Albertsons #4311 / Publix #1321
3030 54th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, FL - Seville Square
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| Today's post is a presentation of Pinellas County retail |
A Palace Lies Beneath
From the Winn-Dixiesons last week, you probably could have guessed that at some point during this celebration, we'd be visiting a Publixsons. With around 70 Publixsons stores out there and having visited the vast majority of the remaining ones in some form, at least one of them would have had to stand out to me, right? While there are some interesting Publixsons stores that exist (and some that no longer exist), the one we'll be seeing here in old #4311 was my absolute favorite Publixsons visit of all time (for reasons that will become super obvious once we walk inside). Located about as far south as you can go in Pinellas County before reaching the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, this Publixsons in southern St. Petersburg was a great way to kick off my morning of grocery store visits, and worth all the traffic I had to drive through to get here! Before we head inside, let's talk a little bit about the history of Albertsons #4311 and what's happened on this property over the last 50 years:
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| Photo courtesy of YonWooRetail2 |
As I've shared many times in the past, Albertsons had deep roots in Pinellas County. St. Petersburg was the home to one of the first few Albertsons stores, with store #4302 opening on the far northern side of town in December 1974. With St. Petersburg being a pretty large city, it didn't take long before the city received a few more Albertsons stores of its own. By early 1976, St. Petersburg would gain two more Albertsons stores, those being sibling stores #4311 on the south side of town and #4312 near Kenneth City. Store #4311 opened for business on February 11, 1976, its grand opening advertisement featured above. Store #4311 was old enough to have opened during the Skaggs-Albertsons era, using that name for its first year in operation before becoming just "Albertsons" in 1977, following the dissolution of the Skaggs partnership. After reading Retail Retell's recent blog post about inflation, it sure is depressing looking at the prices featured in that ad above!
Presumably in the late 1980's, Albertsons #4311 received its first remodel to the "Colorful Transition Market" decor, a rare glimpse of it featured above in a still frame from this YouTube video YonWoo dug up a while back. (In case you were wondering, the video is of someone's Spanish class project from 1991, hence why the guy in the still frame is wearing a sombrero). The video contains a few glimpses of the wall from here in aisle 4, as well as a closeup of the store's original entrance at the very beginning.
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| Photo courtesy of Google Street View |
Colorful Transition Market was probably looking a bit dated by the turn of the new Millennium, so around that time Albertsons did a complete overhaul of this store yet again, remodeling the interior to Grocery Palace, building a new liquor store, and redoing the facade to bring this store into the 21st century.
Being a Pinellas County Albertsons store, I'm sure this location did well through the years, especially since it lasted as an Albertsons for 32 years before being sold to Publix in 2008 (as part of the deal in which 13 Albertsons stores in Pinellas County and 49 total throughout Florida were sold to Publix that year). As we've seen time and time again, following a few month transitional period, Publix reopened this store on January 15, 2009 with the standard cheap Classy Market 2.0 remodel so many of those Albertsons stores purchased by Publix in 2008 received. Sometime around 2016 this store received its second remodel by Publix, this time swapping out Classy Market 2.0 for Classy Market 3.0/Sienna, with some rather interesting results though.
The glare from the sun wasn't helping me this particular morning, but we can still make out the store's facade here. If you look closely you can still see the bones of the building's original Skaggs design, although the facade was reconfigured to have a traditional Grocery Palace newbuild's entryway.
Without all the glare in the way, we can see much better the Grocery Palace-era "pillow" detailing on the stucco (as for some reason that pattern always reminded me of something you'd see throw pillow). Besides the paint color, Publix hasn't changed anything to the store's facade since moving in, and once we head inside, we'll see the sentiment isn't much different in there.
The store's main entrance is located under the Publix logo, with another set of doors serving as the exit to my right. If you watched the video from 1991 before, you'll see the second set of doors were further toward the right side of the building. In the store's Grocery Palace reconfiguration the doors were consolidated toward the left side of the building, with Albertsons transforming this store into a (roughly) left-aligned Grocery Palace layout.
Stepping inside, not only do I smell a strange combination of cinnamon spice brooms and fried chicken, but I smell some Grocery Palace remnants too...
…a lot of Grocery Palace remnants, may I add! While it was typical to see all these Albertsons decor remnants survive a cheap Classy Market 2.0 remodel in 2008/2009, only one other time have I seen so many remnants from the store's previous Albertsons decor package survive the Classy Market 3.0/Sienna remodel, and that was at the previously Blue and Gray Market store #4431 in Clearwater (which is scheduled for demolition and replacement in the near future, which also concerns me about the future of this store, but let's not think about that right now!). We also saw Grocery Palace survive a Classy Market 2.5 remodel at store #4307 in Jacksonville, although CM 2.5 remodels were more notorious for being on the cheap side than the remodels that came later during the CM 3.0/Sienna era.
