Lucky's Market #52
3230 East Colonial Drive, Orlando, FL - Colonial Landing
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| Today's post is a presentation of Orange County retail |
It's hard to believe that it was 5 years ago when Lucky's Market's Floridian empire came crashing down in spectacular fashion, as it was in January 2020 when the company declared bankruptcy following Kroger pulling their investment in Lucky's the month prior. The sudden rise and equally sudden downfall of Lucky's Market was one of the more spectacular crash-and-burn expansion stories we've seen in recent Floridian supermarket history, where the chain with humble Colorado roots wanted to make it big on a national scale, got too tied up in spending Kroger's money in another one of that company's doomed attempts to win over Floridians, just to barely survive going out of business entirely. While we've spent plenty of time talking about what went wrong with Lucky's Market in the past, I'd like to use today to look back on Lucky's time in Florida, how Lucky's tried to carve a niche of their own in this state, and look back at a chain that actually managed to develop a cult following among Floridians too. Yes, you don't know how many times I've had people tell me about how much they miss Lucky's! (More times than I've heard "I miss Albertsons!" or "I miss Kash n' Karry!", at least, and I'm still waiting for an "I miss Food Lion!"). Even though we're now 5 years into Life after Lucky's, a new era where "Sip and Stroll" now means sneaking a flask of rosé into Publix to quench your thirst while you shop, let's look back on those good times we had with Lucky's and the days when Sip and Stroll didn't have to be so covert. Remember, Lucky's Market was the one who told us "Don't be sad, be happy it happened" - a very Lucky's way of explaining the company's situation in early 2020. After taking a look back at Lucky's we'll finish out this post with another contribution to my ongoing "Life After Lucky's" series, touring this same store a second time, but in its new (not quite as exciting) life. So sit back, grab your glass of rosé or craft micro brew (or root beer), and let's sip and stroll (virtually) through Lucky's one last time. However, before we jump back into the era of Life with Lucky's, I just want to spend a moment going back a little further in time to discuss the building this particular Lucky's store opened in, which actually dates back to 1972 (aka "Life way before Lucky's"):
Known as "Herndon Plaza" from when it was constructed in 1972 until 2006 (and named after the airport behind the plaza, Herndon Airfield, now Orlando Executive Airport), Colonial Landing's original anchors were a J.M. Fields discount store and Pantry Pride supermarket. A subsidiary of J.M. Fields, Pantry Pride supermarkets were typically paired with one of their parent discount stores in the strips they anchored, a common retail combination to see in Florida in the 1970's. While the J.M. Fields discount stores went under in 1979, Pantry Pride was spun off and moved its headquarters from Philadelphia to Fort Lauderdale. Pantry Pride maintained a presence in Florida until the 1990's, although by the time the company went out of business, the remaining Pantry Pride stores were confined to South Florida. Pantry Pride exited the Central Florida market in the mid-1980's, and we'll talk a little more about what became of that building toward the end of this post.
As for the old J.M. Fields building, when that company went out of business in 1979, this store (along with another former J.M. Fields in Winter Park and a number of others throughout the country) was purchased by Kmart. Kmart did some patchwork upgrades to this store throughout the years, and in the photo above, you can see the building receiving its new logo as part of the company's brand refresh in the early 1990's.
This store was later upgraded to a "Big Kmart" in the late 1990's, but would end up succumbing to Kmart's financial troubles of the early 2000's, closing in 2003 along with 325 other stores nationwide as the company tried to shake off its troubles from the fateful 2002 bankruptcy filing.
Following the closure of Kmart, the building sat empty for a few years until a redevelopment plan was revealed in 2006. As part of the redevelopment plan, the empty Kmart (as well as the old Pantry Pride-turned-Publix next door, which was also vacant at the time) would be converted into a power center with PetSmart, Sports Authority, and Bed Bath & Beyond splitting the old Kmart space, and hhgregg taking over the old Pantry Pride/Publix a few years later in 2008. Along with those conversion plans, the shopping center was renamed from Herndon Plaza to Colonial Landing as well.
