This is going to be a bit of a random post about what's currently a fairly boring store, but this is a store that's near and dear to my heart as the very first non-American supermarket I ever visited, and a huge part of why I am so interested in grocery stores today. Well, sort of. Back in the 00s, when I first started visiting Italy, there was
a store at this location called Dí per Dí, which translates to "Day by Day" in English. I can't find any information about Dí per Dí online, much less any photos, so I'm not sure how large of a chain they really were (the combination of the generic name, the fact that they've been gone for well over a decade, and the fact that any information about them would probably only exist in Italian is really not helpful for my research), but they were taken over by the French chain Carrefour (yes, the same one that tried to make hypermarkets happen in the US) sometime between 2008 and 2012 based on Street View. Dí per Dí operated a fairly large store, somewhere around the size of the smallest, oldest Safeways I've featured, in the basement of this space, accessed through a pair of glass elevators from a vestibule at this location. (I don't remember all that much about what the store looked like, but I remember the glass elevators and stair railings looking so modern back then, and I have a very fuzzy memory of a plain, mostly white, interior with some green signage.)
Ha, I'm sure the cart nerds are going to have a lot of fun looking at those carts in the photo!
ReplyDeleteMy first experience with European supermarket chains was actually here in Houston with Auchan. Oddly enough, my Italian friend worked for Auchan for a while in/near Bergamo and she couldn't understand why I was so excited about Auchan, lol. Of course, Auchan ran the opposite of a small store...especially here in Houston!
As an aside, while you were in Italy, the big retail news here in Houston was that the Food Town operating in part of the main former Auchan store in Houston closed. It seems the Food Town will be replaced by an Asian supermarket. The Asian supermarket is probably a better fit for that area and Food Town has two other locations nearby in former Albertsons, including one that is just a couple of miles away on the same street, so maybe this will work out well in the end for everyone. Still, I was much more likely to visit the old Auchan with it being a Food Town than with it being an Asian supermarket (though I do shop at Asian supermarkets at times) so this is a bit sad.
As even more of an aside, I saw two Subarus in Houston today with Washington license plates! I guess your parents aren't the only ones who have come down here! We're practically Washington south right now!
Yeah, Italian carts are weird, especially with them having casters on all four wheels! Their stores also tend to have baskets with wheels, which are what I tend to use since they don't require a Euro coin (and also are just easier to use in crowded little stores like this one!).
DeleteI didn't know Auchan had stores in Italy -- I don't remember ever shopping at one when I used to go there. Sadly, it looks like they're another chain to no longer have a presence in Italy. It's interesting just how fluid the Italian grocery market is, with so many chains (many from out of the country) appearing, expanding, and disappearing just within the 20-ish years I've been visiting Italy. Di per Di was big, then they got taken over by Carrefour, which doesn't seem to have much of a presence these days; around the time Di per Di went away, Despar (the same company as Spar in other parts of Europe) suddenly opened a ton of locations (I can't remember if they took over another company or just opened new stores on their own), then after a few years sold them all to Coop, which in turn sold almost all if not all on to Tigre after a few years; and now there's Pam which has suddenly opened a ton of locations since I was last in Rome. It's not like the US where there are just a few major players that have mostly stayed stable (with no significant new players) for many years.
Ha! They're down there somewhere now, but not with their Washington Subaru! They have some sort of generic rental car with (I think they said) South Carolina plates.