Leaving behind the world of edible plants behind me (well, for the most part at least -- I'm sure Fred Meyer sells some vegetable plants and such), it's time for a brief detour into the garden center. Amusingly, they decided to install the "Garden Center" sign, normally reserved for the entrance to the outdoor section, over both the entryway to the department and the doorway to the outside. I mean, once you enter the indoor garden center, the only ways to go are outside and back into the main salesfloor, so it seems like it would be rather obvious where the doors go!
This reminds me a bit of the Garden Center that my local Grocery Palace Albertsons had here in Houston before Albertsons pulled the plug on their Houston stores in ~2003. When Kroger took over the location, they didn't operate the garden center even though they would have had garden center operations at that time via Fred Meyer. Of course, stocking a garden center in the NW and stocking one in Houston would be quite different I suppose.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Kroger did turn the interior part of the Albertsons garden center into a Kroger Dollar Store that was somewhat separate from the main Kroger. That was during the dollar store craze of the early-to-mid 2000s. That didn't last long, but it was another odd concept.
I have to say, the amount of (failed) grocery store concepts out there is always amazing to me! I guess a grocery store with a garden center isn't that weird, since quite a few around here do sell plants in the spring and summer, but a dollar store inside a grocery store sounds crazy to me! Around here, we hardly ever seem to get any interesting new retail concepts...
DeleteI don't know if you remember this on Flickr, but do you remember the Kroger with the in-store RadioShack? That was very odd: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ncmike1981/5596233757/
DeleteSpeaking of RadioShack, they seem to have new ownership according to a press release from yesterday. Their website says they're temporarily stopping taking orders so they can revamp their inventory and such. That's odd timing for something like that with so many people already shopping for Christmas, but we'll have to see what this 'new' RadioShack is about!
Oh, and here is an article from 2003 about the Kroger Dollar Stores in Houston if you want to read about that: https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2003/07/07/story3.html