Haggen is one of the few grocery stores out there to still have self-service salad bars, a concept that seems to have been on the decline for many years even prior to COVID. Unfortunately, I think that's the only self-service "bar" they have left, with the hot foods now all being in service cases split between the front and side deli sections, similar to the way that Safeway has always had their hot delis set up. The prepared foods here do seem to be pretty popular, with several people at the counter even at the somewhat odd time (3:30 in the afternoon) of my visit!
Not sure what's up with the big bags of Haggen-branded gummy bears on top of the salad bar...
Salad bars, or 'garden bars' as Kroger calls them here, are alive and well at Houston's nicer Kroger area locations like the Galveston one: https://houstonhistoricretail.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_7322-jpeg.webp
ReplyDeleteThat said, aside from some Krogers, I'm not sure how many other supermarkets around here have salad bars these days. They can't be all that common.
I know you mentioned the flooring in the floral post, but it is pretty terrible here! The tile scar also reminds me of a Kroger and not in a good way! It is funny because this Haggen has nice wood/fake wood right next to atrocious tile scarred concrete. The grey tiles on the deli walls and the concrete floor just adds of the 'overcast' nature of this area. Nice fake wood floors or the right color of vinyl tile would help a lot I think.
That's true -- I forgot that I had seen those pictures! I don't think Fred Meyer or QFC have any salad bars in their stores, at least not any longer -- that's not surprising for QFC since their stores tend to be so small, but it is a little surprising for Fred Meyer's giant stores!
DeleteYeah, the floor really drags this store down. The fake wood is filling in where the store originally had real ceramic tile, so I guess those areas were in even worse shape than the rest of the store, but they really should have used some sort of nice vinyl flooring throughout to go with the otherwise upscale aesthetic!
Publix reserves salad bars for only the top tier of premium, high-volume stores it seems, but does have self-serve olive bars in many locations now. I know the North Carolina-based Ingles puts salad bars in most of its stores as well.
ReplyDeleteSafeway used to have self-service olive bars in a lot of their larger stores, but they got rid of them a few years back (before COVID, if I'm remembering correctly). Some stores eventually got the olive bar concept back, but only as a little section within the deli case so you have to wait for the deli employee to get them for you.
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