Sunday, June 21, 2020

A Little Bit of Food Lion In My Life, A Little Bit of Publix By My Side...


Food Lion #1329 / Perrine's Fresh Market of Port Orange
3826 S. Clyde Morris Boulevard, Port Orange, FL - Perrine's (formerly Food Lion) Plaza

     When it comes to supermarket conversions, you never know what to expect. Sometimes the building gets gutted to the bare walls, the new tenant starting from scratch. Sometimes the new tenant barely lifts a finger or a paintbrush, leaving much intact from the store in the building prior. Sometimes the new tenant gets a good deal on bits and pieces of other stores, combining them all into a interesting compilation called Perrine's Fresh Food Market of Port Orange. I think you guys will enjoy the supermarket conversion I'll be sharing with you today, considering its little bit of this and little bit of that approach to remodeling we'll see shortly!


     If this building looks familiar to you, that's because we visited this place once before on the blog. Back in May 2018, I featured a tour of this ex-Food Lion in abandoned form, with much of its mid-2000's Food Lion decor still intact inside. To quickly recap the history of this store, Food Lion operated here from 1996 until the company closed its final Florida locations in 2012. This Food Lion was one of a handful to remain in the Daytona Beach area until 2012, Food Lion's southernmost market at the time. Food Lion's messy expansion into Florida is explained in much more detail in the original post, although it was quite impressive they lasted in Florida until the early 2010's, and weren't chased out sooner. After Food Lion closed, this building sat empty for 8 years. Located away from most of Port Orange's major retail centers, this 35,000 square foot commercial building in a mostly residential neighborhood was a tough sell. I thought this building would be chronically empty, so I was pleasantly surprised to see it found a new tenant after so long. Not only did this building find a new tenant, but a grocery tenant too - that was a complete surprise, considering how hard it is find new ones of those in Florida!


     Perrine's Fresh Food Market officially opened for business in Port Orange on November 8, 2019. Perrine's Port Orange location is considered a "flagship" for the family behind the business, and is the largest of the company's current stores. Founded in 1986, Perrine's began when founders Arnold and Dianna Perrine began selling watermelons out of the back of their pickup truck on weekends in Titusville. Formerly a NASA engineer, Mr. Perrine left that job to go all in with his wife on their produce venture, eventually establishing stores in Titusville, New Smyrna Beach, South Daytona, and Ormond Beach. Unfortunately, Perrine's South Daytona store closed permanently in 2016 after being severely damaged by Hurricane Matthew, and the Titusville store (which I believe was Perrine's first store) was sold to new owners in 2018, so the current company could focus on its core Volusia County operations. Even down two stores, Perrine's was still doing well, and was eager to expand. The Perrine's had their eye on the old Port Orange Food Lion for a number of years, and come late 2018, finally made a deal to take over the long abandoned building. With its November 2019 opening, the Perrine's finally achieved their dream of operating a full service supermarket (as all their previous locations were mostly produce-centric, or really tiny).


     Stepping onto the store's front walkway, here's where we begin to see how Perrine's features a little bit of everything from Florida's supermarket past. The cart corral at the store's left side entrance is from The Fresh Market, no attempts at all made to cover the logo of the corral's previous owner.


     To go with that cart corral was a complete set of old Earth Fare carts. Like the corral, zero attempt was made to conceal where these carts came from, with Earth Fare's logo still prominently displayed on each handle. In addition to that, all of Earth Fare's advertisements were still on the front of each cart. I hadn't even walked inside yet and things were already getting good!


     As you can tell by the fixtures, Perrine's only made very minor changes to the building itself too. Stepping into the vestibule, the place still feels very much like a Food Lion.


     Leaving the vestibule, you enter the very large produce department (which makes sense, as produce is Perrine's namesake product). Produce takes up  the majority of the left side of the store, but we'll get back to the produce department in just a moment. Let me pan the camera to the right for a quick preview of what's to come...


     As you saw in my original post from this store, Food Lion left most of their decor up on the walls when they left. I was hoping to see some of those signs get reused in the remodel, as that seemed like a possibility with a small company like this. Unfortunately, I was wrong, as Perrine's removed all of Food Lion's signs - just to replace them with ones imported from a former Publix! Like I keep saying, a little bit of everything here...


     Immediately to the left upon entering is the service desk, located in the same spot where Food Lion had theirs (at least originally, as the mid-2000's remodel might have moved the service desk to an island in the middle of the check lanes). The service desk also serves as an ice cream shop, although the serving of ice cream had been temporarily suspended here at the time of my visit due to corona. Since nobody was at the counter, I took this picture and decided to poke around here a little...


