Gray is the New Green - The Other Side of The Green Interior

Winn-Dixie #285

5850 SW 73rd Street, South Miami, FL

Today's post is a presentation of Miami-Dade County retail

     We received some sad news not too long ago that Winn-Dixie #333 in Palm Beach Gardens, FL would be closing on April 19, 2026, the same day this post goes live, due to the landlord increasing that store's rent by an exuberant amount. What's notable about that closure is that it marks the end of another one of Winn-Dixie's interior decor packages - The Green Interior. Amazingly, even with the bloodbath from Aldi and the pullout from Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, Winn-Dixie still had at least one store left featuring every one of the chain's decor packages dating all the way back to the mid-1990's Marketplace interior in the go-forward batch. While the rest of those older decor packages are probably living on borrowed time as the chain prepares for a big remodel wave, losing The Green Interior is still a pivotal moment in the chain's post-Aldi transformation, especially having only been used from 2014-2015. While I've been to the Palm Beach Gardens Winn-Dixie a few times and will eventually have a post to share about it, I thought we'd use today to look back on a different side of The Green Interior, a side that rarely ever gets mentioned amidst the 50 shades of green we've become so accustomed to seeing tied to this décor...

And you even had a chance to win a free giant salami too! That's a lot of salami!

      Our story today begins in South Miami, a small but somewhat affluent suburb of Miami sandwiched between the University of Miami campus and Dadeland Mall on the US 1 corridor. Building in the heart of South Miami's downtown, Winn-Dixie arrived in the area in 1962, when the store we'll be touring today first opened under the Kwik Chek name.

     By the 1970's, the Kwik Chek name was mostly phased out in favor of the unified "Winn-Dixie" brand, with Winn-Dixie's current checkmark logo actually serving as a nod to Kwik Chek (and where that logo originally came from). The South Miami Kwik Chek was expanded from its original size with an expansion out the front in the 1970's, probably around the time this store rebranded to the Winn-Dixie name. Looking through historic aerial imagery, that 1970's expansion was the only major expansion this store ever saw, which makes sense being this was a tiny Winn-Dixie for modern standards (only 20,000 square feet, although there really wasn't much space to expand any more without sacrificing additional parking).

     While it may have not gotten any bigger since the 1970's, this store did receive cosmetic upgrades through the years. I believe this store received a remodel to the Purple/Maroon decor in the early 2000's (if anyone can confirm/deny that, let me know - this photo and a remodel permit from 2002 were all I had to go off of), and then received one final interior remodel in late 2014. While this would have been an interesting Winn-Dixie to visit just for being a funky expanded 1960's store, the 2014 remodel actually added an additional layer of interest to this store for me. While the facade was dressed up a bit in the remodel (a nice plus), the interior received a twist to the standard Green Interior of the time - a grayscale version of it. While Winn-Dixie has been known to do a one-off variant of a new decor in the past (see The White Interior, for example - an odd prototype of Down Down), this was not even the first Green Interior remodel done - The Green Interior debuted in March 2014 in a new store in Miramar Beach, FL, while this store didn't receive its remodel permit until October 2014 (after a few other Green Interior remodels had been completed too). I guess Winn-Dixie wanted to see how the grayscale trend would work in one of their own stores, opting in the end to keep everything green after this lone test remodel.

     I was actually tipped off to this store in a blog comment a number of years ago, and with its one-off remodel, it went high on my priority list if I ever made it to Miami. However, it was later revealed this store had a clock ticking over it, as the property the Winn-Dixie stood on was sold to a high-rise developer in 2020 for $18.95 million, so you can probably tell where this is going...

     Unfortunately, land in busy urbanized parts of Miami and its suburbs is extremely valuable, and developers drool over these South Florida retail and shopping center sites in order to convert them into much more lucrative mixed-use and residential uses when the opportunity strikes. Following some delays due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the plans for the new mixed-use project stalled for a bit before finally moving forward come 2023, with the Winn-Dixie closing that July. Thankfully the developers of the new mixed-use building opted to include a new supermarket to replace the one being demolished, however, instead of a nice modern Winn-Dixie returning to the site, in the end The Fresh Market signed on to be the grocer to anchor the new project. Considering when all this was happening, it was probably a long shot to have Winn-Dixie anchor the new mixed-use project, as the news of the chain's sale to Aldi broke only a month after this store closed for good. Seeing how upscale South Miami, especially its downtown area, has become (Whole Foods has a store just around the corner from here), I'm not surprised The Fresh Market was brought in as a replacement grocer. They're probably a better fit for the area these days, honestly, although it would have been nice to see Winn-Dixie get a new store instead - a modern urban mixed-use Winn-Dixie would have been quite the sight!