Albeit painted in CM 3.0/Sienna's livery, all of the Grocery Palace trim and detailing survives to this day in this Publix store. All the old trim was painted nicely, to where it seems like it was supposed to be there all this time with Publix's decor! Being an older store with a lower ceiling this store probably lacked the deli's signature spinning chef sign, but otherwise here is what this area would have looked like originally.
The portion of the deli department across the building's front wall would have originally been home to Albertsons' prepared foods selection. With Grocery Palace deli departments being rather large, Publix didn't have much of a use for this part of the department. Some cases of prepackaged deli line the space in front of the old counter, with a faux wall under the deli sign blocking the portion of the former service counter space Publix no longer uses.
Publix's deli operations were consolidated into the portion of the department located along the store's left wall, that portion of the counter home to the Pub Sub station, hot foods, and the cold cut counter. Some more coolers of prepackaged deli are located in the center of the salesfloor in front of the deli.
The bakery is located between the deli and produce along the left side wall, following this store's original Skaggs-era layout. In a traditional Grocery Palace store, the bakery would have been along the back wall behind produce. However, probably being more effort than it was worth to move the bakery during the remodel, it stayed put in its original location, receiving a scaled back version of Grocery Palace's bakery decor.
A rare feat for me - a non-crowded shot of the Publix deli counter! Yes I was here really early in the day, but I've seen people buying Pub Subs at 7:30 in the morning before, so time has no effect on Pub Sub cravings!
Here's a look from the deli toward the store's bakery department. While the bakery looks tiny, it's actually normal size. Part of the bakery's prep area is behind the produce wall, so when viewed from further away, it looks like the bakery only has this tiny corner to operate out of.
The produce department occupies the back left corner of the building, along with the 3/4 length aisle 1.
Those spotlights now shinedown on Publix's famous (or infamous) artichoke graphic, although back in the Albertsons days, the placement of those lights made a lot more sense. I wish Publix could have stretched the artichoke picture out a little more or centered it better against the existing spotlights, as the spotlight closest to the corner just illuminates the blank green wall now.
From produce, here's a look back toward the deli and bakery counters. In the background of this photo you'll also see a giant Buccaneers promo display, which was out to capitalize on the Buc's recent Super Bowl win (my visit to this store happened at the beginning of the NFL season following that win). The Bucs came pretty close to making it to the Super Bowl again that season, but alas, they lost in the playoffs to the LA Rams, whose win that day sent them to the Super Bowl instead.
2021 was a high point for Tampa Bay sports teams, following the Buccaneer's win at the Super Bowl and the Tampa Bay Lightening taking home the Stanley Cup for the second year in a row. As such, all the big grocery vendors like Frito Lay and Anheuser Busch were going heavy on Tampa sports promo displays that year, and Publix even had a banner out front (visible in my exterior photos of this store) proclaiming #GoBucs! I'm not a big follower of professional sports, but it's nice to see some local pride come out of those big sporting wins that year. Anyway, from sports grand champions to this prize-winning Publixsons, here's another look at the store's produce department, with the paint scheme for produce switching to the Meat department's red color over the stockroom door.
As you'd imagine, following that door to the stockroom we find the store's meat coolers, followed by the meat and seafood service counter located about halfway down the back wall.
Above the meat coolers we find some of Albertsons' signature wood paneling staring back at us, just painted over in Sienna brown.
Following aisle 1 which runs along side the produce department, aisle 2 here is the first full length grocery aisle in this store. Visible to the left we see a remnant from the great Gatorade shortage of 2021, which was an actual thing for a time.
Like most Publix stores in older Albertsons buildings, this store had the dual front actionway set-up, with a series of short aisles separating the main grocery aisles from the check lanes (and in this store, the pharmacy/floral island too). I believe the grocery aisles were the only thing Publix reconfigured from the Albertsons days, as the dual front actionway layout is very much a Publix thing and not a remnant from Albertsons.
Another sign of the grocery aisles being reconfigured are the support poles not lining up nicely with the shelves, as we can see here in aisle 3.
The few short aisles in front of the pharmacy portion of the island contain health and beauty products, serving as Publix's take on the "Better Care Center". From the end of the aisle we also get a nice (if semi-obstructed) view of the counter and its Grocery Palace remnants too.
While it doesn't happen all the time, I have seen a few instances where Publix has removed the original Grocery Palace pharmacy island during a later remodel in favor of a more traditional pharmacy placement off in the corner by the front check lanes. However, I've also seen these islands totally overhauled to the CM 3.0/Sienna standards. Regardless of how Publix treats the island, seeing the Publix Pharmacy logo perfectly centered in the middle of Albertsons' original Grocery Palace trim is a bit wild to see!