     In case you were curious as to what happened with all of the merchandise from Lucky's and Earth Fare after those chains liquidated, well, it appears it went to Perrine's! While this picture shows some chocolate bars from both chains, this wasn't the extent of Lucky's and Earth Fare branded merchandise to be found here. Perrine's had cases and cases of store branded merchandise from both chains for sale, across most grocery categories too. Perrine's must have gotten some good deals from Lucky's and Earth Fare's warehouses as those liquidated too, as Perrine's really stocked up on their stuff.


     Here's are some more examples of Lucky's and Earth Fare products I spotted while here, with the Earth Fare applesauce above, and Lucky's honey below.


     Lucky's Florida Honey - a nice touch of local flare to a market Lucky's thought they were going to dominate. Perrine's bought so many cases of honey from Lucky's liquidation, they used the cases themselves to build this display!


     Lucky's and Earth Fare products aside, as we step into the produce department, we see the check lanes and Food Lion's old bakery department in the distance, complete with a Publix bakery sign. More on the bakery later in the post though, as we'll continue now with our walk through the produce department.


     A Publix restrooms sign hangs in the corner of the produce department, pointing into a small corridor.


     Looking into the corridor, the restrooms are behind those doors to my the left. The wall you see to my right was added by Perrine's, one of the only major modifications they made to this building after moving in. Perrine's partitioned off Food Lion's old frozen food department to create more backroom space, reducing the width of the store by a little bit.


     Returning to the main sales floor, here's a look toward the new wall, featuring a painting of Perrine's logo (as well as some random stock photos of food).


     The centerpiece of Perrine's Port Orange store, located prominently at the front of the building, is "Big Blue". Big Blue is a 1950's Ford pickup truck decorated with Perrine's logo on the side, now used a showpiece for various displays. Big Blue isn't a prop either - it's an actual pickup truck. I have no idea if it still runs, but it certainly could if the Perrine's wanted it to!


     Unfortunately, Perrine's had a lot of large displays blocking much of Big Blue when I was here, but I still walked around it to get a few photos. I like the way they set up the peach crates in the bed of the truck, creating the effect of peaches spilling out into the crates below.


     Big Blue is a neat little nod to how Perrine's Produce was started by two people selling produce out of the back of their pickup truck (and for all I know, this could be that very pickup truck). I'm also rather curious as to how the Perrine's got this truck in here (maybe it was narrow enough to go through the front door?), as getting a pickup truck into a supermarket sounds like a tricky task (but hopefully not as tricky getting a trolley out of a restaurant, which MFR contributor Retail Retell discussed on his blog recently).


     Leaving the produce department, we find some displays of promotional items as we move toward the deli island.


     In the middle of the sales floor is the deli island, which offered a full selection of sliced deli meats as well as prepared foods too. In front of the deli is the salad bar, which was stocked with various containers of pre-packaged salads at the time due to corona.


     Please tell me I'm not the only one who's mind still tries to imagine the word "Publix" over that deli logo, just like in the original sign. All of the Publix decor brought in here came from a Classy Market 3.0 store that closed, however I have no idea which one. The only store Publix closed in Volusia County in the last year happened a month after Perrine's of Port Orange opened, and that store had Classy Market 2.0 when it closed. The Perrine's had to have traveled somewhere outside the area to acquire all this decor.


     Rounding the side of the deli, here's a look toward the front of the store once again, as well as a quick peek at Perrine's bulk food selection.


     Here's one final look into the produce department, looking at the coolers along the new partition wall.


     Even though Perrine's Fresh Market is a full service supermarket, it's run in a manner much closer to Lucky's and Earth Fare than Publix, placing more emphasis on the fresh departments and local/specialty/hard-to-find products. Unlike Lucky's and Earth Fare, Perrine's isn't dedicated to organic foods though, even though Perrine's format is similar to what the organic guys use. Anyway, like many stores that place an emphasis on fresh products, a large selection of wines could also be found here. Wines take up the back left corner of the sales floor.


     Some fake branches extend out from that pole in the middle of the wine department for a tree-like effect. In addition to that, some hand-painted murals line the walls of the wine department, featuring some grape vines to go with the vineyard theme. Unlike a lot of the retail relic decor in the rest of the building, I think pretty much all of the wine department decor was homemade.


     Perrine's also sold souvenir wine glasses, embellished with their logo. I didn't buy one, but I thought it was a neat product.


