The produce department is easily my favorite part of this store, with its high ceilings, nice flooring, and very cool decor -- both the tree silhouettes we saw in the last picture and the cutout, highly stylized trees behind the sign. This reminds me quite a bit of both the mysterious Philly Decor that has shown up in a handful of Acme stores and the decor that Andronico's in the NorCal division is using, though it's clear that all three of those are distinct designs (and, in fact, there are multiple distinct designs in different Andronico's stores) and it's all a big mystery as to what, if anything, the relationship between the various versions actually is and what Albertsons is planning to do with it/them.
That Andronico's looks pretty nice! Some of these obscure banners under the Albertsons umbrella are quite unique. The United stores in rural Texas which sell lumber and lawnmowers certainly fit that description, lol, but then there are some other chains kind of like Andronico's. Kings Food Markets in the Northeast is one such banner. This place looks like what QFC would have looked like if QFC didn't get Krogerized. Hopefully this Kings Food Market doesn't get Albertsonsized or, even worse, Krogerized! Link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/qs8mRPGLsbcVyVvw9
ReplyDeleteI don't know why, but there is something about this Haggen decor which reminds me of Kroger Remix. I've been comparing this to one of Retail Retell's photos of Remix and I can't really say why I think they look similar, lol. Link: https://flic.kr/p/2kYJE8G
Maybe the trees at Haggen look like an inverted Remix carrot? Both use the cursive first letter and then uppercase second letter design which is common these days. Maybe it is the lime green? Not sure. The Haggen decor looks better than Remix (hopefully), and it certainly looks better than the plain white decor we saw at the other Haggen, but I just can't shake that Remix comparison! FWIW, I've actually seen implementations of Remix here in Houston where I think it makes a bad Kroger concrete floor store look less dingy and dark than Bountiful, even though I generally like Bountiful, so at least there is that. Of course, with the Haggen, they actually have a nice floor in the produce area so it certainly doesn't look as bad as those types of Krogers.
It really is interesting how Albertsons lets a lot of their smaller banners operate semi-independently -- very different from Safeway which always wanted all their stores to be the same! Kroger used to also allow some of their brands (like QFC and especially Fred Meyer) to do their own thing, but they've moved towards standardization in recent years, much to the detriment of their brands in my area -- now I know why people in other parts of the country didn't like Safeway in their centralized-control era!
DeleteThe only thing about this that reminds me of Remix is the bright green color on some of the trees. Other than that, it doesn't really look all that much like any other decor out there apart from the maybe-related ones I mentioned -- otherwise, the closest comparison would have to be Ultra-Premium, or perhaps Urban Mix. Similar to Urban Mix, it's hard to form an impression of this package from just one part of the store, since different departments have wildly different decor!
Rather than Remix, I think this produce department looks like Artisan if the package had been well-executed. I agree that the space does look nice.
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