Wow, that Amazon van was parked out front of the store for a long time! Maybe the driver decided to pop in for a break after serving the Amazon Locker out front. It doesn't look like shoppers at this store pay much mind to the fire lane out front anyway. The tower crane in the distance feels like an omen of what is to come for this store, but Safeway still hasn't made any serious moves towards redevelopment, so it's hard to say -- especially with the impacts of the planned (but hopefully blocked) Kroger merger also looming on the horizon, with Kroger seeming to have a lot less patience than Safeway when it comes to keeping marginal stores open. I know they've closed plenty of stores (mostly rural, but sometimes urban) with no other options around simply due to not being profitable
enough for Kroger, and I would expect a lot of Washington's Safeways (including this one) to meet the same fate if Kroger were to get their hands on them.
At least here, back in the day, supermarkets would get no parking signs to stick in the fire lane so that it would be hard for people to park in them. The no parking signs would often be sponsored by one of the local soft drink distributors so it would have a Dr. Pepper logo on it or something of that sort. One of the Food Towns near me still uses signs like this (yes, this is a former Food Lion, but I suppose that is obvious, lol): https://maps.app.goo.gl/BHTfxCwpms9PtFK46
ReplyDeleteThis parking lot is giving off some Tacoma-like vibes with the lack of Subarus in the parking lot and plenty of (often old and beat up) Hondas instead! I agree that Kroger would be more likely to close stores like this, or perhaps send them to C&S, so that is certainly a reason to be against the merger. That said, Kroger does maintain some stores in less than ideal areas of Houston, but those stores are often not well maintained even by Kroger's pretty low modern standards.
Interesting! I don't remember signs like that, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist around here. Most of the grocery stores around here don't have a fire lane area like that that invites people to park in it (like this store or the one you linked), but just have the main driving aisle right up against the sidewalk. I know a lot of Food Lions like that store have three driving lanes marked along the front of the store, which I've always found a bit odd.
DeleteDemographically, the area around this store is pretty similar to Tacoma, so that's not a huge surprise!