     Leaving the wine department, the meat and seafood counters take up the remaining space in the back of the store.


     I don't really know what to call them, but those decorative wooden things hanging over the back of the store are the only decor relic left by Food Lion that Perrine's reused.


     So while we have some Food Lion remnants hanging on above, the imported Publix remnants can be found on the walls, including the old Publix "Seafood" sign above the service counter.


    To keep things interesting, Perrine's also hung some seafood props on the wall around the sign.


     To the left of the seafood counter in the meat counter, featuring another old Publix sign. Perrine's meat counter is located where Food Lion's used to be, with Food Lion's meat coolers extending along the wall where the wine is now. The Seafood counter we just saw was located along the back wall of Food Lion's former produce department.


     Here's a look across the back of the store at the service meat counter. The meat counter was really busy when I visited the store, so it must be a decent place to buy meat.


     The back right corner of the store is home to the dry grocery selection, housed in about 4 aisles between seafood and the bakery. Here's a look down one of the aisles, where three of Food Lion's old tile patterns all meet at one point (the faux wood tile being from the produce department, the two-tone brown stripes being from the meat department, and the rest being the tile pattern in the remainder of the store).


     Perrine's offers a little bit of everything in the grocery aisles, including organic and non-organic products. It seems like Perrine's does a bit of closeout/liquidation buying too (hence all the Lucky's and Earth Fare merchandise), so there's probably a decent variety of merchandise finding its way in here all the time.


     Speaking of those Lucky's and Earth Fare products, here's one last example of those mixed in with the selection of canned goods.


     The last grocery aisle was home to frozen foods and non-food products. The sign for the Frozen Food department is another Publix remnant, with the coolers most likely being second-hand too (although I couldn't tell you from where).


     A random picture of the corner, where some overflow coolers from the seafood department were kept.


     Here's a final look at the frozen food aisle, with the bakery department visible in the background.


     The bakery now in sight, we'll use this time for a quick look over here...


     When Food Lion was here, both the deli and bakery would have been housed under that lower ceiling in the front right corner of the store. Since Perrine's would be offering a larger selection of prepared foods and baked goods than Food Lion did, Perrine's moved the deli into the newly-created island, giving their bakery department full run of this corner.


     The hanging wooden thing over the bakery sales floor is another Food Lion remnant. These things were a distinctive piece of Food Lion's mid-2000's decor, and from the looks of it, are probably difficult to remove (as not only are they big, but they also contain most of the department's lighting).


     Perrine's offers a large selection of baked goods, ranging from products baked in-store to pre-packaged goods.


     The bakery sign is yet another Publix remnant, just sans the "Publix" part that would have originally been placed above the word "bakery". The way Perrine's placed the sign on the wall is a bit odd, as it's not centered. Unless Perrine's plans to put their own logo above the word "bakery" at some point, this sign just looks a little out of place in its current form.


     Lots of fresh baked breads can be seen here from Perrine's bakery...


     ...and apparently, Lucky's bakery too. At some auction (presumably at the former Ormond Beach Lucky's store), Perrine's must have acquired Lucky's flower duster in addition to other fixtures. I found it amusing seeing Lucky's script-L logo dusted over the top of many of Perrine's bread loaves. I guess once all the Lucky's product Perrine's bought sells out, we'll have this interesting way to remember Lucky's time in Florida by. I never would have thought to look for supermarket relics on loaves of bread before, but I guess anything is possible!


     From the bakery department, here are a few final views across the store, this photo looking toward the back of the building and the seafood department.


     Turning 90 degrees to the left, here's a look from the bakery toward the produce department.


     And lastly, here's our view toward the check lanes. Unlike most supermarkets, who place their check lanes in a neat row across the front of the store, Perrine's does something different. Perrine's arranges their check lanes to extend inward from the front into the sales floor, like you see above. It's different, but it doesn't feel like an awkward arrangement when you shop here.


     While the wooden trellis (ah, that's the word I've been trying to think of all this time!) over the check lanes looks similar to the ones hanging over the meat and bakery departments, the check lane trellis isn't from Food Lion (although they did have a similar one to match the rest of the decor, but it was removed after the store closed). That trellis is yet another Fresh Market relic.


     As you saw, there was a lot going on at this place, with a little bit of many supermarkets represented within these walls! Decor aside, this was a neat little store, and a nice reuse of this long abandoned Food Lion. Hopefully Perrine's will have plenty of success with this store, and if they choose to open more like this one, I'll certainly be curious to see what the inside is all about!

