The liquor department is the only part of this store to have the full Grocery Palace floor, which makes it look quite a bit nicer than the rest of the store and its plain white vinyl. That makes some sense since this pattern doesn't require anything particularly special -- just of-the-shelf white, grey, and black tiles in a special arrangement, rather than the custom shapes required for things like Beverage Boulevard and the baby blocks. Perhaps this was a late Grocery Palace build and came at a time when Albertsons had already given up on those custom elements.
Comparing this to my local Krogertsons, which also still has the original Grocery Palace wine & beer floor design, the original Grocery Palace wine & beer decor looks quite a bit better. The hanging wood thing from the ceiling and the track lights are a nice touch. Also, the coolers have a very basic look at the Krogertsons, but they actually have some decor elements tacked on at the Albertsons which look okay. All in all, the Krogertsons wine & beer aisles don't look bad, but this looks better! Link: https://houstonhistoricretail.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/IMG_4799-jpeg.avif
ReplyDeleteI'm not particularly surprised that Grocery Palace looks nicer than Artisan! 🙂 Artisan is so boring that I'm not surprised they didn't bother adding any decor in the grocery section.
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