Another thing that seems outdated for a late-80s Safeway -- the dairy department is all in an aisle, with no walk-in (with doors) milk case. Speaking of interesting Safeway dairy department things, the dairy employee at my local Safeway showed me today that the "grade B medium" eggs they sell are actually just the good eggs taken out of cartons that had broken eggs, repacked for sale, meaning that you can get mixed fancier eggs for super cheap. I wonder if other stores do that same thing... Of course, that particular store seems to have a severe problem with having broken eggs, so perhaps other stores aren't bad enough about that to need a special way to resell assorted eggs.
Whoa, it is a bit strange seeing a Safeway with milk out in open coolers like that here in modern times. I think that was pretty common at Safeways in the 1980s and prior though, but even then I can't remember dairy like this being in a center-area aisle even if it is aisle 1! That's strange as well. Even back in the day, I always remember dairy being in the back corner...usually the back left corner...at Safeway stores.
ReplyDeleteThe local Randall's has a very small dairy section and so I don't even know if they sell Grade B eggs. They do have Eggland's Best and Lucerne eggs, but generally only one variety if I remember correctly. If they're expecting to sell more eggs than usual, like when they have a sale, they will sometimes put overflow eggs out in a coffin cooler. As far as milk goes, the dairy case is doored and the doors might be original to the 1970s opening of the store as a Handy Andy! They look vintage and have a vintage, solid feel to them. They could also be from ~1980 when Randall's took over that space. Here again, selection is rather limited and I'm not even sure if they sell Lucerne brand milk. They certainly don't sell Lucerne chocolate milk as they only sell the national brand for that.
But, yeah, anyway, that is a good way to save some money on eggs!
On the topic of smaller Safeways, check out this Austin Randall's. This is one small Randall's! Clearly the old saying that "Everything is bigger in Texas" does not apply to Safeway, lol. This is about as small as some of the Safeways and QFCs from your neck of the woods. Also, check out how small the parking lot is! Link: https://goo.gl/maps/py8yqypzCz9sNzzd8
Yeah, it seems like it was sometime in the 80s that Safeway standardized on the design that I'm used to seeing around here. This store has to be one of the last built with such an old-fashioned design! You're right that this layout is unusual even for old Safeways -- I'm used to vintage stores having dairy either in a back corner or (more commonly, though perhaps for even older stores) along the back wall.
DeleteThat's interesting to hear about milk in your Randall's -- around here, it's the opposite, with the vast majority of milk they sell being Lucerne and Value Corner (the lower-end brand introduced after the Albertsons merger), and name-brand milk only having a shelf or two even in larger stores. As for eggs, I'm surprised I'd never heard of these repacked eggs before, since my parents are all for little ways to save money like that... either their stores don't have them, or we just always ignored them because the box says "medium" and you need standard large-sized eggs for baking.
Wow, that store is tiny! 15,000 square feet or so would make it far smaller than any current Safeway I know of in the Seattle region (though there are still some extremely small ones in rural areas). Even around here, a typical Safeway is somewhere around 40-45,000 sf, and my 35,000 sf Uptown Safeway has a noticeably reduced selection compared to other Safeways I've shopped at.
I just looked at the online selection of milk for the local Randall's and they do have Lucerne and Value Corner for the most common varieties of milk of whole and 2%, but after that things are spotty and one might have to buy the national brands (Oak Farms/TruMoo for the non-organic kinds) to get the kind of milk they want.
DeleteI wonder what the difference is between Value Corner and Lucerne milk? Before the Albertsons merger, or at least before the closure of the Safeway Houston Distribution Center, Lucerne milk was by far the most popular...or only...choice at Randall's stores. Things have changed a bit lately, but regardless, my local store does not have much selection in milk and eggs. In fact, Randall's often advertises milk and eggs that my store doesn't even sell. That can be annoying, but that problem mostly only exists with those two items.
Yes, that is one small Randall's! I didn't realize it was even smaller than the sometimes small Seattle Safeways. That little store does seem to have some of the major service departments though which is no surprise given that it looks like it is in a higher-income area. The low ceiling and tight aisles does reinforce the small size of the place though.
Very interesting! Apart from specialty kinds, Safeway brands are absolutely dominant around here for milk. They even have their own milk bottling plant in Bellevue, which also produces ice cream and probably some other dairy products!
DeleteI've never been able to tell a difference between Lucerne and Value Corner milk, and the price difference between them is generally very small. I have noticed that Lucerne milk actually tends to go bad faster than Value Corner, which makes me very frustrated when they're out of Value Corner and I have to buy inferior, more expensive milk! I don't believe I've ever bought name-brand milk from Safeway -- if they're out of both of their brands, then they're definitely out of the small Darigold selection!
I think some of the milk choices around here changed when Albertsons closed the old Randall's/Safeway NW Houston distribution center and made the Dallas distribution center the distribution center for Randall's stores. With that, perhaps Albertsons decided to lean on the national brand distributors more for filling the milk needs in Houston and Austin. I don't know, that may not be the case and I don't know if things differ any with Tom Thumb/Albertsons stores in Dallas.
DeleteKroger has multiple grades of milk as well and the difference in the grades has puzzled me for decades. I usually buy the Kroger brand milk, which is the middle grade between Springdale (I think?) and the national brands. That said, perhaps I should give the cheap stuff a shot.
I usually don't buy milk from Randall's because the closest one to me is a bit of a drive and it gets quite hot in the car most of the year around here and I don't want the milk to go bad. That said, in the winter, it's possible for me to buy milk from Randall's and so I did so last week (I bought the national brand since it's all they had in what I wanted). I couldn't believe what I saw, the 'Best By' date on the milk I wanted was more than two weeks away from the time I bought it! I never see dates that good even at Kroger and HEB who have local dairy plants in Houston. I don't know if that was a fluke or what, but I might have to consider buying milk from Randall's more often if their dairy is that fresh. It certainly wasn't like that in the pre-Albertsons days!
Nice! I sometimes see 2-week expiration dates at Safeway, but it's not super common -- normally it's in the 7-10 day range (and occasionally far shorter, particularly at low-volume stores -- I was looking through my unposted pictures of Safeway dairy departments and found one where basically every gallon of milk had an expiring-soon discount sticker!). Not sure I've ever seen more than two weeks!
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