     Considering Winn-Dixie put a lot of work into this building in 2014, I doubt they were expecting this store to be redeveloped so soon after. The refreshed facade from the 2014 remodel was quite nice, with the stone arch accent over the entrance giving the building additional visual appeal. Following the 2014 remodel, this store actually looked and felt quite modern both inside and out, something I was impressed to say visiting a 1960's-era Winn-Dixie at the time!

     Stepping inside, let's get to the fun part of this post - here's The Green Gray Interior! While it will become more apparent once we see the walls, pretty much everything that would be green in the traditional version of this interior was painted gray instead, but everything else was pretty much the same, including the signage and fonts. Floral occupied an island just inside the main entrance, with produce branching off into the front right corner of this rather small building.

     The wood-style floor tiles were installed as part of the 2014 remodel, and cover the produce department as well as the entire right side of the building.

     While the gray wall decor is an unusual sight as it is, adding to the strangeness of this store is the meat and seafood service counter located on the right side wall just after produce - you never see that department on the side wall in a Winn-Dixie!

     Compared to the more common green variant, we see the department lettering was changed from a black color to silver, the same holding true for the trim underneath. Also note in this store that the department names are mounted directly to the wall rather than on a white plastic piece.

     Turning around, here we can see the dividing line between the original supermarket and the 1970's expansion space. This store's expansion is pretty easy to see, as the original space has an open ceiling while the expansion still has a drop ceiling, the columns demarking the line even more so. When the store was expanded, most of the service departments were moved into the new area, done in a way to mimic Winn-Dixie's layout of the time with deli/bakery in the front left and produce in the front right. The meat and seafood service counter we just saw is located in the original portion of the building, and I don't know if its placement is a holdover from the original Kwik Chek layout (I have no idea what that would even be) or just a quirk because there was no place to build out the counter along the back wall.

     Following meat and seafood along the right side wall were the beer coolers, with a small natural foods department located across from that in this extra-wide aisle.

     In order to make sure everything matched, this store even received specially made category markers too - the original Green Interior category markers were black to match the rest of the trim in that version of the decor.

     More original category markers are visible here along the back wall, where we transition into the pre-packaged meats. It's actually quite strange to see the meat coolers isolated from the meat and seafood service counter like this. In most supermarkets, regardless of which brand, the service case and the pre-packaged meats are almost always adjoining!

     Interior photos of this store from before the 2014 remodel are practically non-existent, at least any that show the interior of the building in any decent way. Still, my guess is the open ceiling in the original 1960's part of the building were added in the 2014 remodel, as some of the early, more elaborate Green Interior remodels did add opening ceilings in part of or throughout some stores (and I don't think Winn-Dixie was that ahead of the times building stores with a warehouse ceiling in the 1960's either!).

     Outside of the produce department, which got woodgrain-style tiles during the 2014 remodel, the remainder of the store had these beige tiles installed. These tiles almost mimic a concrete floor (which Winn-Dixie may have been going for), but look much nicer (and much less scarred - can you only imagine what exposed concrete would look like in a store this old?).

     Moving along the front end, here's a look toward the deli and bakery space, which we'll be seeing in more detail shortly.

     With this store pretty small as it was, Winn-Dixie putting all those promo displays in the grocery aisles wasn't helping much, making the salesfloor feel more cramped and cluttered.

     Returning to the back wall, you may have noticed another quirk to this already quite quirky decor. Looking at the walls, you'll notice this store lacks any of the Green Interior's distinctive wall adornments, such as the farm graphic panels, wall icons, and the wheat stencils. Where all of those items should go, the walls in here are just blank. However, I think the reason Winn-Dixie skipped making custom gray versions of all those items is because this store just doesn't have the vertical wall space for all that. Even with an open ceiling, the ceiling in this store is still pretty low, and they probably wouldn't fit.

