It's funny to see so much junk food all in one place here -- and right across from the pharmacy, too! Don't get me wrong, I'm not a super healthy, natural-foods obsessed kind of person, but I still find it amusing to see it all together like this. It's also rather strange to see such a wide, double aisle in a Northwest grocery store, but Kroger's really stretching to fill all the floor space in Fred Meyers these days. (I know double aisles are quite common in grocery stores elsewhere, but remember, our stores tend to be much smaller...)
I find it quite funny that when you walk into a Walgreens or CVS, there's usually junk food all over the place. I guess Fred Meyer has the same experience here. That is a lot of junk food! It's actually been a while since I've seen containers of Tang mix!
ReplyDeleteI had an interesting unintentional Northwest-related retail moment today. The topic of a Houston Firestone location possibly closing came up while talking to another Houston retail enthusiast. I thought it was strange that a corporate-owned Firestone, and a relatively young one at that, would close because they generally don't close locations very often. In fact, we have some locations that still have 1960s-era signage up. With that in mind, I went online to see if there were any news stories about Firestones closing elsewhere. I only found one article and it was about the Ballard Firestone, a rather retro location with late 1970s/early 1980s signage, closing and being replaced with an apartment complex.
https://www.myballard.com/2021/05/20/first-look-at-apartment-building-set-to-replace-firestone-in-ballard/
I went to Google Maps to take a closer look at the Firestone and I saw that it was right next to the Safeway (with only the mansard roof McDonald's in between), Target, and some other stuff which has been on the blog I'm pretty sure. What really caught my eye was the Ballard Market. That seems line an interesting grocer inside and out. Is this something you've covered before? It it just a natural foods store or do they sell 'normal' groceries as well? https://goo.gl/maps/Dpt9XDWubzRFve659
Seeing that imposing Fred Meyer on the bay in/near Ballard is quite strange looking really. That doesn't look like a typical location for big box retail, but there it is I suppose. I'd probably shop at the Safeway, QFC, or Ballard Market instead.
Ha, yeah -- I haven't seen Tang in a while either!
DeleteYeah, Ballard has a lot of retail stuff in a relatively small area! Ballard Market is one of the few I haven't visited -- it's super high end and I'm sure it's almost all natural foods. Personally, I don't tend to find local/non-chain grocery stores super interesting, and especially not high-end ones like that. But that's just me. Anyway, yeah, that store, Target, and Safeway are on three consecutive blocks of 15th NW, then just a few blocks south is Trader Joes, PCC (the one with the giant octopus), and the former New Seasons (which is apparently going to be another Amazon store). And then Fred Meyer is just east of there.
I talked about that Fred Meyer way back when on my Flickr page (it's actually the first store I did a full photo tour of, though not the first I posted). It's certainly an odd location, way off any main street, but they really wanted to have it there and fought a big battle against the marine industrial community (which tends to get everything they want, so it's surprising it even happened). But it does work well for them -- I actually avoided shopping there simply because it's always too busy!