Lucky's Market occupies the portion of the old Kmart building that once housed the Sports Authority store. Sports Authority closed its Colonial Landing store in 2016 when the entire company went out of business, with Lucky's coming along a few years after that in 2019. The official grand opening date of the Colonial Landing Lucky's Market was June 19, 2019, as mentioned in this post by Lucky's Market (back in the days when their growth seemed unstoppable).
The Colonial Landing Lucky's was only 6 months old when the company entered bankruptcy in January 2020 and announced the closure of all but one of its Florida locations that same month (although the lone survivor didn't last much longer). Having only lasted 6 months as a Lucky's, that would make this store the shortest-lived supermarket I've ever visited and the newest Lucky's I've photographed.
By the time I visited this store in January 2020 (as part of a small sweep of Lucky's visits I made to document the chain before it was gone), the store was already in liquidation mode. It was still very early into the closure process at the time of my visit, so while the store still looked and operated (mostly) normally, there will still be some signs of impending closure as we walk around (like that very literal sign of impending closure posted next to the door in the photo above, announcing that everything in the store was a flat 25% off - a pretty generous closing discount especially after seeing what Winn-Dixie has been offering for discounts this early on in their recent closures).
Turning around, between Lucky's roll-up entrance into the produce department and the regular door by the check lanes was the juice bar. The store closing must have put the squeeze on the juice bar, as it seemed to be used as a Floral display more than an active service offering (considering the empty displays of juice in front of the counter).
Looking away from the juice bar, we'll turn around for this look through produce down the store's right wall, where I spy...
…the famous "Food Glorious Food" sign, which Lucky's used to designate the produce department in their stores. With the closing sale in full swing, this sign was nothing more than a piece of fading optimism overlooking a sinking ship.
Leaving produce, Lucky's layout takes us into Frozen Foods as we enter the grocery aisles. The way Lucky's arranged the store with the produce-followed-by-frozen-foods setup seems oddly reminiscent of Food Lion's peculiar early 1990's layout, and considering the aisles are numbered going up from here toward the grand aisle, it appears Lucky's did intentionally want frozen foods to be one of the first departments shoppers entered as part of the psychological intended shopping path. As such, the fancy grand aisle with all the service departments would be the last thing shoppers encountered following the intended path, so I guess Lucky's wanted to leave shoppers with a grand impression as they ended their shopping trips with all the prepared foods? That's more logic than I can make out of Food Lion's layout anyway!
Leaving frozen foods, we turn the corner to find the dairy department along the back wall. While Lucky's used a rather fun and whimsical decor to match the vibe of the store, oddly enough, the decor really fell off a cliff as dairy transitioned into the meat department where the wall angles out. The fun signage of dairy switched to a blank white wall over meats, and I really feel like Lucky's could have put a sign of some kind on that wall to break up all the blank space!
From the start of the meat coolers, here's a final look at the dairy department before we jump back into the grocery aisles.
Following frozen foods, we find snacks for both you and your furry friend in aisle 1 - still quite a bit of selection too, although some empty patches were beginning to appear on the shelves. With this being aisle 1, that meant the frozen foods aisle was left unnumbered, acting as an "Aisle 0" of sorts (and believe it or not, there really was a Publix with a signed Aisle 0 too - talk about a weird sight, almost as strange as seeing a signed "Exit 0" on a highway).
Between the check lanes and the grocery aisles was the bulk foods department, which featured everything from bins of granola and spices to coffee and candies. Another fun feature of Lucky's was a grind your own peanut butter machine in the bulk department, a frequent go-to of mine when Lucky's was around.
The cereal was looking a bit picked over, although there didn't seem to be a run on the peanut butter just yet. When Lucky's was closing, I did hear stories from people who rushed over to stock up on their favorite hard to find items, sometimes mentioning wiping out the entire shelf in the process to ensure a longtime supply. As I've mentioned, Lucky's did have a loyal following in Florida. I think they could have been successful in Florida had Kroger kept a tighter eye on the company and controlled the expansion just a bit to ensure all the new stores were actually making money (as rumor was many of the new stores were not doing great, and Lucky's was only opening them because they had the money to do so).