     The Green Interior was know for its excessive use of category markers, something I don't remember Winn-Dixie doing with any of the other modern decor packages (where category markers are primarily reserved for the frozen foods department and some cooler space). Aisle 6 had plenty of category markers to see on both sides of the aisle, giving us plenty of examples of their unique design.

     Without the wheat and the other icons filling up the blank wall space, the Green Gray Interior is actually pretty boring. It's just gray signs mounted to a gray wall, but with all that gray going on, I guess being boring was just inherent!

     As simplistic as this remodel ended up being, I wouldn't call it bad though. For being nearly 60 years old when I visited, the store actually came across as clean and modern, something many Winn-Dixie stores built in the 1990's couldn't even say until recently. I also believe the Green Interior was one of Winn-Dixie's nicest (and classiest) interior decor packages from the post-Marketplace era too, so I suppose it's just disappointing to see this decor dumbed-down a bit compared to what it could have been.

     Anyway, that last aisle we were in was home to Winn-Dixie's health and beauty department. With this store being so small, it never had a pharmacy, a department Winn-Dixie was pretty big on adding to most stores in the chain from the 1980's until the 2005 bankruptcy. Since there was never a pharmacy, the deli counter was designed to bump right up to the check lanes, another unusual sight for a Winn-Dixie. While it's been rebuilt and reconfigured (especially in the 2014 remodel), the combined deli/bakery would have been here in the front left corner ever since the store was expanded in the 1970's, just in a smaller form back then.

     The "Freshly Prepared" icon on the corner of the deli was the only non-department signage embellishment this store received, with another matching sign on the opposite angled cut-out facing the main deli counter. The "Freshly Prepared" name the Green Interior used for its hot-foods counter was a carryover from is predecessor, the Transformational decor.

     Prepared foods had a prominent placement on the corner facing the check lanes and the front entrance, with the deli counter just beyond that, followed by the bakery in the corner.

     While it looks fancy and modern, what we see here is just a dressed-up version of Winn-Dixie's 1970's deli setup. With Winn-Dixie not really getting into bakery departments until the 1980's, many bakery departments in these really old Winn-Dixie stores just ended up being small additions to the side of the deli like this. However, with all the modernizations this store received, even though it was still small, this store was still able to offer a rather large selection of baked goods.

     In addition to the space it shared with the deli, the bakery had additional prep space on the left wall, as well as a secondary department sign matching the one we see above.

     Turning back to the grocery aisles, aisle 9 was home to cleaning supplies, and the last aisle before frozen foods.

     Leaving aisle 9, here's a look across the store's back wall again. This store was wider than it was deep, but still small. To my left you can see the beginning of the dairy department, the remainder of which wraps onto the left wall into the last grocery aisle.

     In old-school Winn-Dixie form, the frozen foods aisles were left unnumbered here, with those two aisles, the last two in the store, comprising aisles 10 and 11. The aisle we see above would have been aisle 10, home to the first row of freezers and some more columns, another remnant from the various reconfigurations this store received through the years.

     Over in frozen foods, the original category markers were all replaced with the modern black rectangles that have been used in every decor since Down Down. Winn-Dixie went through and installed these in every store in the early 2020's regardless of what decor a store had at the time, acting as a refresh to the lone department Winn-Dixie still uses category markers in. While the category marker refresh was a later addition, we see the freezers along the wall appear to have been installed new in the 2014 remodel, with the ones in the middle of the aisle hailing from a much older remodel. 

     Heading back to the front end, here's one final look at the deli department. As part of the 2014 remodel, a full-service custom sub counter was installed here, which appeared to still be in use in 2021 too. While many Winn-Dixie stores gave up on custom subs in favor of the pre-made ones every store offers, there are still a handful of custom sub counters still operational out there throughout the chain.

     One direct carryover between the green and gray versions of this decor were the check lane lights, which uses the original decor's black trim and wheat pattern. What is different here is that the check lane closest to where I was standing was only called "Checkout", followed by lanes 1-4 beyond that for a total of 5 staffed lanes.

     Thank you for shopping your South Miami Winn-Dixie, a longstanding supermarket ousted by inflated property values...

