With how weird and disjointed this store's facade looks today, I really wish I could see what it looked like in the QFC days -- so I dug a
lot deeper than I did at the start of this set and found not
one, but
two very old photos of this building. Neither of them are very good, but they do at least give you a general idea. And while I'm pretty sure this was always one store -- neither aerial images nor the interior show any signs of expansion -- the second one that seems to show non-QFC logos on the left part of the facade is quite interesting. So I decided to dig even further, and while I didn't find any particular information on this store's design like I was hoping, what I did find is that it was originally supposed to be an Olson's Foods, before that chain sold most of its locations to QFC while this store was in construction -- so that probably explains the unusual exterior design and large size of this store, as while QFC obviously made the interior follow their preferences, it was probably too late to change those details. (QFC made a ton of acquisitions in the 90s, and so many of them turned out to be a bad idea -- that's probably part of how they ended up getting bought out by Fred Meyer, and in turn Kroger. I should eventually try to sort out the history of their various stores... but I haven't been making any progress with my Safeway list project recently, so it's not the time to take on a new one!)
Those are some interesting old photos of the former QFC that you found! That one from the Starbuckseverywhere domain is especially interesting since it appears to be a digital camera photo from 1999! That itself is pretty remarkable. I have someone in my family who had a pretty early Kodak digital camera in around 1997 or 1998 and I had some experience using those Sony Mavica digital cameras that saved images to floppy disk in 1999-2000, but it's still pretty surprising to see digital photos that old! In some ways, that photo looks quite modern even though it's approaching a quarter of a century since that photo was taken!
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to chronicle the history of QFC acquisitions. I'm sure there would be some interesting bits of information which would come from that, but I suppose doing that kind of history research would be mostly thankless work, lol.
On the topic of bizarre things and Kroger properties, I got some interesting Kroger news today. Out of the many Krogers in my immediate area which I shop at on a fairly regularly basis, most are using decor packages which have been in place for around a decade (Bountiful & Food 4 Less). There is one Neighborhood store, one which got Remixed recently, and two Banner stores. One is the Champions store, one of the first Kroger Signature stores in Houston (I think it was the very first actually and opened in 1993), which was heavily damaged in Hurricane Harvey and re-opened with a pretty nice installation of Banner in very late 2017.
Here is the store in question. I've posted it before: https://goo.gl/maps/8jAzuULMQ165EgHr9
So, with all of this in mind, I saw today in state records that one of my local Krogers has filed to do an extensive interior remodel later this year. Which one is it? Nope, not one of the Bountiful or other older stores, but the Banner store from late 2017 linked above! I never would have guessed that would have been the local store to be the next to be remodeled since the last remodel still seems relatively recent! I don't know what decor package this store will be getting. Artisan is the most logical guess with Urban Mix being a possibility, but who knows. Maybe Kroger will have a new decor package for here? Updating a Banner store to a decor package already a couple years old at least, like Artisan and Urban Mix, doesn't make a lot of sense, but we're talking about Kroger here so who knows!
Yeah, I was quite surprised by the quality of that picture -- I knew someone who was using a floppy disk Mavica until sometime in the 2010s, but I remember it taking not-so-great photos!
DeleteHmm, that is odd. I have heard of some stores remodeling away from Banner (not around here, but at some other Kroger divisions), but I've also seen quite a few stores (primarily Fred Meyers, but also including some in other areas) getting major remodels from Banner to... Banner, for whatever reason.
Great research here, that's interesting stuff you found!
ReplyDelete