The grocery aisles in this store were pretty long, and as such, there was a break in the middle of them (which you can see in the photo above).
Aisle 5 is the last grocery aisle (pictured off to the right) before we find the next major department in this store - alcohol. Beer and wine had its own little island, with wine wrapping down into aisle 5 and the beer cooler off to the left facing the grand aisle. And while I don't know what 90 point wines are, I will give bonus points to anyone who knows whose famous quote that is on the beer sign above (click here for the answer).
Love has 4 letters, and so does beer, and so does wine. And so does Aldi, who fell in love with this building, but I'm getting ahead of myself! Pictured here are the beer coolers, with the grand aisle to my left.
Anchoring the grand aisle was this island, which featured the Cheese Shop as well as the sushi and ramen counters. The ramen counters were one of Lucky's newer features, debuting in stores not long before the chain collapsed.
Surrounding the island were the service departments, including the meat and seafood counter (pictured above), followed by the deli and "The Kitchen" (home to the sandwich bar and pizza oven), with the bakery at the very end of the service strip.
Even though I was here pretty early on in the closing process and some of the service departments (like meat) were still selling product, The Kitchen was mostly empty. That was the case at all of the Lucky's stores I visited this day, so unfortunately, no farewell slice of Lucky's pizza for me this day.
It looks like the salad bar still had a little left in it while I was here, although the rotisserie chickens had moved onto greener pastures.
Here's one final look across the store, taking a gander from Bulk Foods back toward produce and the "Food Glorious Food" sign.
As we depart, here's a final overview shot of the grand aisle as we move along to the Apothecary:
It was Lucky's that taught me what the word "apothecary" meant, as that's not one of those words you hear much in conversation these days (or see in a supermarket)! The apothecary was tucked between the grand aisle and the cafe, with the cafe being the final part of the store we need to take a look at before we close the book on Lucky's Market.
The famous Lucky's Cafe, which introduced Floridians to the concept of "Sip and Stroll" at the supermarket. While the cafe sold plenty of beer and wine, you could also get tea and coffee here as well for a sip and stroll experience with a little less kick.
Lucky's Market Colonial Landing Orlando - Est. 2019, closed 2020. While I'm sure Lucky's designed this sign with the expectation it would still be hanging on the wall 20 years later for that established date to sound really impressive, it only got 6 months of use, with that date just making everything more sad in the end. Still, I thought this was a neat piece of local flare that Lucky's included, and if you click on the picture and zoom in on it, you'll notice the background is actually a map of downtown Orlando (which is located just west of Colonial Landing), with this store's location marked on the map in the background.
Lucky's was all about local products and local flare, so there were other references to Orlando in the store, including the cafe's signature local flare table. Every Lucky's store got a custom designed table like this with a special graphic portraying something about area. If you look closely at this table, you'll see within the colored boxes the word "Orlando", with "Colonial Landing" written in the angle of the "N".
Now that we've sipped and strolled for the last time, we're back outside for a look at the outdoor portion of the store's cafe seating area. Not every Lucky's had an outdoor seating area like this, but it was certainly a nice addition for a fair weather day.
To the Floridians reading this post - Do you still miss Lucky's? Even though Lucky's was only in Florida for 5 years, they seemed to have left an impression on this state, as well as 40 buildings that have seen all kinds of reuse in the time since Lucky's departure (many examples of which I've profiled on the blog too). However, the rest of this post will be another new contribution to my "Life After Lucky's" series, taking a look at a fairly common reuse for these Lucky's buildings. A company that's been quite newsworthy of late in the Floridian grocery scene, this store was one of 6 Lucky's Market locations purchased at bankruptcy auction by Aldi (although Aldi later picked up additional Lucky's stores after the fact too). Bankruptcy auctions are a good time to buy castoff stores from struggling chains, as these stores are already closed, and in the case of Lucky's, about the perfect size for an Aldi too. It seems like a better opportunity for expansion unlike, you know, buying an entire supermarket chain that was showing signs of life for the first time in years just to massacre it (especially with lots of Big Lots, Party City, and Jo-Ann boxes about to come to market now too), but I digress.