Next door to the pharmacy is the floral counter, also retaining its original home (and its original trim) from the Albertsons days.
Here's a look from one of the health and beauty aisles toward the main grocery aisles. If you look toward the top of the back wall, you can also see the window for the original upstairs offices located above the meat and seafood counter.
And speaking of the meat and seafood counter, here's a close-up of it (or at least, the Seafood half of it). Under the seafood sign you can see the self-serve frozen seafood cases, with the main counter, located under the meat sign, slightly cut off.
Aisle 7 is fairly wide, as Albertsons' placement of the beer walk-in cooler in the middle of the salesfloor created a bit of an obstruction for Publix to work around when rearranging the grocery aisles.
To accommodate the beer cooler, the gap between aisles 7 and 8 is pretty wide, leading to larger endcaps between those two aisles (like the large beer cooler we saw opposite the meat and seafood service counter).
Aisle 8 itself is also pretty wide, with enough space for a few pallet drops to be placed in the middle of the aisle.
While this was a public beer walk-in cooler while Albertsons was here, Publix has made the cooler for employees only, creating a custom graphic specifically for this store to cover the door so no one finds the temptation to enter. Even though the inside of the cooler is probably comprised mostly of beer overstock left by the vendors, that's pretty much what it was used for during the Albertsons days too. If your beer of choice was out of stock on the outward facing coolers, you could enter the cooler and look around to see if it was in there. In addition to the overstock beer, Albertsons also kept kegs of beer inside the coolers for sale (which I'm sure made this Albertsons popular with the students at Eckerd College just across I-275 from here). Publix seems to be keeping the tradition of selling beer kegs alive as well, but unlike Albertsons, it appears you have to go next door to the liquor store for your beer keg now.
Returning to the store's back wall, following the meat counter, we find the former "International Deli" alcove.
While its not signed at the "International Deli" anymore (actually, Publix doesn't sign this alcove as anything these days), the selection of prepackaged lunch meats, cheeses, and other deli goods are still located in the alcove.
Moving further along toward the store's right wall, we find the non-grocery product aisles, with paper goods in aisle 10. While Gatorade was in short supply during my visit, at least the toilet paper supply had somewhat stabilized by the time of my visit.
Here's another look across the front of the store, just from the right side of the building this time, near the front of frozen foods.
Soaps and such in aisle 11.
By the time we get to aisle 13, food items return as we find ourselves in the chips and snack foods aisle.
Frozen foods occupy the last aisle and a half of this store, located under this lower ceiling (which is a variant of the curvy lower ceiling the newbuild Grocery Palace stores got).
Half of aisle 14 contains frozen foods, with the other half home to charcoal, pool supplies, and other outdoors-y stuff. Due to the lower ceiling over half of the aisle, Publix installed their aisle marker in the half of the aisle with the higher ceiling, which just looks a bit odd to me!
In addition to frozen foods, dairy is located under the lower ceiling as well. Dairy begins with the milk coolers on the back wall, and wraps around the right side wall down aisle 15. Since this store was a remodel to an older building with a tight space allotted for the milk cooler, it most likely never got the famous Grocery Palace "dairy barn" (which would have been located in this back corner. Could you only imagine what that barn would have looked like if it were cheaply painted over in CM 3.0/Sienna colors?!
With the lower ceiling, the store's last aisle, aisle 15, is a bit dark and cavernous. I believe Publix replaced the ceiling in this aisle at some point, as the lighting over the coolers looks like Publix's standard square lights. Albertsons' Grocery Palace frozen food departments had a wooden grid ceiling that was notorious for falling apart, so Publix replacing that wouldn't surprise me.
Exiting the frozen foods cavern aisle, we find ourselves in the wine department.
When Albertsons was here, wine would have been located in the middle of the store opposite the beer walk-in cooler, probably looking something like this. The pet department would have been located in this corner where the wine is now following the standard Grocery Palace layout. With Publix's pet department typically no bigger than a standard grocery aisle in size, I can see why that department was moved into the main salesfloor in favor of a larger wine department in the front right corner.
From the front of the store, here's a look back toward Frozen Foods. Interestingly, again due to the lower ceiling, aisle 15's sign is located beyond the end of the aisle following the end of the ceiling height drop. Aisle 15 doesn't have a sign at the back end either, because there was no where to put one without it hanging from the lower ceiling. Unlike some stores (like Kroger, or specifically at that link, QFC) Publix doesn't have a lower ceiling variant of their aisle markers, as most Publix stores typically don't have lower ceilings to deal with.
