And, of course, I couldn't leave without getting a picture of the wacky road sign! It's not often that you see a strip mall with such prominent branding, dwarfing the signs of even the main anchor tenants, but I'm glad that they went all out with the wild design here. Between the RadioShack in the background (now Xfinity) and the Rite Aid anchor tenant (now a dental supply... shop? warehouse? factory? not really sure), there are a lot of dead brands here! And right across the street is Fred Meyer, with a much more modern (and from pictures, seemingly much nicer) store that I'm surprised hasn't driven Safeway out of town -- this is Fred Meyer's home turf, and they're pretty dominant in northwestern Oregon.
It is an unusually ornate sign! I'm not complaining about that though. It's too bad the RadioShack wasn't there in 2025 or else I certainly would have gone there!
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall the Fred Meyer parking lot looking quite busy too, but the Safeway was certainly pretty busy as well when I was there. It maybe wasn't as busy as the Gresham Safeway I went to in 2023, but it was still quite busy. Safeway certainly has some fans in the area! Nearby McMinnville has an Albertsons, something which, at least under that name, is quite rare in the Portland area these days.
There are at least a couple of oddities near this Safeway. One is the McDonald's. It seems the original McDonald's burned down in 2004 and the owners saved the Ronald McDonald and the flag from the burned down location and made a memorial out of them to put in the rebuilt location. It seems the rebuilt location itself was scraped and rebuilt with a new McDonald's in recent years so I don't know if the memorial still exists, but here it is from before the latest rebuild: https://maps.app.goo.gl/GdZH6P4SdpLWiBQX8
Also, across the street, is the 99W Drive-In Theater, which is quite vintage. I suspect most retail enthusiasts who are in the area would like to check this out! Link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/zMvw56ZSwn6NvwT76
Oh, on the other side of Newberg is this pretty neat independent supermarket, Nap's Thriftway: https://maps.app.goo.gl/NAe53EDRL58Bmqiq8