     I hope you guys enjoyed this little update to the Port Orange Food Lion. However, the time of year has come to where I take my usual summer break. That being said, I won't be posting anything new on here for the month of July, although keep an eye on My Florida Retail throughout July for new posts from either myself or the blog's other contributors. AFB will be back in full swing come August though, with plenty of great stores to tour, a big Florida supermarket anniversary to celebrate this fall, and possibly a themed posting series or two (sounds intriguing, right?), so you have something to look forward to upon my return!

That being said, I'll see you guys again in August! So until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger

17 comments:

  1. Change the exterior signage, shopping carts and corrals, while adding Welcome to Publix signs at the entrance, along with Sienna aisle and checkout signs, and you can make this a new Publix supermarket!

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  2. Those bread loaves looked really good! That's so interesting seeing so many Publix decor in an old Food Lion. As for all those Earth Fare and Lucky's canned goods, I hope Perrine's can sell them before they expire. Then again canned goods have long shelf lives, unlike snack cakes.

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    1. Perrine's had a nice little bakery, and some good deals on produce too. The fact this is an old Food Lion makes the presence of all the Publix remnants that much stranger to see. It really seemed like a lot of the stuff Perrine's bought off Lucky's and Earth Fare were the more shelf-stable items, so they should be able to sell off much of it long before it goes bad.

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  3. I'm pretty sure the décor must have been taken from the old Publix, The Trails in Ormond Beach due to mentioning Ormond, but then again I don't think it closed from 3.0. The old Volusia Publix with 2.0 might have been #513. Also, did you see the poorly screenshotted photos of Publix #471 I sent you?

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    1. Ormond Beach closed with 2.0 (Publix never remodeled it since the replacement had been in the works for a while), and that store closed a month after Perrine's opened anyway. Perrine's signed the lease for this store in November 2018, so they could have picked up the Publix decor remnants from just about any Publix in Central Florida that closed during that time as they prepared to open the new store. And I sent you a reply via email about the screenshots.

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    2. Woah, either Perrine's painted the Publix bakery sign black, or they got all of the signage from a rare "Black Sienna" store that closed! Both #742 and #796 had backlit bakery signs rather than the foam one like this too. This is a big mystery! Is that "Frozen" sign still mounted to the original Publix backplane, too?

      Crazy to see all of this combined with the Rutherfordton remnants and the Earth Fare / Lucky's products.

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  4. Wow, this store is a TRIP! You weren't kidding when you said this store has a little bit of a lot of supermarkets inside. It's crazy to see a store with such a hodgepodge collection of undisguised décor, and of course a supermarket blogger's dream as well. So cool to see all the little disparate details in this store, and glad you got to experience it and photograph it for all of us to enjoy, too.

    Obviously, that Publix décor is the showstopper here, but all of the other stuff is nothing to scoff at, either. Food Lion! Fresh Market! Earth Fare! Lucky's! Maybe future Perrine's stores will be further museums of Florida supermarkets. I'd love to see some Albertsons and Florida Choice stuff reappear! (Sadly, poor Winn-Dixie wouldn't have any outdated décor to add to the fun, since they're still hanging onto all of it for their own stores XD )

    Besides supplying fixtures (including that Lucky's flour duster -- how wild is that?!), it's weird to see so many Lucky's and Earth Fare branded products as well. I mean, I knew it had to go somewhere, but I wasn't expecting it to wind up in a regular supermarket! While that's all fine and dandy, I'd be interested to see what replaces those items once they sell out. I'm not sure if the owners intend for this store to have more of a regular selection of items, or adopt a closeout merchandise model. Perhaps that's something they're still deciding on as they go, even.

    "Big Blue" reminds me of the trucks they used to have in Old Navy stores, long ago. That would be the star of the show, I'm sure, if not for all the other cool stuff here! Thanks for the shoutout/link as well, and lol at the trellis comment. (At least the word finally came to you -- usually, it takes days to arrive on my end!)

    The wine department looks nice, and had the owners chosen to have gone that route for the rest of the décor, I'm confident the whole store would've still looked good. But the décor (and fixtures, and merchandise, and...) that they did wind up acquiring instead took this place to the next level. Fantastic post to close on for the summer, and I'm looking forward to all the content you have planned for the rest of the year beginning in August! Finally, I hope the owners of this store will be successful with their first full-service supermarket and wish them the best of luck in future operations and (if desirable) expansions.

