Following the typical Kroger pattern, this store added mini aisle markers for the three liquor department aisles during the remodel -- originally, the aisles started at what's now aisle 4, which is why the left side of that marker refers to the entire wine department. (The plaque appears to be reused, but the marker itself must have been replaced, because the originals had 3 plaques per side rather than 2). Off to the right is the Infarm machine, a new thing showing up in some local QFCs (and as I saw on my recent vacation, a ton of grocery stores in the Vancouver area!), a hydroponic system that grows plants in store. I feel like it's more of a novelty than anything else, since it seems to be a fairly low-volume operation and there's no practical reason for the thing to be on the salesfloor (you can't pick your own lettuce), but it's still kind of neat. (This is another victim of the problem where the first time I post about something isn't the first store where I saw it, which is why I don't have an actual picture of the machine itself.)
That's interesting that hydroponic gardens are returning to supermarkets in a small way. I have not seen that here. Back in the late 1980s, Fiesta Mart opened a store in the Houston area with a large hydroponic garden. This ambitious Fiesta store did not last very long, unfortunately, and hydroponic gardens kind of dried up around here since then. Here's a link to an article about it:
ReplyDeletePart 1 - 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-170648385F8844C6%25402447902-1704F64BA641D248%254085/hlterms%3A
Part 2 - https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&docref=image/v2%3A14DB39C1C40322B4%40EANX-170648385F8844C6%402447902-1704080D1A19CA48%4086&hlterms=&f=basic
On the topic of late 1980s Fiestas, look at what just showed up at my local store! I actually saw this is person this weekend. So far, nothing has been done to the decor and all they've changed is the arrangement of the center aisles. Hopefully that's all they're changing and the lovely neon and such will remain. Even with that, this store has not changed since the 1980s so shopping there is strange with everything moved around. After 30+ years, I had gotten used to where everything was in this store! Link: https://goo.gl/maps/PaS9U6N5BtxznLzh9
Cool! Only one of the links wants to work for me, but it looks like that place's setup was far larger and more elaborate than the endcap-sized Infarm machines QFC has (though I saw some in Canada that were a bit larger... still nothing like what that store had, of course!)
DeleteOh no, I sure hope they aren't planning a full remodel for that store...