     While Winn-Dixie ended up getting booted from the site entirely following the redevelopment, at least the new apartment complex did include a grocery store of some kind in the final plan, as many of these redevelopment project of retail and supermarket boxes do not include much (or any) commercial space in the end. Sadly Winn-Dixie is still facing this same problem elsewhere around Florida today, as one of the chain's go-forward stores in Seminole just closed due to the landlord wanting to redevelop the site into apartments too, and that site will not be getting a replacement supermarket of any kind either. It's just saddening to see Winn-Dixie targeted at all angles by greed, whether it be from Aldi's antics or landlords wanting to squeeze every dollar than can out of a property! 

     Anyway, to finish out this post on a slightly less depressing note, I hope everyone enjoyed seeing this alternate take on the Green Interior, another strange one-off from the folks at Winn-Dixie. While a more basic take on that decor, the store was still nice, and must have done well enough to get a remodel of that extent in 2014, which makes it an even bigger shame that Winn-Dixie had to get pushed out of this site too!

     While that's it for Winn-Dixie this month, AFB is back next week for one final post in April, where I'll share one final Albertsons update with everyone before moving onto something new for May. Be sure to come back next week for more!

So until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger

Former Albertsons #4402 - Largo, FL (Largo Mall) - The End of the Jewel-Albsafelixsons

Photos in today's post are courtesy of contributor Nicholas B.

Jewel-Osco #4101 / Albertsons #4402 / Safeway #4402 / Publix #1663 / Future Publix #2046

10500 Ulmerton Road #800, Largo, FL - Largo Mall

     One of the more storied former Albertsons stores in Florida was store #4402 at Largo Mall, notable for its past as one of the 6 buildings constructed by Jewel-Osco during their brief tenure in Florida, on top of being one of the three Floridian Albertsons stores that survived to be converted to a Safeway in 2016. Much like the chain that originally built this structure, Safeway's time in Florida was cut short as well, those stores only lasting two years before being bought out by Publix - a chain that already had stores located across the street from each of the Safeway stores purchased. I'm pretty convinced Publix bought these stores purely for the fact that they could buy out a competitor and be done with them, as all three of the former Safeway stores reopened as a Publix to compliment their counterparts a few hundred feet away. After a light conversion, all of these former Safeway stores reopened as a Publix in late 2018, receiving a decor swap and restock but not much else. As such, the "Jewel-Albsafelixsons" was an odd mish-mash of 4 different grocery chains, and one of the largest (if not the largest) Publix store in the chain at nearly 80,000 square feet. As you can imagine, a store with that many former supermarket remnants in it created quite the buzz on this blog, spawning 14 separate posts (this one inclusive) over the years of AFB's existence (the most of any former Albertsons store by a longshot). The main post on former Albertsons #4402, with the most detail and a complete tour of the Jewel-Albsafelixsons, can be found here. For today's update, I must be the bearer of bad news:

     After 8 years of operating a store in this building, Publix grew tired of its quirks, excessive size, and according to sources, the building's failing roof that Albertsons neglected over the years. Instead of remodeling this store to the Evergreen decor like we saw at the Safelixsons in Oakland Park, Publix opted for a "clean slate" as this store approached the time for its first true remodel under the Publix name. As such, the former Jewel-Osco building will be replaced with a 51,908 square foot modern Publix with an attached liquor store. After word of these plans first came out in early 2025, Publix finally got all of their pre-construction processes completed by early 2026, with the Jewel-Albsafelixsons being announced for closure on February 28, 2026.

     While this store had a following from the fans of this blog due to its many unusual characteristics, to the average shopper who doesn't drive out of their way for the ambience of a former Jewel-Osco with bits of Safeway decor thrown in, it appears many considered this store old, dirty, excessively oversized, and having a weird layout (at least clabbering together what the people of Reddit had to say about this place). All that, on top of those potential structural issues, seemed to seal this store's fate.

     Thanks to new blog contributor Nicholas B., he was able to send over these photos of the store from a few days after it closed for a final farewell to this unusual store. We started off with a few exterior photos, and we'll transition now to some photos of the store's interior through the windows. Nicholas came here before the store's fixture auction concluded, so the store was still fully furnished, but staged for the upcoming auction that occurred about a week after the store closed.