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    1. It sure is, and I was very eager to drive up here once I stumbled upon this place! When I was up this way, I also happened to stop at one of Perrine's other locations (it was in the same plaza as another stop of mine) and interestingly, it was not as much of a relic room as this location was. All the decor in the other store was homemade, which probably would have been the case here had someone not gotten a deal on the stuff from Publix. I certainly will be monitoring to see if Perrine's ever opens another new store (which seems possible, however Perrine's seems to expand based on opportunity rather than actively seeking out new sites). If a new store follows in the vein of this one, it certainly will be interesting to see (as I'd love to see what fixtures and decor they get a deal on next - and LOL about Winn-Dixie!)

      I'm surprised Perrine's can get away with dusting Lucky's logo on their loaves of bread, but considering how battered Lucky's is now, and how they no longer operate in Florida anyway, they probably could care less. While I only showed a few examples of the Lucky's and Earth Fare products, there was so much of that stuff here. Even Perrine's circular the week I was here heavily featured those products! While Perrine's has shown they'll take a good deal when they find one, I don't know if they'll continue to seek out closeouts or find a more permanent selection to offer though. Like you said, maybe they're still trying to feel things out too.

      I completely forgot about those Old Navy trucks! Big Blue is surely a showpiece in its own right, but mix in everything else, and it's just one of many. And you're welcome!

      Glad you liked the post, and I'm sure you'll like what I have planned for the fall!

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    2. The Fry's Electronics store in the Greenspoint area of Houston has a truck inside it which makes Perrine's Big Blue look like a modern marvel! I believe the Fry's truck is a 1926-1932 Ford Model AA. It has a Texas state inspection sticker in the window so I suppose it was still being driven on the roads at least when the store opened in around the year 2000.

      The store uses the truck to advertise their home delivery service. Most Fry's Electronics stores are heavily themed and the three Houston locations are no exception. This particular store is themed after Houston's role in petroleum industry and so the truck has a fake vintage logo saying Fry's Petroleum. The Webster/Clear Lake Fry's has a neat NASA theme which might have been as at home in a part of Florida as it is here in Houston. Fry's Electronics is not doing well these days and so these stores may not stay alive for much longer. Je of the Louisiana & Texas Retail Blog recently announced that he photographed these Houston area Fry's stores and will make blog posts about them so I suppose those interested in these stores should be on the lookout for those posts.

      Anyway, here's a link to the Fry's truck: https://goo.gl/maps/RqDDrr16Q3MmndEe9

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  5. While there probably aren't too many Florida grocery shoppers who really dislike Publix or who are bored by them, surely there must be a few people who feel that way. Perhaps those people will see this Perrine's and get excited. Then, as they walk into the store, they are greeted by...Publix! Oh no! Floridians just can't seem to avoid Publix even when they seemingly are avoiding Publix.

    While I've certainly seen retailers reuse decor from a building's prior tenant, I can't remember a situation where a retailer brought in decor from another grocer in a different building and then re-homed it the way we see here. And, of course, there aren't just Publix fixtures in this store. I have to wonder if Publix knowingly sold their decor off to Perrine's or what. Surely it wasn't just a case of dumpster diving, but who knows. When the Moon Township Super Kmart closed several years back, they did sell some of the signage and other fixtures in what was hilariously called the "K-Mart's Flea Market." Maybe there is a Publix flea market somewhere and we just don't know about it. Here is a link to the Kmart flea market: http://www.deadanddyingretail.com/2013/07/death-of-super-kmart-moon-township-story.html

    All in all, I think the decor of the store looks pretty nice and cohesive even with it coming from various different sources. That off-center Bakery sign might look odd to you because you're used to there being more associated with that sign, but it actually looks quite nice to me. I really like it. It probably helps that I'm not familiar with how Publix would use that signage.

    This store might really appeal to those who are very serious about recycling and reusing materials. This store may well be more green than some of those so-called green stores. There is probably a tremendous amount of waste when retailers redecorate. Some may say that is senseless waste, but what is garbage to some retailers seems to be treasure to Perrine's. It's really funny that they are even reusing the Lucky's flour duster. I bet if we walked into the houses/garages of Perrine's upper management, we'd probably see things like screws stored in old coffee or mayonnaise containers and stuff like that, lol. There's certainly nothing wrong with that.

