This may well be the last picture I ever took of an operating Fred Meyer Playland space -- the concept was already on its way out at the time of this visit, which happened a few weeks before COVID lockdowns meant that any that hadn't yet been remodeled away closed down, and I haven't seen any of these open ever since. Yet another unique Fred Meyer concept killed off by Kroger. At the time, though, I was probably more interested in the unusual front-wall customer service counter, which features Kroger-standard signage rather than Fred Meyer's usual larger, white signs.
To be fair, Kroger started offering childcare services at their Signature stores here in Houston in 1993. It was sponsored by Huggies and called Huggieland. This was mostly discontinued years ago, but one location in The Woodlands still had it until the pandemic where it had been renamed to Hugslieland or something like that. I doubt it reopened after the pandemic given Kroger's usual inclination towards understaffing these days, but I can't say so for sure.
ReplyDeleteI remember you had mentioned that a few Krogers had those, but I completely forgot that one of them still existed until recently!
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