This store is one of the ones I referenced yesterday as having a Boar's Head sign awkwardly tacked onto the existing decor, though all things considered, Safeway did a surprisingly good job of adding this sign here in such a way that it almost feels like it could have been original to the decor! Presumably, there would have originally been an oval sign here, but surprisingly enough, there's no obvious labelscar from its removal. While I was expecting this store to be somewhat dead considering how much of a time capsule it is (and the terrible things you hear in the national media about Downtown San Francisco), the deli is clearly very popular, and really, the whole store was decently busy for the middle of the day on a weekday! The organized queue setup, with Tensabarriers and a one-way system, makes me think this probably gets even busier at times, or at least used to when more people were working from offices in the area.
I'm not entirely surprised to see that the deli was busy because that does happen here at Randall's at times even though the deli menu here seems to be a lot thinner than it is at this store! The Randall's deli especially seems to do well when they have a Cheep Chicken promotion, but even otherwise, they seem to do pretty well as far as supermarket delis go. They certainly do better than Kroger's delis in most cases!
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing San Francisco is one of those places where work from home is quite popular given the industries in that city, but maybe that is starting to subside a bit now as we move away from 2020-21. Given the staffing in these stores, and the broad menu, I can see why people might want to come to Safeway for a quick meal rather than take a chance at some fast food place which will probably be understaffed and where one might have to use the drive-thru. And, really, the prices here seem reasonable for San Francisco. Safeway really seems to know what they are doing here, but then again, this is their backyard so I would sure hope so!
On the point of Safeway oval decors, did Lifestyle v1 (and v2 which appears to be what this store had before getting Modern) stores all have bathroom ovals like this store in Reno, NV? Of course, being in Nevada, the gambling machines shouldn't be a surprise: https://goo.gl/maps/aH9bQhZGWt1yBmTa6
Also, check out this relatively new Reno Safeway on the other side of town! It looks like the newer Tom Thumbs/Randall's in Texas, but maybe a tad less nice. It'd still look pretty good...especially if Safeway did something with those terrible floors...though you'd be right to point out that Modern white vinyl tiles wouldn't be ideal here either! Link: https://goo.gl/maps/fYtYhhFPKTEt9itr6
I've certainly visited other Safeways around lunch time with busy delis, but nothing quite on this level! Of course, there aren't a lot of Safeways out there with office buildings all around them!
DeleteI haven't ever seen that bathroom sign before, but the design is straight out of Proto-Lifestyle! The rails behind it are intriguing too. Lifestyle used the same blue-and-white rectangular style that this store has (I'm sure you've seen it in the background of tons of photos on here). And Nevada or not, casino-style gambling machines in a grocery store are pretty weird!
That store does look quite nice! Interesting to see the rare stacked-stone variation of Modern Deluxe showing up in both of those Reno stores. Honestly, I really don't have an issue with concrete floors in new-build stores like that, and even prefer them to plain white vinyl -- it's older stores with all sorts of damage to their concrete slabs that look bad to me.