I can't remember if I visited Westwood Village at this point because of this store's impending closure or if it was an unhappy surprise, but either way, this store was on its final week in business when I visited. Almost exactly a year later, the Pacific Place store listed here
would also close, leaving Seattle proper with only one store (up in what's left of the Northgate Mall, so who knows how long it will stick around); the Southcenter store, despite being perhaps the most outdated Barnes & Noble around, is still open, at least. This store has since become a Ross, which (thankfully) left the exterior virtually untouched, and looks to have made fairly minimal changes to the interior even. (I should probably revisit this place someday, but Ross is absolutely not the type of store I am particularly interested in visiting!)
The only Houston Barnes & Noble I think think of which closed in recent times is the Highway 6 & Westheimer location near the West Oaks Mall comatose mall. Although the powercenter the B&N was in is doing okay with tenants such as Best Buy, Academy sporting goods, and, yes, Ross, I suppose B&N couldn't make things work there. The mall is a disaster with Macy's and Sears closing in recent years leaving only a Dillard's clearance center and some local clearance store which operates out of the old Macy's. But, yeah, given closures like this, it's was a surprise yesterday when you said that B&N actually opened a new store!
ReplyDeleteThe carpet at this store looks kind of tired not unlike the B&N I went to recently, but I think the B&N I went to is bigger (it's over near Baybrook Mall in SE Houston). The interior certainly reminds me of better times for bookstores!
Borders was nice, but unfortunately there was never one near me. There were a few in Houston, but they were always in distant locations for me at the time. B&N had a better presence in my area at least. Borders certainly had a better selection of CDs from what I could tell. For books, I don't know, maybe B&N had a small edge in that area. Things probably varied by individual location.
On the topic of flooring, here's a surprise for you. Kroger put in a new flooring in a Houston-area store! When I say new flooring, I mean actual flooring and not some tile-scarred concrete disaster, lol. This is at the old Greenhouse store in the outer industrial suburb of Texas City. Kroger seemingly put fake wood tile all over the store to replace the older Millennium flooring. It looks pretty nice. It certainly looks better than plain concrete! Oddly enough, Kroger put the new flooring in and left the old Bountiful decor package in as well instead of updating that. I'm not complaining, Bountiful looks good here. I've been in this store a handful of times before, but not since they've put in the new flooring. Link: https://goo.gl/maps/gj7R2meDRv7cdj1d8
Speaking of Greenhouse Krogers, I just got back from the one closest to me (which isn't the aforementioned Texas City one) and I was in for a surprise. It was Remixed! Yep! The produce side looks pretty boring with the Remix 'decor'. The service department side (which is on the opposite side of the store given that this is a Greenhouse store) looks okay. Well, it mostly looks like Bountiful but with capital letters and slightly cheaper looking lettering. The flooring at this store was already terrible to begin with, but otherwise I'd say Remix is a mild dud. I'm not really sure why Kroger replaces Bountiful with it since it doesn't look much different, but maybe the brighter colors do give the store a brighter feel in general.
DeleteIn addition to that, the store has some interesting new carts. They are kind of compact ones, but bigger than the usual compact carts Kroger has had for some time. They have an upper and lower basket with a child seat. Oddly enough, the child seat and the rubber bumpers are bright red instead of blue! What an odd color for Kroger carts! They look like they might have fit in at a Fred Meyer though.
So, yeah, FM red and Remix is now part of my Kroger Greenhouse experience!
Yeah, I was definitely not expecting to see a new-build Barnes & Noble anywhere!
DeleteWow, that new flooring looks very nice! I was expecting to see more boring white vinyl, which is still my absolute least favorite flooring, even worse than bare concrete (except in the worst cases).
Ouch -- I didn't realize Remix had spread to your area. That seems to be about the all time most hated decor package out there! And I saw some weird carts in Fred Meyers on my Oregon trip this past summer, but nothing quite that strange...