The Starbucks kiosk is also crammed into this part of the store, having replaced some of the checkouts (a fairly common thing in stores without a better place for it). This is the first Starbucks kiosk design, which is quite uncommon to see at Safeways these days (at least in its unaltered form) -- though they did at least update the Starbucks logo. Interestingly, the ceiling in the front end is raised, with mirrored panels along the front wall (I'm pretty sure they're mirrors and not windows since I can't see any way that there could be a second story there) -- this sort of raised ceiling is much more common at Albertsons than at Safeway, though I have seen a few older Safeways with a very similar design.
The raised front end and the security catwalk up front were Safeway trademark design features in their 1970s and 1980s stores here in Houston. I suppose this store was designed similarly. Here's my former local Safeway as an example. This store opened in the very early 1980s and is now a Food Town:
ReplyDeletehttps://goo.gl/maps/SGWJMs3MWi59KtKr9
https://goo.gl/maps/FkcpyKRnr9nUsYjXA
My best guess is that the upstairs offices were over where it says 'Fresh Produce' at the modern day Food Town and the rest of it was just a catwalk for security purposes. I don't know if there would have been offices on the 'Beverages' side that used to be the bakery and deli I do believe.
Very interesting! That seems to go along with my feeling that this store is built to an older design that was past its prime (or maybe even already out of use) by the time it opened. This store has a similar (but smaller) angled mirror panel over the floral end of the store -- I'm pretty sure there's no space for offices there, however. I suppose if it's just a catwalk, not actual offices, that would make sense... still seems like the vertical space would be rather limited, but perhaps they were fine with that for a small security catwalk sort of thing.
DeleteI wish I could remember if the Safeway stores that opened here in Houston around 1987 or so still had the security catwalk and raised front end, but I honestly don't remember and I can't recall one of those stores which is still a supermarket to see if it may still exist at one of those. I do know some other Safeways that opened around 1983 or so that still had the raised roof and catwalk though.
DeleteThe ex-Safeway Food Town I posted above opened on July 13, 1980 just for reference, but like I said, even 1970s Safeways had the same design. It was a trademark Safeway look around here. Here's the grand opening ad for that store linked above. Notice in the department listing for the store, it lists shoes! I honestly don't remember that, it must have been very short-lived. Of course, Safeway Super Stores of this time would have sold TVs and all of that. I do remember that. Link: https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid/infoweb.newsbank.com&svc_dat=AMNEWS&req_dat=0D1C2A34C3EF45E0&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi/fmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=document_id%3Aimage%252Fv2%253A14DB39C1C40322B4%2540EANX-164261AE4B6E57C9%25402444434-16425B739053EB95%254067-16425B739053EB95%2540/hlterms%3A
I doubt too many employees were hanging out on the catwalk regularly, but I guess it was there if they thought they needed to inspect something. I've long wondered what it would be like to look out of the offices and catwalks at supermarkets like this. I did once work in a research lab years ago where we did use one-way mirrors like that to observe research participants. Unfortunately, our one-way mirrors weren't very good and so people could see the observers if they paid enough attention to the glass, lol. I think the ones supermarkets used were much better.