The tagline on the floral oval sign, the first thing you see entering this store from the entrance I used, feels appropriate, since this store has what may well be the rarest Safeway decor out there! At first glance, it appears to be Lifestyle v1, but things are a bit different here -- there are a lot of elements here that don't appear in typical Lifestyle v1 stores, along with others recycled from Proto-Lifestyle. This store's opening in late 2003 or early 2004 puts it just before Lifestyle was first introduced in 2004, so I've dubbed this package Proto-Lifestyle 2.0.
For years, I thought this was a complete one-off, but then when looking for something for the final set I posted before my vacation, I stumbled upon this picture, showing the Greenwood Safeway in Seattle, also built in 2003, with what appears to be a version of the same package -- though with even more elements borrowed from Proto-Lifestyle (most obviously the aisle and category markers, but the oval signs appear to be the halfway between those of Proto-Lifestyle and the ones here, while the ones here are halfway between those and the Lifestyle v1 version), plus some that didn't show up in this store (like the awnings around the deli oval sign). (more pictures) And then even later, I stumbled upon another trio of photos showing the same package at another Safeway, this time only labeled as being in Seattle somewhere -- it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that those are showing my local Lower Queen Anne Safeway (built in 2002), which is pretty cool! I'm still hoping to find more information about this eventually, somewhere, but at this point my best guess is that it was used for a very brief time in 2002-2003, likely in new-build stores only, and as a testing ground for what would become Lifestyle v1, somewhat more experimentally than Proto-Lifestyle, which (despite the name I gave it) was a proper decor package in its own right. If anyone reading this knows anything about this package, has any pictures of it in other stores, or even remembers seeing it in the wild (which I don't believe I ever did when it was new, despite having visited many Safeways around the region), I'd love to hear about it!
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