I'm not sure what the deal is with the area in the back of produce where Haggen installed their bulk cases. This looks a lot like the area where some stores from this era would have
a juice section, but it would have been quite strange for Haggen to go to the expense of ripping out a whole wall of cases back here considering how little they did in the whole rest of the store. Unsurprisingly, on my 2022 visit, the whole wall was filled with pre-packaged "bulk" foods instead of proper bulk bins; I think Haggen has gone back to having real bulk foods since then, though I apparently failed to check on that on my recent visit to the Auburn store; Safeway never has, at least at the stores I shop at (which never had a significant bulk foods section anyway).
I suspect that wall would have housed a Safeway pharmacy when this store was freshly built as that is how the Safeway near me was designed with the swinging backroom door right next to it just like how it is here! It is also how Richland is set up in current times: https://maps.app.goo.gl/w3rgv9KCrGvm4kwi8
ReplyDeleteAlso, check out this markdown corner at the Richland Safeway! Link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/R6oLyKMF37PqHYzx8
It appears Richland has received Modern here recently so hopefully it doesn't look too bad! Certainly Richland can't compete with the HayClock here, that is just bizarre. This would be like Kroger putting a bunch of 'I've been Krogering' stickers all over the store as a decor feature. Oh boy, maybe I shouldn't even post that or else Kroger might get an idea!
Ugh, I had to use Chromium again!
Ah, that would make sense! I'm pretty sure the pharmacy was already gone by the time Haggen took over, since they continued to operate the pharmacies in the stores they took that had them.
DeleteI wonder what the deal was with that "markdown corner" -- normally you only see that when a remodel is in progress or imminent, but that doesn't seem to have been the case there! Maybe they were just going through a big reset, like my store did recently to put things in even less logical places than they were before. Safeway used to do big resets every year or two, but thankfully they stopped doing that after the Albertsons merger!