a Randall's that had a Lifestyle v2 package when it closed in early 2018, and is now El Rancho. Here are images of the place, it's quite a difference from the Lifestyle package to say the least: https://goo.gl/maps/H7gEirZg92SPRS387
I will say that I agree with you that the somewhat standardized layout of Lifestyle Safeway stores does make it easier to shop at a location which one is not familiar with. I like that Safeway stores, at least the ones I've shopped at, have a pretty classic store layout. Chains here like HEB like oddball layouts which probably purposely cause customers to wander around aimlessly in the hopes of adding impulse purchases. Chains like HEB also have very ugly stores, IMO, so that's why I won't complain about the Lifestyle decor even though I know it's popular to do so.
I've been to a number of Canadian grocery chains, but Save-On Foods is a new one to me. I'll have to check them out if I get a chance. It seems to be a common problem that places on Google have photos which were taken at some place totally different than the listed location. But, yeah, it's quite strange seeing the Lifestyle design up in Canada especially these days since Safeway is no longer involved with the stores up there even if some carry their name. I suppose Sobeys and other grocers up there like the Lifestyle design as well!