Even with this store coming up on
20 years since its last full remodel (2004 is when it was converted from a mini Fred Meyer to a giant QFC, and I'm pretty sure that's when the one-off Green Fresh Fare decor was installed), it still looks remarkably good! It's certainly much better than the early-00s Lifestyle v1 Safeways looked before they got their recent remodels, and honestly better than a lot of stores with far newer decor packages look today. All the natural light coming in from the street-facing windows helps too! And even by QFC standards, the produce selection at this store is pretty impressive -- but I suppose that is to be expected from what I'm pretty sure is the largest store in the chain.
Mini Fred Meyer? Those are words usually not used together! I do like this QFC decor package and I wish Kroger used it more often in place of, say, the Script decor package or just about anything newer than Bountiful and Banner. I agree that I like this better than Lifestyle v1, but I don't know if I like it better than Lifestyle v2. Most Lifestyle v2 stores aren't industrial messes like this one, but I do guess this store has more of an excuse for having an industrial look! We've seen this decor before, but usually in tiny stores. So, yeah, maybe I like Lifestyle v2 better simply because I like the stores they are in better, but this decor package has a lot in common with Lifestyle v2.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I like about this over Lifestyle v1/v2 is the use of capitalized words instead of Safeway's often all-caps/all-lowercase words. Of course, Kroger is sometimes guilty of the same issue!
I don't know... before the Kroger takeover (and still to this day in a few spots), Fred Meyer had a whole small-format (grocery-only) brand, Fred Meyer Marketplace. This store was a lot stranger, though, being an all-general-merchandise store (and functionally being two separate stores).
DeleteI'm certainly not going to argue about Lifestyle v2 being better than this, with it being one of my all-time favorite decors! At least around here, though, time was not easy on Lifestyle v1 or early v2 stores, with Safeway seemingly having no budget for maintenance -- this store has fared much better, thankfully, along with pretty much all the older QFCs I've visited.
So Fred Meyer Marketplace stores were/are small and Kroger Marketplace stores are big? Huh! Things get confusing under the Kroger umbrella, lol.
DeleteThe Randall's Lifestyle v2 stores have aged pretty well I think. Most of the really dark ones have either been modified or they have closed. Lifestyle v2 has enough of a good reputation that Colorful Lifestyle v2 is the preferred renovation package for Randall's/Tom Thumb these days which is remarkable given the age of the base decor package.
Yes, yes they do! It's especially strange because Fred Meyer Marketplace predates Kroger Marketplace by decades, while Kroger Marketplace was clearly inspired by Fred Meyer (non-Marketplace)! And it's even stranger -- there's a Fred Meyer Marketplace in Alaska that's a prototypical Kroger Marketplace (so basically, a normal Fred Meyer), which was built to replace a Fred Meyer Marketplace that was one of the grocery-only stores. That means that the Fred Meyer Marketplace brand has been used on all three of the major concepts Fred Meyer has ever used -- grocery-only, general merchandise-only (this store), and full-line hypermarkets. 🫤
Delete