     Upon taking over this store, Publix did a quick repaint of the walls to install a basic version of their Classy Market 3.0/Sienna decor. Other than that the majority of the fixtures we see in here were installed by Albertsons in 2016 when the store remodeled into a Safeway.

     The grand aisle in this building was located on its right side, including produce toward the front by the right side doors, followed by the deli and bakery on the right wall. The deli and bakery were visible in the background of the previous photo, with some produce fixtures visible in the foreground above.

     Albertsons dumped a lot of money into this building in 2016, including removing the deli island to move that department to the side wall, building a new bakery, and installing new flooring, lighting, and fixtures. While that was quite a bit of money, it appears Albertsons may have left some structural issues unaddressed, such as the rumored roof issues. Maybe Albertsons didn't address those more expensive structural problems knowing these Safeway stores weren't going to be around for long, however, it seems like a bit of a waste to dump millions into a store for a remodel just to sell it off a couple years later (but then again, ask Winn-Dixie about that...).

     Looking toward the left side of the building, we see the store's customer service desk located in an island just beyond the check lanes, with the former Starbucks kiosk on the left just inside the doors. Publix inherited the 3 Starbucks kiosks inside the Safeway stores they purchased, and opted to keep them once the stores transitioned, adding those three locations to the handful of Starbucks kiosks Publix had experimented with opening in the past. Unlike other chains, Publix was never super committed to expanding Starbucks kiosks outside of a few initial tests at higher-tier stores, and appears to have become more interested over the years in expanding its own POURS house brand as an in-store beverage option. As such, Publix closed its remaining Starbucks kiosks in late 2025, with the Largo Mall kiosk closing on October 22, 2025, per this Facebook post. The kiosk must have just sat here empty until the store closed, especially since the store was up for closure anyway. Due to this store's pending closure, that was probably an exception, as I'm sure other stores with former Starbucks kiosks had them fully removed to where you'd never know they were there.

     Here's a zoomed-in photo of the service desk, which will serve as out last interior photo.

    The neighboring liquor store was also closed alongside the main store, although it will be replaced with a new liquor store once the new supermarket opens.

     Unfortunately, Publix pulled down the shutters inside the liquor store, so we won't be getting any post-closure looks inside there.

     As a consolation, here's a Safeway-era door decal that managed to survive through 8 years of Publix operating out of this building. I'm a bit surprised Publix left this here and didn't replace it with a decal of their own!

     Even though the new store will be almost 30,000 square feet smaller, the replacement store and the new liquor store will take up about the same width as the current building. Most of the size reduction is coming from reducing the space sticking out the back of the structure, so no additional retail space will be created when the store's size is reduced. The new Largo Mall Publix, store #2046, will probably open in early 2027 as long as there are no major delays, although it's not like shoppers have to fret about where they will buy their groceries over the next few months, there's another Publix conveniently located across the street in the meantime. For the retail fans in Pinellas County, you still have the Clearwater and Palm Harbor Jewel-Publixsons stores if you need your Jewel-Osco fix, and while those lack the Safeway embellishments, they're still good examples of what a Jewel-Osco (and an oversized Publix) are like.

     Unless I get some photos in of the replacement Publix, that will conclude the story of former Albertsons #4402. Thank you Nicholas for the post-closure photos of this store, and be sure to come back next week for our next feature post!

So until next time,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger

Former Albertsons #4437 - Miami, FL (Kendale Lakes)

Albertsons #4437 / Sedano's #32

14655 SW 56th Street, Miami, FL - Bird Lakes Plaza

Today's post is a presentation of Miami-Dade County retail

     The Kendale Lakes neighborhood of Miami is quite famous in the world of retail nerds for being home to the last Kmart store on the North American mainland, a much sadder experience these days compared to when we toured that store at the first link in 2021. While seeing what Kmart is like in 2026 does pique my curiosity, I almost don't want to see that Dollar General-sized Kmart either, as I feel it would taint all the good memories I have of what Kmart was like when they were still passible as a legitimate retail operation. However, today's post isn't about Kmart - we'll have plenty more chances in the future to discuss that chain - today we'll focus on a more obscure piece of Kendale Lakes retail history. While the retail tourists are all down at Kmart taking selfies to prove to their Instagram followers that the chain still shockingly exists (honestly, about 95% of the business that store still gets is probably from that!), we'll head about 3 miles north of there to the site of the former Kendale Lakes Albertsons, another installment in the saga of Albertsons' disastrous expansion into Miami-Dade County:

