Somehow, this is the only picture I got showing the entire store -- it shouldn't be difficult to get a store as small as this one to fit in a photo, but I blame the trees and the sideways orientation of the parking lot! This is a pretty standard 70s Safeway -- I'm not sure if I've shown one of this exact design before, but there used to be a lot of stores around here that looked like this.
Ha, given the lack of Subarus in the parking lot, I can already guess that we're in the shadows of Tacoma! Ok, I'm cheating a bit with that comment given that I knew ahead of time that Federal Way is indeed in the shadows of Tacoma, but I think I could have guessed that even otherwise given the Subaru factor, or lack thereof, in the parking lot! Unlike some of the other Safeways in/near Tacoma, the cars here don't look too rough, but it isn't too often one sees more Mitsubishis than Subarus in your general area! In Houston, you'd probably see more Mitsubishis than Subarus, but that probably says more about the lack of popularity of Subarus here than anything else.
ReplyDeleteIt'll be interesting to compare this Safeway to the Shaw's I saw in Montpelier, VT. I didn't go to the Shaw's in Montpelier, but I ate at a place just around the corner from the Shaw's such that I got an exterior photo of it from the parking area of the eatery. The stores seem to be around the same size (the Shaw's appears to be marginally smaller) and while I don't know when the Shaw's was built, it does have some exterior design similarities to the Safeway (the Safeway also share some design similarities with 1970s Houston Safeways, perhaps not surprisingly so).
The Shaw's has quite an interesting interior in that it is quite Lifestyle-like! Yeah, I suppose it has a fairly standard Albertsons decor package that we'd know west of the Mississippi (at least relative to the Shaw's I actually went to), but the beige/brown colors, uplighting, spotlighting, and general big store decor package shrunken to fit a smaller, older store is giving off some serious Safeway Lifestyle vibes.
While Mt. Rainier isn't visible from behind the Shaw's, the unmistakable golden dome of the Vermont capitol is most certainly visible! Also, the Shaw's parking lot is full of Subarus, but then I don't think there is a Tacoma of Vermont. Certainly Montpelier isn't, lol. The funny thing is that I think that Shaw's is Montpelier's only supermarket which isn't a co-op. Montpelier makes Olympia and Salem look quite big! Noteworthy, at least to weirdos like me who have been to both Salem and Montpelier in recent times, is that the distance from the Oregon capitol to the nearby Safeway is exactly the same, 0.4 miles walking distance, as the Vermont capitol is from the Shaw's. Now you know which states have Safeway/Albertsons at their core! Anyway, here is that Montpelier Shaw's: https://maps.app.goo.gl/N81jqMW5ZUfPeByM9
Ha! Yeah, this area is pretty similar to Tacoma demographically too. Mitsubishis certainly aren't a very common car brand around here, no matter where you go!
DeleteThat is an interesting store! PF&Hv2 is probably the closest Albertsons ever got to Lifestyle in terms of general aesthetics, and that store definitely looks more Safeway than Albertsons to me! Olympia has plenty of Safeways, but the nearest one to the capitol is a mile away -- interestingly, the nearest full-size grocery store is a Thriftway, at about 3/4 of a mile!