These old stores always end up requiring weird angles to get pictures of the back wall departments, and this store is one of the worst I've ever photographed in that regard. It has tall shelving with products piled high, narrow aisles, and a soffit that puts the department signs out over the endcaps -- the trifecta of annoyances! I tried out a wide-angle version of this photo, but it didn't turn out any better -- there's just too much stuff in the way.
Ha, if you think the shelves are high here, you ought to see one of our Kroger stores here! Pretty much all of them have those 'Please ask for assistance' shelves installed. This Vons is nothing compared to that! That said, the Vons does stack stuff pretty high on those top shelves, even those glass jars! The aisles do look very narrow as well. It reminds me of the early 2000s when Kroger here converted some older Greenhouse type stores into Signature stores and have to make the aisles very narrow to fit in all the extra Signature store items. Fortunately, Kroger wised up at some point and reverted those stores to more normal shelving which is very tall, but at least not as narrow.
ReplyDeleteWhile we don't have any Marina stores here, we do have the two gable roof 'Handy Randy' Randall's which started as Handy Andy stores like my local Randall's. There is something special about being in those middle aisles where the roof is tall. It certainly does feel quite grand! Maybe this feels a little less grand given how narrow it is!
A lot of Fred Meyers around here have extra-tall shelving like that too, primarily in the home section -- though the top section isn't always used these days since Kroger has cut back so much on what Fred Meyer sells. But those stores don't have such narrow aisles! This store reminds me of the old Walmart in Port Angeles, when they tried to cram almost an entire Supercenter worth of grocery items into a standard 90s store.
DeleteThis store does lack some of the grand feeling I've found in other Marina (and gabled) stores. The best is when the center of the store has low shelving, like the Marina Grocery Outlet in Kent!