      Albertsons entered the Miami market in 1996 after many years of hesitation about entering the area. Seeing opportunity as other local chains imploded, Albertsons decided to give Miami a try with the announcement of two new stores - one off Bird Road at the Palmetto Expressway, and one in Kendale Lakes. The Bird Road store (#4435) was the first of the pair to open in January 1996, with the Kendale Lakes store opening a few months later. The Bird Road and Kendale Lakes stores were identical on the interior, although Kendale Lakes received a more Spanish-architecture inspired facade compared to the more average design Bird Road received.

     After only 5 years in business, Albertsons was bleeding money in Miami. It was announced in November 2001 that the chain would be closing 3 of its 4 stores in the county (the sole survivor being right over the line from Broward County), and selling 4 additional undeveloped/unopened sites to other grocers as well. I went over the details of Albertsons' woes in Miami in my post on the Bird Road store, so be sure to give that post a quick read if you haven't to learn more about why Albertsons did so poorly in the area.

     When Albertsons pulled out of Miami in late 2001, 3 of their locations in the area were acquired by Sedano's - Kendale Lakes, Homestead, and an undeveloped site near Miami Lakes. The acquisition of this building in Kendale Lakes would serve to replace an older Sedano's across the street with a newer, larger, more modern location, with the new store opening not long after it was acquired.

     Sedano's didn't do much to this building following its acquisition from Albertsons. The interior was given a light remodel to Sedano's decor (although not quite as light as what happened in Homestead), but otherwise the shelves were restocked and a new sign was put on the exterior. The building remained that way until sometime in the late 2010's, when Sedano's did a little more work to the building (which I'll explain later).

     Like most mid-1990's Albertsons stores, the building has an exterior cartwell walled-in with a half-height wall, the one here to the right of the main entrance.

     The front walkway is still very much unaltered from Albertsons, with the original can lights still exposed. As you probably saw in the exterior photos so far, when I arrived at this store, there was a line of people waiting to get in. The store had already opened for the day, so when I visited here in mid-2021, I thought this line was part of Sedano's enforcement of some lingering COVID-era crowd management rule. I stood here waiting for a few minutes, but as I waited, I noticed people freely walking in and out of the building. Seeing that and noticing the line still not moving, I just left the line and walked in. No one said anything to me, so I don't know what the line was all about. When I left the store about a half hour later, these people were still standing out here, so hopefully whatever they were lined up for was worth the wait!

     With that line outside, you'd get the impression this store would be pretty busy inside, but it wasn't. It was a slow weekday morning here, my first stop on what ended up being a very long day of driving around Miami visiting a bunch of supermarkets. I think that was one of my infamous 10+ store visit days, but when I was driving nearly 4 hours to a destination, I tried to make the most of it!

     Back on topic, here we're looking toward the store's front entrance and its café, nestled into a little nook between the front doors and the bakery. Sedano's did replace the building's original swinging doors with those sliding ones at some point, although I'm not sure if that happened from the start or during one of this store's later refreshes. The café nook was carved out of an old office Albertsons would have had up here, with the walls knocked out in order to install the new counter.

     The café serves as an extension to the store's bakery, with the two counters sharing these pastry displays.

     The pastry counters we just saw were situated where Albertsons once had its floral department, with Albertsons' bakery located under the lower ceiling we see here in the front left corner.

     While Sedano's bakery is still located in the front left corner, a little rearranging was done by shifting the bakery service counter to the front wall and pulling the displays forward, allowing Albertsons' original service bakery space under the lower ceiling to be converted into the café's seating area. Sedano's also replaced all the flooring in the café area, removing Albertsons' original tile in favor of the woodgrain pattern we see here.

     Turning around, we find the produce department occupying the vast majority of the left side of the building.

