Apart from the register lights (which I'm guessing are original to the Pavilions Lifestyle era, since they look rather battered these days!), the front end here looks nothing like any Safeway from this era that I've ever visited -- the wall of windows and central "service center" island look like a store from decades earlier! The checkouts themselves are different from the normal Lifestyle design too, with woodgrain laminate instead of the normal beige, and the silver-and-maroon Service Center sign itself is one of the only untouched elements of Pavilions Lifestyle remaining. In the background, the "serving Anaheim Hills since 1974" sign was installed when Vons took over, replacing
one in the all-uppercase Pavilions Lifestyle font; unfortunately, I can't read what date that sign had, but I'm guessing it was more recent since the Pavilions concept didn't exist in 1974.
Huh, that is quite strange to see a center 'service center' like that these days! Heck, even in the past, I don't remember seeing things like this very often. Do the checkstands here have belts for customers to put the items on or do the clerks pick items right off the cart? I could see this store having the latter as a vestige of Pavilions, but I'm not sure if any Safeways have that pro-customer feature these days. I've only seen it rarely at some Krogers these days.
ReplyDeleteI've heard this sort of customer service setup referred to as a California front end in the past, specifically on Acme Style, so I'm guessing it was mostly common there. I know Food Lion uses a similar setup too. Having customer service as an island is fairly common at QFC and older Safeways in the Seattle area, but it's normally off to one side rather than being in the middle as it is here.
DeleteAs for the checkstands themselves, they're completely normal Safeway double-belt units, apart from the different laminate style. I haven't ever seen that style of checkstand at Safeway -- the oldest ones I've ever seen there have been turntable units, Albertsons style. QFC does still have those beltless checkouts at most of their stores.