Another sign that all is not as it seems here is the rather obvious (if not particularly legible) labelscar in the garden center. Presumably, this sign was removed when the standard Fred Meyer gabled canopies were put in, and perhaps the bumpout was added at the same time (and aerials are just deceiving), but that wouldn't explain how it ended up with
the old Fred Meyer logo!
I wonder why Fred Meyer even bothered removing the sign when the end result was just going to be massive labelscar. Maybe this is one of those cases where Fred Meyer's intentions looked better on paper than they did in reality, lol.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Fred Meyer and garden centers, here's an ad for Kroger's experimentation with garden centers here in the Houston area in the 1990s. While buying gas trimmers and wheelbarrows at Fred Meyer is probably nothing to people in the NW, buying that stuff at a Houston Kroger would seem downright weird. I can't say I ever saw these as the locations that had them were quite far from me. One of the locations that had the garden center is the old Family Center store mentioned in the other post, but even the small Greenhouse store in Seabrook had one. As you can see in the picture of it, there wouldn't have been much room here for a garden center: https://goo.gl/maps/taRKEn6r3firH77S8
Here's that Kroger Garden Center ad: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1019887/m1/10/
Safeway had garden centers as well in Texas (as did Albertsons, the old Albertsons garden centers were turned into Kroger Dollar Stores for a brief time when Kroger took over some of those Albertsons locations). Here is a Safeway Garden Center ad making the daft claim that Safeway can turn brown-thumbed gardeners into a Luther Burbank! Ha, I'd like to see that happen!
https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth823682/m1/10/
Speaking of Luther Burbank, it seems there is a Luther Burbank Park on Mercer Island in the Seattle area. As far as I can tell, those visiting Luther Burbank Park will have to settle for QFC because I don't see a Safeway in the area. Oh well.
Ha! Yeah, I guess they just thought it would look silly to have a sign right next to the new canopy with its own sign.
DeleteAround here, Fred Meyer's garden centers are almost always elaborate and fully featured, certainly surpassing what you'd normally see at, say, Walmart and at some stores approaching the selection of Lowe's or Home Depot! Of course, a more fair comparison to Kroger would be QFC, but there's even one of those with a big hardware section (but not much of a garden section, unfortunately).
I don't think I've ever seen a Safeway around here with a dedicated garden center, but most Safeways do have a fairly large plant selection seasonally. Speaking of odd stores with garden centers, though, there are some Rite Aids with one (which is presumably a holdover from the Payless days, though the ones I've seen have all been built post-merger during the Diamond Windows era). I've always thought that seems odd, especially since I've never really seen them used very much (and the Payless takeover wasn't that far before my time...).
I've heard of Luther Burbank Park, but I never realized it was named after a nationally-known person! Typically, parks around here are named for locals, and generally not even particularly famous ones.
I think I'd rather see a redundant sign than labelscar, but I suppose Fred Meyer had other ideas, lol.
DeleteKroger does sell quite a bit of patio furniture and Bonnie brand plants at their larger stores here. They really aren't in any kind of garden center, but are rather placed at the front of the store. I was actually at a Kroger earlier today and they had the secondary entrance to the store closed. The vestibule there was full with a couple of pallets of garden soil. I thought that was weird that Kroger was using the vestibule for soil storage!
Randall's usually also has some plants and patio furniture/pots, but they don't have nearly as much room for that for the most part as a larger, newer Kroger store.
Wow, paint at a QFC! Fred Meyer buckets as well! That's a bit like when Sears started selling Kmart brand items in their last couple of years here. Actually, Sears ran some standalone hardware stores here in Houston until a few years ago (though in the latter years, the hardware stores were franchised through Sears Hometown) and they were selling Kgro garden products and some other Kmart brand items even 10+ years ago. It was strange seeing Kgro products years after Kmart left town!
I suppose it makes sense for QFC to sell hardware for people living in urban areas since they might not be all that close to traditional hardware stores. I suppose now that you have your own place, we'll have to see if you start buying any paint from QFC/Fred Meyer, lol.
Rite Aids with garden centers seem very strange. Then again, that garden center thing has diamonds like a 'normal' Rite Aid store would so I guess it fits!
In around 1988, Sears here in Houston had a deal with Wolfe Nursery (a large plant store at the time in the area) for Wolfe to operate garden centers after Sears stopped running their own garden centers at their stores. That didn't last long though so maybe the idea of a store-within-a-store garden center might not be a good idea.
When Kmart took over Venture locations in ~1997 when Venture left town, Kmart had to make makeshift garden centers for those relocated stores since Venture didn't have garden centers at their Houston stores. They usually just lined up plants at the front of the store kind of like what Kroger does now. It was a pretty weak attempt compared to Kmarts which had real garden centers. In many ways, those Venture-turned-Kmarts were downgrades, but they were a lot newer and modern looking than the typical Houston Kmart of the time.
Yeah, that all sounds about the same as what Safeway/QFC/Rite Aid/Walgreens normally have around here.
DeleteThat one QFC is a one-off with its hardware section, and I imagine it's supplied through Fred Meyer, hence the Fred Meyer-branded items. It actually used to be a Fred Meyer Marketplace before being expanded and converted in 2005, making it the only store I know of to have been converted between the Fred Meyer and QFC brands. (These days, it would make more sense for it to be a Fred Meyer, but back then I guess they thought otherwise.)
I really wish I knew more of the backstory of Rite Aid's garden centers. It would make sense if they were a Payless leftover (since Payless stores were often much larger than Rite Aids -- the one I linked takes up only about half of the former Payless -- and had a larger selection beyond typical drugstore merchandise), but the only ones I've ever seen were clearly built by Rite Aid since they fit with the Diamond Windows architecture of the era. So I have no idea what the history is there.
This probably won't help you with the Rite Aid garden centers question, but have you ever seen the photos posted by Flickr user 'utahstorephotos'? I know I gave Retail Retell the link to their channel some months back, but I can't remember if I gave it to you as well. 'utahstorephotos' seems to have only been active on Flickr during the very early years of Flickr around 2007, but they have a lot of photos of Payless-turned-Rite Aids and of ex-Fred Meyer/Smith Marketplaces in Utah. You might be interested in seeing some of these photos. Since the uploader was quite obscure on Flickr, it's possible you have not seen these photos: https://flickr.com/photos/88327656@N00/
DeleteHmm, no, I don't think I've seen those ones! It's cool to see Payless interiors, since around here Rite Aid remodeled or replaced all of their stores after the takeover. I'm always excited to see more Cartoon Decor pictures, too!
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