Immediately past the meat counter, we end up in the dairy section. I didn't think anything of that at first, but something's wrong here. Typically, this would be where the self-service meat alcove is, with the dairy barn beyond that; here, the meat department instead ended up in the normal deli meat/cheese alcove, and that department seemingly just doesn't exist here. It's possible that this is something Safeway messed with, but the meat counter is clearly in its original location, and there doesn't seem to be enough space over here for both meat and dairy -- plus, I'm pretty sure all the dairy cases are original to this store. I know some of you are much more familiar with Grocery Palace stores than I am -- is this something that you've seen elsewhere? Perhaps it's another oddity with these transitional Grocery Palace stores? I don't know.
Huh, every Grocery Palace I've ever seen has had fresh meat in between the meat service counter and dairy. We have the first ever Grocery Palace store Albertsons ever opened in the country here in Houston (it is a mostly unaltered Food Town now) and it has the same design as other Grocery Palaces so I'm not sure what is going on here. Something like the Randalbertsons is a bit of an exception at least in the sense that Safeway redesigned the backwall and flattened it out completely, but I suspect that store had something similar to all other Grocery Palaces when it was an Albertsons.
ReplyDeleteSo, yeah, I'm not sure what's going on here. AFB would have a good eye for this, but maybe the meat service desk was extended a bit? It does look a bit bigger than what I'm used to seeing at Grocery Palaces, but that might just be a photo effect. Also, I'm not sure if that backsplash tile is original or not, it certainly doesn't look like what I've seen at Grocery Palaces. If the meat service desk is bigger here than usual, I don't know if Albertsons would have done that or Safeway. It is hard to say, this does look like a bit of a Grocery Palace oddball!
It's an oddball all right! The meat counter certainly doesn't seem to be any larger than I would expect, and I don't believe it was modified since the tile colors do seem to match Grocery Palace even if the pattern is weird. The dairy department seems a bit big, but not enough to have absorbed the whole meat alcove. Who knows!
DeleteI think this store is much smaller than usual for a Grocery Palace Albertsons. According to my rough Google Earth measurement of this building, this store is only ~45,000 square feet - the standard Grocery Palace store was closer to 60,000 square feet. The Grocery Palace Albertsons I grew up with was a bit smaller than usual at only 55,000 square feet, but it still managed to have both the deli meat and packaged meat alcoves - only the dairy barn was sacrificed in my store, which made up for its lack in width by adding a third alcove for dairy behind the two frozen foods aisles (just like what this store has for its dairy department). I think this store was one of the smallest Grocery Palace newbuilds in the chain, hence the funky meat department placement and the lack of a second meat alcove after the seafood counter.
ReplyDeleteI've definitely seen some other stores with a very similar dairy section to this one, but the lack of a second meat alcove is weird! I hadn't even thought about this store being smaller, since to me, 45,000 square feet is still a pretty big store, but I get that it isn't when it comes to Grocery Palaces! Maybe this was some sort of prototype store for smaller models that Albertsons never ended up building a significant number of.
DeleteI didn't realize this store is only ~45,000 sq. feet. Here in Houston at least, the Blue & Grey Market stores were almost always ~55,000 sq. ft. and the Grocery Palace stores (and probably the Awnings stores as well) were around 60,000 sq. ft. just like the Kroger Signature stores of that era. So, yeah, a 45,000 sq. ft. Albertsons would have felt unusually small around here by Albertsons standards!
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