This store sure has an impressive selection of front-sidewalk merchandise! This isn't too uncommon at normal Safeways (though I've been finding it's much less common than growing up in Port Angeles led me to believe!), but this is much more than I've seen even in that store, and having bakery products outside is something I haven't seen at any other chain. (Safeway tends to just have produce, seasonal (christmas stuff and plants), and maybe floral.)
You certainly won't find much on the front sidewalk of Houston grocers including Randall's! Kroger and HEB stores sometimes put gardening and patio stuff out on the sidewalks especially during the spring. During Christmastime, they may have live trees out there. Aside from that, I suppose it's probably too hot during the summer to put anything like produce outside and it's too cold during the winter. On top of that, it tends to get very wet here (though not this year certainly, it's been very hot and dry this spring), but I suppose it gets quite wet in the NW as well.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if you've been hearing the news about Sears Hometown. It looks like Lampert is pulling the plug on many of the Hometown stores including some stores which just opened 3-4 months ago. Here in Houston, the brand new location at the old Macroplaza Mall Sears is already closing along with some older locations that were formerly Sears Appliance Showrooms before being turned into Hometown stores recently. It looks like the Humble store and the Willowbrook Mall store inside the old Sears are sticking around...for now at least. It looks like the Port Angeles store is not scheduled to close either so I suppose that's good for you locally, but I have not looked up any other NW locations. It's hard to explain what Eddie Lampert was thinking opening new stores and then closing them after only a quarter or two in some cases.
I'm pretty sure we have you beat on the wet weather part, haha!
DeleteOof, not more Sears Hometown closures... That being said, Sears abruptly changing direction on what stores/business models they want to keep or get rid of is not particularly surprising at this point.
While Seattle has more days with precipitation than Houston (156.2 vs 104.4), Houston actually gets more total precipitation in a year than Seattle does (51.84" for Houston, 39.34" for Seattle). When it rains here, it can rain a lot in a short period of time! I suppose Seattle is famous more for drizzle than for the big storms we get.
DeleteInteresting! Yeah, it's extremely rare for Seattle to get major storms in a concentrated period of time, and obviously we never get the hurricanes and such that happen in Houston, thankfully!
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