     While the floor tiles throughout the remainder of the store are original (except for that random green tile in the foreground - that very much is not!), I also think the produce display tables were left behind by Albertsons too - I remember Albertsons used to like those long, diagonally-oriented produce tables like we see here. Sedano's also tends to reuse whatever they inherit from other grocers in their stores, so that would add a little bit to that theory too.

     Produce continues into the back left corner of the building, where Albertsons' deli used to be located. Surprisingly for Sedano's, the actually wiped away most traces of the old deli space, which used to have a lower ceiling that stuck out from the wall like this. Sedano's completely rebuilt this corner of the store for a new stockroom entrance and some meat coolers, which is interesting, as the other Albertsons building of this vintage Sedano's operates out of (in Pembroke Pines - #4439) still has the obvious deli ceiling back here. However, that Pembroke Pines store still uses the full building (unlike this store - more on that in a little bit).

     Sedano's, like many Hispanic grocery chains in Florida, doesn't put as much emphasis on a "deli" department like a traditional supermarket chain does. Instead, the small selection of cold cuts these chains sell typically gets lumped into the service meat and seafood counter, which was the case here. When the old deli space was closed off and the building was reconfigured to have a smaller salesfloor, Sedano's moved the service meat and seafood counter to the back wall, just to the right of where Albertsons' original deli was located. Compared to many supermarkets, the meat and seafood service counter is quite large here, but Sedano's, as well as the other Hispanic chains in Florida, sell a lot of meat and seafood. These counters are easily one of the busiest departments in the entire store, and usually have a line of people waiting for meats. Me being here so early in the day, there really wasn't anyone here buying meat yet, but later in the afternoon these counters look like the Pub Sub line during lunch rush!

     The left-most part of the service meat and seafood counter lines up with the edge of Albertsons' former deli space, with the back wall transitioning to more meat coolers as we continue further into the right side of the store.

     A year or two after my visit to this store, Sedano's remodeled it to a very blah beige decor with a few new wall signs (a massive downgrade from Sedano's actual current decor, which is pretty nice, even if it is still heavy on the beige and gray). Some new aisle markers were hung but that looks to be the extent of the changes in this store, a much less dramatic transformation in this building than what occurred recently at the Homestead Alberdano's (a remodel that was quite the tragedy in my opinion, going from the best preserved Grocery Palace in the land to the new beige-gray look - the photo at the second link in this text block was taken in the Homestead store if you want to compare the before and after).

     Having seen just about all of the service departments in this store, it's time to head into the grocery aisles for the remainder of this tour.

     Stepping out of the grocery aisles, here's a look across the front end.

     The department in the distance along the right side wall is dairy, which the check lanes run all the way up to.

     The grocery aisles in this store are pretty tall, with the top shelves appearing to be actual merchandise for sale and not overstock from the shelves below.

     Part of the reason for those taller shelves, if you haven't noticed it already looking toward the right side of the store, is because Sedano's shrunk this building's salesfloor at some point. We saw Sedano's do something similar at the former Kissimmee Alberdano's store during our post-closure tour back in 2023, and it appears this store went through a similar size-reduction at some point (whether that was in the late 2010's like the Kissimmee store following declining sales, or if this salesfloor reduction was original from 2001 with Sedano's not knowing what to do with all that space, I do not know). I do know this store is home to Sedano's automated fulfillment center (more on that here and here), which could have needed extra space for staging (hence the salesfloor reduction, as that center sounds pretty big), but there's also a chance that walled-off area could just be sitting empty and unused like we saw in Kissimmee.

     By walling off the right side of the building, Sedano's essentially eliminated the space where Albertsons' meat and seafood counter, pharmacy, and beer and wine departments were located. From the look of things, only two-thirds of the original salesfloor is still in use by Sedano's, so this is still a decently-sized store.

     You can tell there's additional space behind that wall with the way the light strip closest to the front wall continues through a small gap in the partition. Otherwise this looks like a pretty solid, legitimate partition wall and not just a cheap way to blockade an unused portion of the salesfloor.

     Getting closer to the partition, you'll notice the tile pattern on the floor has more large white gaps between the gray Tetris pattern. Those white gaps appear to designate where Sedano's patched the floors when Albertsons' original frozen food coolers were removed, which were located in this general area (for reference, here's a map of a similar store with its original floor plan, that example just mirrored from what this location looked like). Sedano's pushed frozen foods into the last aisle against the partition, so a decent amount of work went into shrinking this store considering the utility work too.

