Welcome to the Oak Harbor Haggen!

This store was built in the 70s as a Safeway, before being converted to Haggen in the infamous 2014 merger divestiture. In 2016, it was one of the stores repurchased by Albertsons/Safeway after their merger went through and Haggen went bankrupt, but unlike all of the other divested stores, this one was never closed, returned to its original banner, or (for divested Albertsons stores) converted to Safeway -- instead, it has remained untouched as a Haggen store ever since. (We'll be seeing later why it didn't revert to its Safeway roots, but that just makes it stranger that it's still open at all!) As such, this is by far the best example of what it would have been like to visit one of those converted Haggens during their brief existence that you can get in the present day.

Comments

  1. Anonymous in HoustonJanuary 6, 2024 at 11:18 PM

    Hey, I know about this Hagway! I believe this is the one in the same shopping district as a Safertsons...the perfect example of why the FTC will probably be rejecting the Kroger-Albertsons merger and the whole idea of the C&S divestments. Good timing given the FTC's rejection should be coming any day now!

    This Hagway is also noteworthy for probably being the second closest approximation of a late 1970s/early 1980s Houston Safeway Super Store layout that you will see in the Northwest. Only the Richland, WA Safeway feels more like what a Houston Safeway felt like back in the day. I'm guessing we'll see it here, but I believe this Hagway has a security catwalk just like my former Safeway (now Food Town) and a very similar layout to that former Safeway. Even the exterior of this Hagway looks kind of like the old Safeway near me minus some renovations made to the Hagway during the Lifestyle era probably: https://maps.app.goo.gl/2poaJCXUNu36LKuE7

    Also, check out that BMW wagon! Those were never common here even when those were new. In fact, if you had not just caught that Subaru in the corner of this image, you might have fooled me into thinking you were near Tacoma again! Well, probably not since I know about this most bizarre area for Safeway, but still!

    As an aside, I'm really having a lot of problems with Blogger on Firefox. On two computers, it absolutely refuses to post comments from Firefox. It worked fine on Chromium on my other computer and if you see this, it means I had to install Chromium just for it to post from this computer. I'm not installing Chrome, I'm not giving Google that much satisfaction, lol.

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    1. Yeah, I'm sure this store is pretty well-known among retail folks, which is why I haven't gotten around to posting it until now (even though it's a place I was pretty excited to visit)!

      Yeah, rural/small-town areas like this are full of interesting older cars, at least in western Washington! Normally that includes quite a few older Subarus, though, so it's strange to see only one Subaru here, and for it to be a brand-new Outback at that!

      Hmm, Firefox is still working fine for me -- that's what I'm posting this from. I'm so tired of all of Blogger's issues, but I don't really know of anything else to change over to at this point...

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    2. Wow, glad to know I'm not the only Firefox user. At least I also have Edge if I ever need a Chromium browser and I don't have to resort to Chrome.

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    3. I have basically every browser except Edge on my computer -- I even have a copy of Chrome that I occasionally use! I wish I didn't have to, but that's just how the internet works these days...

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