The biggest difference between early and late Blue & Grey Market-built Albertsons is in this part of the store, where the liquor and pharmacy departments were flipped -- in early stores like the Port Angeles one, liquor was in the front corner, with the walk-in along the front wall, while later stores like this one have the pharmacy in the front corner and a few sideways health and beauty aisles along the front wall. This layout seems to have been used more or less unchanged in Awnings-built stores, making it one of the most common ones in stores I've visited, along with the Grocery Palace layout (pharmacy in an island inside the front doors). Something in this store that I don't believe I've seen anywhere else is the leaf graphic extending onto the burgundy case panels -- they aren't normally installed on contrasting colors! It's also amusing how aisle 17 is split between liquor and greeting cards... 😃 (I've seen that before, including at my local Safeway, but I'll always remark on it when I see it!)
Oddly enough, I don't remember our Blue & Grey Market Albertsons emphasizing beer & wine all that much like what we see in this photo. I think some Grocery Palace Albertsons here, and maybe Awnings as well, had walk-in beer coolers, but I don't remember Blue & Grey Market Albertsons having anything special. Maybe they did have stuff like this and I just don't remember it. Every state seems to have different standards, or at least expectations, when it comes to alcohol sales so maybe it's hard to compare stores across states in terms of beer & wine. When Albertsons first came to Houston with Blue & Grey Market stores, Randall's still wasn't selling alcohol at all in their stores in Houston due to the owner's opposition to alcohol, but that changed around that time.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! Blue and Grey Market is the earliest Albertsons prototype I'm familiar with, but even the older ones I've visited have had walk-in beer cases. It's always seemed to me that Albertsons primarily emphasized beer, while QFC and (to a lesser extent) Safeway focused more on wine, for one reason or another.
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