     Cleaning supplies in aisle 9...

     …and switching back to food items with chips and soda in aisle 10.

     The second to last grocery aisle, aisle 11, is home to beer (to my right) and frozen foods (to my left). Seems a bit random to see pallets of toilet paper stacked on top of the beer coolers!

     Here's a final look across the back wall of the store, showing the amount of salesfloor space Sedano's actually occupies here.

     The world-renowned aisle 12 is this store's last aisle, home to the remainder of frozen foods and dairy along the partition wall.

      With aisle 12 not being super wide, the beer pallets down the middle of it make this aisle feel quite cramped.

     Back up front we find the check lanes again, with the bakery visible in the background.

     Like most Sedano's stores, there is a small area of independent storefronts clustered along some of the extra space on the front end. Some beauty services, a Metro by T-Mobile store, and a jeweler appear here, at least within the photo frame. The area where these tenants are located used to be home to Albertsons' customer service desk and other services, such as video rentals and a bank.

     Even with all the work Sedano's did to this building, one other obvious Albertsons remnant has remained in this building since 2001 - the turntable checklanes! While other grocers may have used these through the years, these turntable lanes will always be associated with Albertsons in my mind.

     Much like the turntable for placing one's groceries, the bagging area also had a matching turntable. The Albertsons I shopped at most often had regular belt check lanes, but still had the turntable bagging areas. I always liked when a bagger wasn't available and I got to used to turntable to bag my groceries!

     Back outside, here's another look at the store's Spanish-style facade, a nice design overall and a nice fit for the area too, as this is a common architectural style in Miami-Dade County.

     Located on the left side of the building is Albertsons' old liquor store, seen here.

     A liquor store still occupies the space - Mega Wine & Spirits, a small South Florida-based liquor chain. Mega Wine & Spirits occupies the liquor space in all 3 of the Miami-Dade and Broward Alberdano stores, in addition to being the liquor tenant for the lone Miami-Dade Publixsons too.

     This former Albertsons stood as an independent building on this property until 2011, when an architecturally-identical shopping center was constructed on the east side of the property, in addition to adding storefronts to both sides of the old Albertsons building too. The copying of Albertsons' original architecture came out well!

     We'll end our ground coverage with this photo of the road sign facing SW 147th Avenue, also installed in 2011 when the plaza was expanded.

     For some additional perspectives, here are some Bird's Eye aerial photos of this former Albertsons, courtesy of Bing Maps:

Front

Front - Pre-2011 perspective - We can see here what the building looked like with Sedano's original signage and before the storefronts to the left and right sides were added.

Right Side

Back

Left Side

     And now for some historic aerial perspectives, courtesy of Google Earth:

Former Albertsons #4437 - 2022

Former Albertsons #4437 - 2011 - The shopping center additions under construction

Former Albertsons #4437 - 2005

Former Albertsons #4437 - 2002 - Shortly after Sedano's opened

Albertsons #4437 - 1999 - Compared to Sedano's, you can see how how terrible Albertsons was doing with that kind of crowd...

Future Albertsons #4437 - 1994

     I only have three of the four Albertsons stores that actually operated in Miami-Dade County photographed (yes, #4459 in Homestead has been my problem child - the only former Albertsons in the Florida Peninsula I've yet to visit), and now all of the ones I've visited have been posted to the blog. For the time being all of our future Albertsons-related coverage in Miami-Dade County will be of the three remaining unopened stores Albertsons had in the pipeline had they not pulled out of the county in 2001. Even though none of those stores ever got to see an Albertsons sign on the front of them, two of the three of those stores are actually super interesting in their current forms, so there's still plenty more to see down here. In two weeks we'll check out another Miami-area supermarket, just not one Albertsons had any involvement in, which was still quite the unusual sight. However, before we get to that, I'd also like to announce there will be two bonus posts this month as well. What would have been my two off Sundays this month (4/12 and 4/26) I will be featuring two short update posts, getting us caught up on some recent happenings at some former Albertsons stores we've toured in the past. A lot to come this month, so be sure to come back next Sunday for the first of those two updates!

Happy Easter everyone, and until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger