From here, this store looks almost like an early Blue & Grey Market store, with the doors opening into the glassed-in cartwell rather than directly outside! But, as we saw from the outside, this store has two sets of doors (like a typical Grocery Palace build), and the other one does line up directly with the parking lot access. I guess this is intended to be the entrance door, based on the interior configuration, but anyone who isn't looking for a cart would probably just walk straight in the other side. The Starbucks kiosk sits between the two doors (almost like the Grocery Palaces that had coffee kiosks from the start, except they would have been flipped around from here, sitting on the back of the pharmacy box), which unfortunately means the glass block is all covered over on the interior.
What's with the angled beams at the front of the store above the Starbucks and the door? Do all Grocery Palaces have that? I don't remember seeing them when our Grocery Palaces were Albertsons, but I don't think the ceiling works were light grey like they are here so maybe it just wasn't obvious. The Grocery Palaces I shop at regularly now have drop ceilings so I wouldn't see that if it exists. But, anyway, those angled beams make this look like the skeleton of a 1980s Albertsons with the angled security/office windows above the front end like the one at that liquidation sale that AFB was recently able to explore!
ReplyDeleteI don't think our Grocery Palaces ever had vestibules! The carts where in a interior hallway between the front doors...I think. At least that is what I remember and that is what all of our Grocery Palaces have now including the almost untouched Food Town one which was Albertsons' first ever Grocery Palace in the entire chain.
The Randalbertsons certainly has a different idea than Oak Harbor about what size they should have made that 'serving since' signage at a Grocery Palace store! I think I like the Randalbertsons one better, but the two-line solution does lead to the Exit sign being oddly placed in the sentence. Also, from here, you can see a lack of a vestibule. Link: https://houstonhistoricretail.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_8773-jpeg.webp
Those beams are a standard feature of Grocery Palace stores, but they're normally nowhere near as obvious. Here's an example from the San Clemente store showing a more typical look.
DeleteHaving carts between the two doors is definitely much more common than this Blue & Grey Market-like glassed-in outside space, but quite a few stores around here have that as a vestibule! Some have a full wall with doors like that, while others have a wall but no doors like this older store converted to the Grocery Palace layout. The Battle Ground store is another one that has a full vestibule setup. I've always found that part of the Grocery Palace layout particularly strange, since you basically have two parallel hallways running along the front of the store with a wall dividing them! It probably seemed a little less weird in stores that had a coffee kiosk or customer service counter in the inner "hallway", but I've never visited one of those.
Exiting Houston since 1966! 😉