In fact, all of the pictures I took in the front right corner of the store turned out to be unusable, frustratingly enough. So now we're jumping ahead to the far corner of the front end, looking back towards the deli in the distance. The checkouts are another frozen-in-time moment, with a trio of express checkouts (one full-sized and two "stacked" registers) and no self checkouts.
Wow, what a strange looking security catwalk! This looks like a hybrid design mixing the security catwalks used by the Safeway Dallas Division back in the day and the security catwalks of ~1980s Albertsons stores! It looks quite strange even if it is just a small variation on existing designs!
ReplyDeleteIt's probably not too common that Safeways in Seattle have 3 manned registers open! It's not unheard of at Randall's, but in modern times, they usually have fewer than 3 lanes open except at the busiest stores, unfortunately.
Yes, very odd -- and the Lifestyle v1 ceiling-color stripe around the top of the walls makes it look even stranger! I wonder if it might have originally looked more like the Albertsons design (since I've seen something similar in a few older Safeways), but then again, I don't know why Safeway would bother to modify something like this rather than just removing it.
DeleteHeck, my local store only has 3 regular checkouts period! I have seen all three open at once, but it's not common, even when the store is packed. But that's also a store that seems to have given up on having a staffed customer service counter, so it's clear that it has serious staffing issues.