I framed this photo a bit strangely with that pole on the side, but even with that there, we still get a nice overview of the store's front end.
Customer service is located along the front wall toward the far end of the check lanes. My local Grocery Palace Albertsons originally had its service desk on the back side of the pharmacy island in front of the main entrance, but customer service was eventually moved to this general area to replace the store's long vacant photo counter during a "refresh". That being said, the customer service counter could have been located here during Albertsons' tenure, or it could have been Publix that placed it here, repurposing an old Albertsons service counter of another kind - I'm not really sure.
Unlike some Publixsons stores where everything is spaced far apart due to the size of the building, this store seems pretty jam packed with stuff! As such, the front end seems pretty cramped compared to most Publix stores, especially with the poles and other assorted displays in the middle of the aisle.
The "Thank you for shopping Publix" sign appears to be placed over Albertsons' old video rental department. The video rental department at the Grocery Palace store I went to most often looked similar to that, with the notched corner upon which the department sign was hung. However, the way the molding is placed makes makes it seem like the wall would be too short for the standard "video" sign as seen at that link, so maybe this store had an alternate version of that sign due to the ceiling height? Or maybe this was something else (like a bank or a café)? It's hard to tell with a non-standard front end like this, being a remodeled older store.
Before we head back outside, here's a look across the back side of the pharmacy and floral island. Those spotlights on the wall above the cart corral would have originally pointed at the "Albertsons Reading Center" (or "Acme Reading Center" as we see at that link) sign. There would have originally been a wall separating the cart corral from the aisle, upon which would have been the store's selection of books and magazines. Albertsons was known to rip out that wall on their own later on to make this area a bit more spacious, but there's a chance Publix could have done it too. Regardless, so the spotlights weren't pointing toward nothing after the wall was removed, someone decided to swivel the lights outward to point toward the opposite wall. Pointing the lights like that isn't doing much either, but at least Publix gets a nicely illuminated order pickup staging area!
As gaudy as it was, Grocery Palace is by far my favorite supermarket decor package of all time, purely for the fact that it was gaudy and outlandish. How many other stores have you seen hang a giant bowl of party mix from the ceiling? I can't think of any others myself! That crazy decor is a big part of what began my interest in Albertsons, so seeing any little bits and pieces of it that remain in the wild really take me back. From my understanding, and not counting former locations, only 4 stores left in the Albertsons chain (inclusive of all banners) have Grocery Palace as of 2023. Those stores are the Albertsons in Battle Ground, WA and Chandler, AZ, and the Acme stores in Yardville, NJ and Milltown, NJ. For a true Grocery Palace nostalgia trip I'd have to travel over 1,000 miles, but thankfully I can settle for some nostalgia trips a bit closer to home, which still do a good job of getting the point across.
Anyway, before we jump into the satellite imagery, here's a quick look at old #4311's liquor store, located on the right side of the building. Prior to the Grocery Palace remodel, the liquor store would have been located in this same general area, just tucked into the side entrance which was sealed off to build the new liquor store.
Our tour complete, let's jump into the aerial images, starting with the Bird's Eye aerial images courtesy of Bing Maps:
Front
Right Side
Back
Left Side
And now for some historic aerials images, courtesy of Google Earth and historicaerials.com:
Former Albertsons #4311 - 2023 - Here's the entirety of Seville Square. The former Albertsons building is on the far left, with the center's other anchor, Bealls Florida, toward the right. Albertsons pre-dated the rest of the shopping center by 12 years, with Bealls Florida and the other stores not being constructed until 1988.
Albertsons #4311 - 2008
Albertsons #4311 - 1998 - The building pre-Grocery Palace
Albertsons #4311 - 1984 - Back when only Albertsons was on this corner
Future Albertsons #4311 - 1969 - Nothing here yet
Amazingly, to this day, a palace lies beneath all of Publix's new paint and signs. Like I said before, cheap remodels to a Publixsons building typically aren't a good sign of the building's long-term outlook for Publix, but a guy can still dream about what all those Grocery Palace remnants would look like painted in Evergreen's color scheme, right? As much as I don't want to see it happen, I think this store is a high contender for Publix's bulldozer team in the near future. I would love to be proven wrong though, as I would happily drive back out here to see what this place would look like with Evergreen! Regardless of whatever fate may bring, this is a really fun Publixsons store to visit, and I highly recommend a stop at this Albertsons painted in Publix colors if any of you end up in this area!
We're only at post 2 of 5 of my AFB 10th Anniversary celebration, there's still more fun to be had next Sunday when we see what I mean by "The 1980s Called and They Want Their Supermarket Back". What did I find? Come back next week and find out!
So until the next post,
The Albertsons Florida Blogger