Aldi #163
3230 East Colonial Drive, Orlando, FL - Colonial Landing
Moving along from January 2020 to the fall of 2021, we find Aldi open for business in the former Colonial Landing Lucky's Market. Aldi's official grand opening happened on August 19, 2021, with my visit happening not long after that (as you can tell by the "Aldi Now Open" banner hanging from the building).
Much like we've been seeing in drawings of the upcoming Winn-Dixie conversions, Aldi didn't change much about Lucky's facade design. While Aldi did replace the exterior lighting and installed new (slightly darker) faux wood paneling around the entryway, the building still looks like a Lucky's.
Even at only 30,000 square feet, this former Lucky's was still just a bit too big for Aldi's taste. As such, the rightmost 6,000 square feet of the former Lucky's (home to their produce and frozen foods departments) was walled off as extra space for Aldi to sublet, and to this day, is still available to lease. Basically what we're about to see here is a small-scale version of the fate 220 Winn-Dixie stores will be facing between now and 2027, and another example of how Aldi hasn't been too successful trying to make extra money playing landlord.
Entering Aldi, we find ourselves in a much larger than usual vestibule. While the vestibule follows Aldi's usual concept, the reason it's extra wide had to do with what was was behind me:
Turning around, this store had a large indoor cartwell located inside the vestibule, a very unusual feature for Aldi. Typically Aldi places the carts in a small walled-off area along the front sidewalk, but either due to space or lease restrictions, designed this store to have an interior storage area instead.
Looking away from the carts, the vestibule begins to look a little more normal for Aldi standards...
…and stepping onto the salesfloor, the oddities of the vestibule give way for the standard Aldi fare.
While Lucky's certainly got an A+ for unique local flare, this welcome sign over the produce department was Aldi's lone contribution to the matter. Still, a nice reference to town on a welcome or thank you sign is a plus in my book.
Even though 6,000 square feet from the original Lucky's space was cast off, Aldi still installed their "large format" design in here. Aldi's "large format" isn't anything wildly different from your average Aldi - it just features a more spread out produce department with these angled displays and slightly wider grocery aisles elsewhere in the store.
Leaving produce, it looks like any other Aldi you can find in the United States in here. While Aldi stores elsewhere around the world are all still of the same mold, they are a little different in terms of decor (and the stores in Germany even have in-house bakeries like the US Lidl stores - why hasn't Aldi brought that feature to the US!).
Turning our attention to the back wall, we find Aldi's dairy department and meat coolers in a roughly similar spot to where those offerings were located in this building's brief period as Lucky's Market. Inadvertently, I also managed to capture a photo of one of Aldi's special edition Florida-themed reusable shopping bags from a few years ago in that cart in front of me. While I don't think Aldi's state-themed bags garnered the internet hype of the similar bags sold at semi-sister chain Trader Joe's, they were a fun offering!
If the thought of a 2-year-old Winn-Dixie closing to be converted into an Aldi was bad, remember, this Lucky's was only open for 6 months before it got ripped apart by Aldi! I guess the Winn-Dixie situation still stings much more since that closure was of Aldi's own doing and not because Winn-Dixie went out of business, but it's quite the waste to see such new supermarkets gutted and rebuilt after such a short amount of time.
Circling back to produce, here's a view of that department as seen from the grocery aisles. Produce is blocked off by a short fence plastered in local farm spotlights to funnel shoppers into the aisles off to that department's sides, with some of the open floor space along the fence is used for pallet drops of assorted overflow produce.
Did you guys see the news that Drew Brees was getting bored in retirement, so he decided to get a job at Aldi to keep himself entertained? He said his past experience as a quarterback helped him clinch the job.
You thought I was just using that as a setup for a corny joke, but seriously, Drew Brees (and his wife Brittany) were recently brought in as Aldi spokespeople for some advertisements sent out before the Super Bowl called "get a quarterback". I thought this was a bit strange since Aldi's thing was to not use celebrity spokespeople and lot of advertisement to keep prices down, but I guess an opportunity for a pun is one that should not be wasted.
