Also unusually for a large, modern store, the actionway doesn't widen out into the aisles near the pharmacy department, so this area seems like it must get rather cramped when the pharmacy is busy! (Well, if that ever happens, which is quite rare at Safeway.)
Well, now I am truly bamboozled! Do you know how I always say how strange it is that Northwest Safeways have their pharmacies along the back actionway? Well, I found a Houston Randall's, the Westheimer & S. Gessner store that was built in 2009-2010 as a knockdown and replacement of an older Randall's Flagship store that started out as a Handy Andy, which has the pharmacy along the back actionway! Whoa, this is totally weird. I would say that Safeway built a Northwest store here, but this store does not have juices behind produce so at least there is that, lol. Link: https://goo.gl/maps/9gXMM8XMtB3guPu98
ReplyDeleteHere's a closer look at that Pharmacy...you can also see here that this store has the woodgrain category markers: https://goo.gl/maps/aRE8J6Rh9qCE2o4r5
It also looks like this Randall's has/had a Houston skyline image on the vestibule glass...that's kind of neat. I guess Lifestyle v2 has local flair after all: https://goo.gl/maps/EMFcRYMi7ya7GnzM9
It actually appears that the rear actionway Randall's pharmacy actually bumps out into the actionway! What a totally weird design...I'm still not sure what Safeway was thinking here, lol. Links:
Deletehttps://goo.gl/maps/c4YGhJ8jpFjzcT53A
https://goo.gl/maps/kwn5jyRdVF8gX3WC8
Wow, that is very interesting! It may have some quirks, but if you were to drop that store down in Seattle, I wouldn't think twice about it. From what I can see in the pictures, it's as if they took the produce half of a 90s Northwest Safeway, with the smaller, angled floral department and the meat department wrapping around onto the side wall rather than produce/juice wrapping around onto the back as in newer stores, but then took the deli/bakery half of a circa-2010 (Lifestyle v2.1-era) store -- that side is practically identical to this store. It may not be completely identical to any store I've visited, but it's got to be one of the closest stores to the Washington standard I've seen outside of the Northwest!
DeleteThat pharmacy bumpout is completely standard in Washington stores too. I tend to view it more as a divider between a pair of alcoves (meat on one side, dairy on the other), but you're right that it's a strange choice, especially when not accompanied by a widening of the actionway on the other side.
Yeah, it's quite shocking to see this Randall's resemble some of the Safeway stores you've posted! This is really the only Randall's store in Houston that Safeway built after the early 2000s, but looking at our early 2000s Randall's stores and some of the newer Austin Randall's/Dallas Tom Thumbs of the 2010s, Safeway certainly had a preference for putting the pharmacies on the sides of their stores for the sake of having a pharmacy drive-thru. With this store that was built in the middle between those periods, we see the Northwest-type design pharmacy with the large service department side. Maybe Safeway used that design here since this store was going into a shopping center spot where an older Randall's used to stand and so a drive-thru just wasn't an option. I'm not sure, but this Randall's store does feel a bit out of place!
Delete