This store has some interesting differences from the standard-model Marina stores that followed, including vertical solid panels placed perpendicular to the main glass facade (sun screens, I'm guessing), no solid sign band within the glass, and a second row of windows at the back of the barrel vault, which you can kind of see in this picture. I've seen renderings of Marina stores with those extra windows, but I don't believe any others were built that way. While this store hasn't changed all that much in appearance over the years, the modern Safeway sign looks awkwardly tacked on -- when I visited this store the one time I visited San Francisco as a kid (completely unaware of its significance), it had a much more better-integrated, classic (though I'm guessing not original),
sign.
While it's become a running joke on here to look for Subarus in every parking lot, Teslas are the ubiquitous car in California instead -- though this picture does feature an older Subaru that would look more at home in Seattle!
Huh, is this the first ever Safeway Marina store? If so, I had no idea the first Marina store is still open! That's neat if it is and I look forward to seeing inside this place.
ReplyDeleteThat's a bit of a shame to see that greyscale car colors are so popular in California as well as other places we've already seen like Florida and the NW. If anything, this might be worse than the NW! That old Subaru Outback might have been enough to fool me into thinking that this image is from Seattle, lol, but even then I would have commented that I'm surprised to see only one Subaru and an old one at that!
Yep! And it's where the name comes from -- this is in the Marina District, right across the street from the San Francisco Marina! It's very cool that it's still around, and I hope San Francisco's well-known NIMBYism means it won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
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