And spinning around the other way, here's one last look at the salesfloor, disappointingly devoid of Toys R Us relics. I've always found it odd that Spirit has their own custom baskets rather than having used ones from somewhere else, but I guess they must just store them with all their other decor from year to year.
In looking at some of your previous photos, I was also surprised to see Spirit have their own baskets like that. That must have been quite an investment. This is certainly something quite different than some of Eddie Lampert's cost-cutting methods of reusing The Great Indoors baskets at Sears stores and Sears Hardware store baskets at Sears Hometown Stores. Then again, I probably shouldn't insult Spirit by comparing them to Sears, lol.
ReplyDeleteI suppose Spirit must send all these baskets to some warehouse where they keep all their fixtures. I wonder if they have regional warehouses for these things or if it all goes back to the same place.
Mike from HHR and I were looking at this Tacoma Safeway online the other day and we were quite confused by it. It certainly appears to be an old Marina Safeway that has been somewhat modernized, but the Lifestyle sign up front seems to say "Serving Tacoma since 1997."
Well, that doesn't make sense. This store itself must be much older than 1997. Even ignoring this store, surely Safeway has had other locations in Tacoma for decades before 1997. What's the story here? Link: https://goo.gl/maps/q1W2So7zph9J893R7
On the topic of Tacoma, we came across this as well. With Gordon Food Service Stores on the verge of opening in Houston, it's interesting to see the NW has a similar type of store operated by GFS' competitor US Foods. US Foods has a restaurant catering business here in Houston, but I don't think these Chef'Stores, which seems to have been an acquired property, exist anywhere except for the NW/west coast. Maybe one day we'll get Chef'Stores and you'll get GFS Stores, lol. Anyway, here's one in an old Tacoma Marina store! Link: https://goo.gl/maps/12mmqug4cNVAvPz46
Ha, it's hard to compare much of anything to Sears in recent years when it comes to cost-cutting! 😃
DeleteI've wondered that too. They also seem to have some long-term locations (such as this one), and I've often wondered if they ever keep fixtures in those locations from year to year, or if they completely move out and move back in each year.
Huh, that is quite strange! Other stores say 1930, which makes much more sense. No idea what might have happned there!
Chef'Store is a west coast thing, having formerly been Cash & Carry/Smart Foodservice (sometimes they used both of those names, sometimes only one or the other... it was weird) owned by Smart & Final. US Foods bought and rebranded them a few years back, and it looks like they've been expanding since then -- they even have one in Dallas, and a few on the east coast! That's definitely a chain that I would like to check out at some point.
Huh, I had no idea that Chef'Store had a location in Texas! Good catch! It's a new construction build as well which is quite different from what Gordon Food Service Stores are doing here in Houston. GFS is opening in older locations. In some cases, they are quite old locations including a couple of Krogers from the early 1970s. Granted, I'm sure these stores will not look at all like their previous tenants.
DeleteI mentioned earlier that Mike from HHR has some photos he's going to post soon to HHR of a Spirit Halloween in a closed Randall's. That Spirit in The Woodlands used to exist in a Toys R Us, but for whatever reason, they've switched to the Randall's this year. Around here, Spirit tends to be a bit more nomadic perhaps, but there is a general trend that they like old Sears buildings including old Sears Hometown Stores as one opened this year in a Sears Hometown Store in the Houston area that just closed this summer.
Yeah, Mike and I are still wondering how Safeway could have gotten that signage so wrong in Tacoma! Heck, there are probably employees at that store who have been working there for longer than 1997....at least that was the case when that Lifestyle signage went up. That's a strange one!
Even stranger perhaps is this Albertsons-Haggen-Albertsons in Oregon that is across the street from a Safeway. And, no, this isn't the Safeway, it's the Albertsons! Perhaps you've seen this before, but it's really, really weird. I know that's not unheard of for Albertsons to use Safeway decor in El Paso, TX and California, but it's strange to do this right across the street from a Safeway and in an area where the Albertsons stores generally have Albertsons decor. This one really isn't that far off from Idaho after all. Strange! Link: https://goo.gl/maps/uVXD9GYgwN8eovcq5
Oddly, it seems like most Spirit stores around here stay in the same place from year to year... and sadly, very few of those locations are particularly interesting to me.
DeleteYep, things are a bit different in Oregon! That division seems to have decided against a mass rebranding of stores as has been seen in Washington, but also settled on Lifestyle v3 quite early on, at a time when the Seattle division was seemingly still trying to decide between Lifestyle v3, Modern, and Legacy (and still hasn't completely made up their mind, with those few Colorful Lifestyle v2 and one Heritage store). If that one got Lifestyle v3 right away after coming back from Haggen, that would put it a bit ahead of the curve, but there have been several Oregon Albertsons remodeled to that package in recent years. And I agree, it looks very strange seeing a decor that still has many legacy-Safeway elements in a store with an Albertsons sign on the front!