Whenever I'm not doing all that great, I always have the blog equivalent of comfort food to fall back on -- vintage Safeways. This store was built in 1964, and as you can just about see from here, was originally a Marina store before the facade was redone in the 90s. (Amusingly, less than a block away is a former Marina Albertsons built in the same year -- there was some real head-to-head competition going on here 60 years ago! And yes, that store will feature on the blog someday.)
As a side note, "Sunset" must be the most over-represented neighborhood name on this blog. This is at least the fourth separate "Sunset" grocery store I've posted, after Portland/Beaverton, San Francisco, and Fresno. It's too bad Sunset in Vancouver and Sunset Hill in Seattle don't have interesting retail!
At least the 'sunset' has not hit for this Safeway even if the newer facade is a bit of a disappointment. Maybe you've heard by now, but one of the last remaining Kroger Greenhouses in this area is slated to close. It was the first store I featured in The Year of Kroger: https://houstonhistoricretail.com/2023/01/04/a-warm-greenhouse-welcome-to-the-year-of-kroger-here-at-hhr/
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, the only competitor that store has nearby as far as full service supermarkets go is my local Randall's. Albertsons 1, Kroger 0! Oh, and my local Randall's now has hand baskets with large Albertsons logos!
Seems like a lot of the interesting Krogers you featured in that series are closing, which is too bad. But I can't complain about Albertsons winning over Kroger! They stand to benefit from a lot of the Kroger closures around here too.
DeleteInteresting to hear that about the baskets. Even when Safeways around here had a hodgepodge of mismatched carts for a few years, I don't remember seeing too many mismatched baskets. Or maybe I just didn't notice since I always grab a cart unless there are absolutely none available!