Giant deli

However, proceeding towards the entryway, it becomes quite clear that this deli is very large, even by Safeway standards. In fact, it's so large that I have to wonder if Fred Meyer had both the deli and bakery in this area. I still have no real comparison points for what this store's layout could have once been, but it is quite common for Fred Meyer to have the deli and bakery in the same part of the store, unlike Safeway which has traditionally kept them completely separate.

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  1. At my local Randall's, and many other Randall's, it's quite common for the bakery and hot deli to be combined...or at least right next to one another. I suspect this is because Randall's designed most of their stores that way before Safeway took over. Here is the example of my local Randall's. Since there isn't an image showing both the deli and bakery in one image due to it being 'L' shaped, I'll include two pictures:

    Deli (the bakery would be just to the left): https://goo.gl/maps/ZnLcgUX2U9kM1ytu8
    Bakery: https://goo.gl/maps/WTP4EuqsxGmjPoPTA

    As you can probably see, the Lifestyle department signage at this store is miniaturized in many parts of the store. This is especially true in the produce department, and the deli/bakery is in front of the produce, where the ceiling height is lower than the center part of the store. The photo of the Safeway above looks like the signage is gargantuan in comparison, lol.

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    1. Yeah, one thing I've learned over the years is that the traditional northwest Safeway layout is a bit of an anomaly in that regard, since most stores do have the bakery and deli close to one another or even combined. However, since I'm so used to the Safeway way of doing things, that's never going to stop being weird to me, at least on a subconscious level.

      That particular store does look super weird to me, though, simply because of the low ceilings! I'm no stranger to stores with crazy low ceilings (I'm looking at you, QFC!), but I've never been in a Safeway with such low ceilings before. I believe the Safeway that I've visited with the lowest ceilings is this former Albertsons, and even that doesn't really compare to your store! It's pretty amusing to see how they just scaled down the pictures to fit the wall space available.

      Also, I'm curious whether the red walls in the bakery are standard in your area or if they're just there because that's a late Lifestyle remodel. Around here, those only showed up in a handful of new-build stores towards the tail end of the Lifestyle remodel (like my current Safeway before its 2020 remodel), but they look much more natural in that store where the deli and bakery are together.

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    2. They say that everything is bigger in Texas. Well, that's not always true when it comes to Lifestyle decor as you can see, lol. As I mentioned earlier, it's an older store from around 1970 that was built as a Handy Andy and then converted into a Randall's in around 1980. That might at least explain some of the odd designs and smaller size of the store. For a long time, it even had a mezzanine in the back of the store just to prove that the mezzanines that are popping up at Publixes and such are hardly a new idea. Unfortunately, the mezzanine was closed and walled over a long time back.

      I'm not sure about the red background to the bakery signage at our Randall's stores. It seems pretty common with Lifestyle v2 stores around here and most Houston Randall's do have Lifestyle v2. I think it looks quite nice. Perhaps the managers over the Randall's stores here agree with me in that regard. As you say, perhaps the fact that bakeries around here are usually next to the hot delis is another reason for the red.

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    3. Oops, I totally forgot to reply to your comments yesterday! Ha, everything that's old is new again... Fred Meyer and QFC have some older stores with mezzanine seating areas around here too. I agree that the red background looks good in most stores, especially with the full version of Lifestyle v2, but it's particularly nice when the bakery and deli are in the same area.

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