All of these parking garage-related pictures were taken on recent (post-move) visits, since I completely skipped this area on my first visit -- that was silly of me since I know that Safeways of this era almost always have local flair in the garages, but I guess I must have thought the stuff upstairs was enough. The fact that this store has both makes me wonder whether others also had interior local flair at some point, and this store is just the only one to still have it due to the brick wall being allowed to remain as is through two remodels. There's still nothing particularly identifiable here, apart from the lighthouse (presumably
West Point all the way over in Magnolia, relatively far away for Safeway's local flair photos; these days, West Point is better known as the location of the region's primary sewage treatment plant). The big photo is a cool aerial(?) view of what little there was of Seattle's skyline whenever this photo was taken (probably not long after the Smith Tower was built in 1914).
Here's a bizarre Safeway comment/question, but I was looking at the user reviews for my local Randall's earlier today and I noticed that someone recently posted a picture of one of the bathrooms at the Randall's This might be the nicest supermarket restroom I've ever seen! Link: https://goo.gl/maps/6iRAVisYXJC1Gg26A
ReplyDeleteDo you know what the story is there? Are Safeway restrooms usually that nice? Might that be a special employee's restroom or something? That almost seems too special to be open for the public, but I don't know. I can't say I've ever been to the restrooms at that Randall's before (or any Randall's really).
Also, this particular Randall's opened in the early 1970s as a Handy Andy and then became a Randall's Flagship store in around 1980. At least early on as a Randall's, it had a balcony over the back of the store. That was walled over years ago, but I found an image from the back of the store that shows that there are still rear windows looking into the balcony area and that there are lights on in it. I wonder what the store is using that area for these days. Link: https://goo.gl/maps/tVecRj8JiLRJaHqz6
Huh -- no, that's definitely not what Safeway restrooms look like! The only thing I can think is that perhaps it's a picture from somewhere else that ended up on that store's Google Maps listing somehow. As for the balcony, I'm guessing that's used for offices or storage these days.
DeleteYou're probably right about the balcony being used for storage. I don't remember if there was an elevator going up there or not. If it's just stairs, that might limit what they can store up there. That said, it's a smaller store by modern standards so maybe they can use all the storage space they can get.
DeleteAs for the restroom, I was also thinking that maybe someone accidentally put the photo in the wrong place, but that photo accompanied a recent user comment from last month where the user actually made a comment about the Randall's restroom. Look for Hector Garza's user comment: https://goo.gl/maps/PgZwYSUYM4c8aSTa8