    I'm a little amazed even when I look at the pre-Perrine's images of this building. It's strange to see a Food Lion building like that which isn't stuck with a 1993-era interior. I know I mentioned it before, but we have three Food Towns here in Houston in old Food Lion locations (of course, as mentioned earlier as well, Food Lion itself used to be named Food Town!) and all of them are reusing Food Lion's early 1990s interior decor. Here's a link to one of them from the Historic Houston Retail blog: https://houstonhistoricretail.com/grocery/food-lion/

    In addition to that, we have a Fiesta Mart in the metro area which is in an old Food Lion. Fiesta Mart is known for their unique, bright, and colorful interiors. Well, in this case, the store is neither unique or colorful because they totally reused the 1990s Food Lion decor. All they did was paint Food Lion's lettering in brighter, more varied colors. Link: https://goo.gl/maps/5acbvt16e9dLigMt8

    Then there is the Hong Kong Food Market location in town in an old Food Lion which still has Food Lion's early 1990s aisle signs. I believe I briefly mentioned this store in a reply on the Mid-South Retail blog. This is from the era when aisle signs had advertisements for grocery products so you'll see circa 1993 faded advertisements for Miracle Whip, Scope, and stuff like that here. It's a real blast from the past. Link: https://goo.gl/maps/Z1urCjofdBn7aJ568

    Anyway, thanks for documenting this Perrine's. It's really strange seeing used decor from other buildings being used in a pretty nice supermarket like this. Strange, but neat.

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    1. I guess Perrine's is running this store on the mantra of "if you can't beat them, then join them". If Publix got lots of success using this decor, then maybe Perrine's can too!

      I've seen plenty of smaller and independent stores import aisle markers or a sign or two from big chains into other buildings, but nothing quite to the extent of this! When Publix closes a store, they typically have a fixture auction (and I actually profiled one here: http://myfloridaretail.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-closing-of-publix-publix-107-banana.html) At the auction, just about anything (as long as it doesn't have a logo on it) can be sold to anyone, including the decor. One of the Perrine's must have gone to a Publix auction, and picked up all those signs for a good price. Publix's auctions are similar to the "Kmart Flea Market" you linked to - although you have to bid on the item rather than buy it right off the floor.

      The bakery sign would have had "Publix" spelled out above the letter blocks, and "Est. 1957" under it. The post I linked to above has an example of that sign in it.

      I guess this store really takes the "green" approach to retailing to an entirely new level! I've experienced a retail remodel personally, and you're correct, there is so much waste. Literally everything we didn't need was tossed into the trash. It was such a waste, as some things that were discarded were still good, and could have been useful to someone else. As crazy as it is to see the eclectic compilation of things other stores didn't want anymore in here, it's nice to see this stuff get reused rather than trashed. It's nice to know the Perrine's have an eye for salvage!

      While Food Lion still had many stores in Northeastern Florida that had never been touched since the 90's at the time the company left the state in 2012, there were still some that got remodeled in later years (and they even built a few new stores here in the mid-late 2000's too). I really don't know how many stores Food Lion remodeled in Florida before pulling out of the state, but at least they tried updating a few locations. It's fun seeing that old early 90's Food Lion decor still intact in Houston, where Food Lion didn't even last very long. I'd love to visit one of those stores if I ever had the chance! It's also crazy the Hong Kong Food Market left the old original ads on those aisle markers, but it certainly is a fun blast from the past to see! Glad you liked to post too!

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  6. What an interesting store! I love all the various relics that you can see throughout, but my favorite has to be the bread. I'm not sure the combination is too successful though -- from the pictures, it looks very haphazard and a little disorganized. Is that the feeling you get in person? Anyway, this is a great tour of a fascinating store, really a nice change of pace!

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    1. This place really is a unique blend of retail relics, even down to the bakery items! :) I didn't get a haphazard and disorganized feeling when I was here. Really, it seems like Perrine's based the layout of this store on that of Lucky's Market (see here for example: http://albertsonsfloridablog.blogspot.com/2020/02/what-happens-when-your-luck-runs-dry.html). Lucky's had a similar floorplan with the grocery aisles clustered in the back corner of the store, and the fresh departments arranged around them in various ways. Considering Perrine's is also trying to push fresh products (like Lucky's), they must have liked their layout (and their flour duster :) )

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    2. That makes sense. Sometimes these really interesting if slightly unusual layouts can be very hard to convey over the blog posts, I know! Glad to hear the shopping experience works in-store.

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  7. I used to live in Virginia Beach for work and Food Lion is big there. A great local chain called Farm Fresh sold and Food Lion did take over a few of their very fancy stores and didn't change much at all. Food Lion is pretty generic in decor and style so it would be interesting to see how the fancier Farm Fresh stores play in.

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    1. I sometimes go there for vacations. XD

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