Between the black cases, open ceiling, concrete floors, and furniture on top, the frozen aisle here looks like it's straight out of a converted Albertsons, not a proper Safeway! Of course, typically the furniture on the cases would be for sale, which is what I assumed here at first, but looking back at this picture, I'm pretty sure these are the chairs that were meant to go in the cafe seating area, a design which (yet again) I've only seen in a few ex-Albertsons stores; they were probably put up here in the early days of the pandemic and then never taken down because Safeway isn't really interested in in-store dining areas anymore. It's too bad the cases here still have their 90s-era doors, but the black paint and LED lighting still make it look somewhat more modern than the average Safeway.
I suppose that is a creative way to deal with storing those chairs! I wonder if anyone has asked to buy them or what they'll do when they actually want to sell something up there.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the story with the odd Albertsons situation in Oak Harbor, WA? It appears the Safeway there is in an old Albertsons and the very nearby Haggen appears to be an old Safeway! It looks like these swaparoos happened in around 2014-15 so maybe that timing tells the story, but I don't know. It also appears that the Safeway gas station has gone from being a Safeway gas station, to it not being a Safeway gas station when Safeway moved to the Albertsons, and then to it being a Safeway gas station again shortly afterwards. An Ace Hardware nearby appears to be in an old Marina store as well. Here's a map of all of this: https://goo.gl/maps/dWvxQZQ2BBWVGyF57
The Haggen is of interest for a couple of reasons. One, it appears the store is mostly still carrying a Lifestyle v1/v2 interior, but Haggen has added enough of their own touches to make the store look like a Haggen. Also, the Haggenway is as close as I've seen to a clone of Houston-area Safeway stores (Superstores specifically) from the 1970s-early 1980s that I've seen in the Northwest. Safeway must have modernized this store a bit during the Lifestyle era, but there are clearly some remaining features which show the Houston-like design in terms of the security catwalk, the raised ceiling height above the registers, the HVAC vents on the change in ceiling heights, and the angled department signs at the front corners of the store. Compare that Haggenway to my old local Safeway, now a Food Town, and you can really see the similarities even with the Lifestyle renovations: https://goo.gl/maps/BBS1Hio9eCVQmeFL6
Ha -- sometimes I wonder if people ever buy the stuff on top of the frozen cases!
DeleteYet again, that's another store languishing in my 5000-photo backlog! Admittedly, it hasn't been in my backlog for all that long -- I just visited it this spring as an addon to my Eastern Washington trip -- but it's been on my must-see list for a very long time. Basically, the Haggen is the one and only store that was converted to Haggen as part of the merger that remains one, and that Safeway is the very first Albertsons to Safeway conversion to ever happen (and was also very much done on the cheap, meaning there are a few interesting leftovers). As for the why, I have no clue... I don't know why they chose to sell the Safeway to Haggen when the two stores are about the same size (though I suppose the Albertsons is a little bit newer), why they chose to rebrand the Albertsons to Safeway well before they did that anywhere else, and most of all, why the Haggen is still operating rather than having been closed or rebranded like every single other one.
You've shown me that store before -- it's pretty similar to the Alaska Junction Safeway I posted earlier, though that one's built into an apartment building. It's not a super common design around here -- most of our Safeways are from the 90s or early 00s -- but there are still a few of them hanging around!
Yeah, I've posted the Houston Safeway here before and I do remember that Safeway in the apartment complex with the security catwalk, but I think the one in Oak Harbor is even more of a close match to the local 1980 Safeway than the apartment one in terms of size. Maybe not, but that's how it seems to me. It's just kind of amazing to see a Safeway...well..Haggen in the NW like that Safeway since the ones you usually post are so different than the non-Randall's Houston Safeways. Well, heck, they're different from the Randall's ones too in many ways, lol.
DeleteI'm looking forward to seeing these stores on the blog! Well, I won't lie, I'm looking forward more to the Haggen than to the Alberway, lol.
Yeah, it probably is -- that store's surprisingly large for a Safeway of that age in this part of the country!
DeleteHaha, well, they're both coming together when I do eventually post them, since they're part of the same weird story! The Haggen has to be the more interesting of the two, but there's some interesting stuff in the modern-day Safeway too.