In these last few photos we've been working our way toward the left side of the store, all of which was once home of Lucky's grand aisle. With Aldi here now things are a little less "grand" in this part of the store, with wine and frozen foods now located along the left wall.
In addition to the coolers along the wall, the remainder of frozen foods (that being the chilled Aldi finds) are located in these covered coffin coolers in the middle of the salesfloor.
Aldi's grocery aisles were separated by this little cut-though in the center of the store, which gives us another look back toward produce. While there's still lots of food here, it's certainly not the same as the "Food Glorious Food" we once saw on that side of the building.
Back up front, we see in the left corner that the former Lucky's Cafe was walled over to create space for Aldi's employee breakroom and offices, as well as the restrooms. The check lanes are next to that, and it's back outside once again to complete part 2 of this tour.
I ended the tour of Lucky's with a nearly identical photo looking toward the cafe area, so here's a current depiction of what the sidewalk area looks like now. The door that once connected Lucky's Cafe to the outdoor patio appears to have been preserved as an emergency exit, but all other signs of the outdoor eating area are gone.
So that's it for the "Life After Lucky's" portion of today's post. Before we conclude though, I'd like to address some of this shopping center's earlier forays into the grocery world, turning our attention to the portion of the building a little further to the right from Aldi:
Upon the initial construction of Herndon Plaza, the original grocery tenant of this strip was Pantry Pride. As mentioned earlier, even though Pantry Pride managed to outlive its sibling chain J.M. Fields next door, Pantry Pride only made it a few more years here before the company pulled out of Central Florida entirely in the mid-1980's - the Herndon Plaza store specifically closing in either late 1984 or very early 1985. Pantry Pride was for sure closed by February 1985, as that was when it was announced Publix was relocating from a 1950's-era Wing Store location at nearby Colonial Plaza to Herndon's recently vacated Pantry Pride:
The original Colonial Plaza Publix (store #31) sat where the current Barnes & Noble building is now, with the old Publix structure demolished to make way for the bookseller. Publix was an original tenant to Colonial Plaza when it was just a little strip mall, although many in Orlando remember the site as the home of a funky little mall cobbled together through a number of additions over the years. That linked Wikipedia article goes into much more detail about the history of Colonial Plaza if you're interested in learning more about that - a "Frankenmall" in every sense of the word. Wedged next to a tacked-on Ivey's department store, Publix was a bit constrained in its later years at Colonial Plaza, so the move a few blocks away to Herndon was a welcome change for a modern grocery store of the 1980's.
The Herndon Plaza Publix (store #296) opened for business on May 22, 1986, with the Colonial Plaza store, as usual, closing the night before. The photo above was an interesting find from the newspaper archives, showing some of the interior demolition work Publix was doing to the old Pantry Pride structure in July 1985, about 10 months before the store opened. The photographer managed to catch a tiny bit of Pantry Pride's produce decor in the photo too, which was a nice sight as I've never seen any of Pantry Pride's decor before! The photo above does prove that Publix kept the Pantry Pride building, although with nearly a year of work going into this remodel, I'd have to guess Publix mostly rebuilt the interior of the structure to fit their standard late 1980's prototype. Still, it would have been interesting to see what quirks there could have been in this "Publix Pride" store, one of only 2 examples of such I've ever heard of (the other being store #595 in Miami). From the photos I've seen of #595 before it closed, it looked like a standard Publix of the era inside for the most part, but being a little older, I wonder if #296 could have had few more quirks?
The grand opening ad for the new Herndon Plaza Publix showed a sketch of the new store, which looked like a typical 1980's Publix from the design. That would lead me to believe the interior was probably pretty standardized too, but unless some really old photos appear, I guess we'll never know.
The photo quality is horrible, but I did find this 1996 picture of the Herndon Plaza Publix, where the distinct 1980's exterior can be made out from the otherwise black blur of this scan. Sadly, after 18 years at Herndon Plaza, Publix once again outgrew this aging building with an interesting past in favor of more modern pastures elsewhere. A year after Kmart closed, Publix moved a few miles to the north in 2004 to anchor the shopping district in the new Baldwin Park development. While that Publix (store #1048) has a few mildly interesting traits for such a modern store, it certainly isn't as interesting as a 1980's Publix hermit crabbing in an old Pantry Pride would have been! We'll see Publix #1048 at some point in the future, but for now, let's see what ended up happening to store #296:
When Herndon Plaza was rechristened as the Colonial Landing power center in 2006, the old Publix space was remodeled beyond recognition into one of Orlando's first hhgregg stores, which opened in 2008. hhgregg lasted at Colonial Landing until the chain went out of business in 2017. The hhgregg space was still sitting empty at the time of my first visit to Colonial Landing in 2020 (when the above photo was taken), however, a Crunch Fitness now occupies the space. With a now-empty Bed Bath and Beyond to its left, and a soon-to-be-empty Party City to its right, Colonial Landing has a few vacancies to deal with once again, but being such a busy area, I'm sure something will work out for this shopping center.
After diverting to Publix for a bit there, I want to return to the main subject of today's post and conclude with some final thoughts about Lucky's Market. 5 years after nearly going out of business, I'm sure a lot of you are wondering "Where are they now?" when it comes to Lucky's. In the bankruptcy fiasco, the founders of Lucky's Market - Bo and Trish Sharon - bought 7 stores at the bankruptcy auction, those being the locations in Boulder, CO (the original Lucky's Market), Fort Collins, CO, Traverse City, MI, Columbia, MO, West Melbourne, FL, Cleveland, OH and Columbus, OH. The Sharons immediately sold off the stores they acquired in Michigan, Missouri, and Florida to other parties. The two Ohio stores were sold off as well to local organic grocery chain Dave's Market, but Dave's Market made a deal with the Sharons to keep using the Lucky's Market name in Ohio, spawning the totally unrelated (but eerily similar to the original) Lucky's Market Ohio. As of 2025, Bo and Trish Sharon wholly own the two remaining Lucky's Market stores in Colorado, including their prized original location in Boulder, home to the Lucky's Market Bakehouse and Cafe as well. Once the dust settled from the sale, the two remaining Lucky's Market stores stayed mostly the same to what us Floridian remember, however, the Sharon's have rebranded Lucky's as "Colorado's Independent Grocery Store" (as seen in the screenshot of Lucky's website above), seeming to imply that after everything that happened, the Sharons won't be pursuing expansion (at least outside of Colorado) anytime soon again. Lucky's also seems to have scrubbed all mention of the national expansion from their history page on the website, almost like they want to forget that mess ever happened. Weirdly enough, Lucky's social media pages are all still frozen in 2020, a weird glimpse back in time to when everything fell apart for the chain. Unfortunately, the odds of Lucky's returning to Florida are pretty slim, so if anyone craves a slice of Lucky's pizza or some of their famous bacon, it'll be an 1,800 mile road trip to the Rocky Mountains for you (unless the bootleg Lucky's stores in Ohio kept all the same recipes, as the Columbus, OH Lucky's is only 950 miles from Orlando - a tad bit closer than driving to Boulder!). I have no plans of being in either Colorado or Ohio anytime soon, so Lucky's pizza will remain but a fond memory to me. Over those 5 years Lucky's was in Florida, they made quite the splash here, to the point where Publix even had to create their own version of Lucky's to combat the chain's seeming threat. Like Lucky's told us at the very end (and I really like this quote so I have to bring it up again) - "Don't be sad, be happy it happened" - advice I like to look back on when situations like this arise, advice that has come in quite handy over the last year as well, I might add.
So while that's my last tour of a Lucky's while it was still open, I do have at least one more "Life After Lucky's" contribution to add to my series before that wraps up as well. However, next time, some more Albertsons coming your way, but I have some other fun stuff coming up for March as well, so be sure to keep coming back for more!
Until the next post,
The Albertsons Florida Blogger
