Get Your Lion's Share of Publix

Food Lion #828 / Kash n' Karry #1875 / Publix #1102

1851 North US Highway 1, Fort Pierce, FL - Taylor Creek Commons

     What do you get when you cross a lion with an upscale supermarket? You get one of the weirdest supermarket conversions I've ever seen before. Welcome everyone to the Publix of Taylor Creek Commons, located on the northern side of Fort Pierce near the causeway to North Hutchinson Island. This store is by far one of the strangest Publix stores one could ever step into, much of which has to do with this building's interesting past. As you may know, Publix has taken over many former supermarket buildings in the past, including buildings that once housed stores such as Albertsons, Kash n' Karry, BI-LO, Martin's, and Winn-Dixie. However, as far as I know, the Publix at Taylor Creek Commons is the only Publix that has ever opened in a building that once housed a Food Lion. Taylor Creek Commons originally opened in 1990 with anchors Food Lion and Eckerd pharmacy. Food Lion was in the midst of a huge expansion across Florida at the time this store opened, where they were trying to blanket much of the Florida Peninsula and Eastern Panhandle with stores. While Food Lion did eventually achieve a rather widespread Florida presence by the mid-90's, their small, rather bare bones format was quite odd compared to what other supermarkets in Florida were doing at the time. For that reason, Food Lion began to have difficulties luring Floridian shoppers into their stores. As an attempt to revive their Florida division, Food Lion purchased the struggling West Florida grocery chain Kash n' Karry in 1996. Food Lion hoped that by pouring money into remodeling, improving, and expanding the familiar Kash n' Karry chain, that it would help offset the rather dismal outcome of their namesake stores' expansion in Florida. During the late 90's, Food Lion would expand Kash n' Karry into the Orlando area, Kash n' Karry's first major expansion outside of Western Florida. With sales at the namesake Food Lion stores still struggling throughout most of Florida, and things at Kash n' Karry looking better, Food Lion made the decision to convert almost all of their Florida locations to the Kash n' Karry name in 1999, with the Food Lion name only being used in the Northeastern and North Central parts of Florida (Daytona Beach to Jacksonville, and Gainesville to Lake City). That mass conversion of Food Lion stores now brought Kash n' Karry to Florida's East Coast for the first time, with this Food Lion in Fort Pierce being one of those East Coast stores. Even though Food Lion thought Kash n' Karry would be their saving grace in Florida, all they essentially did with the conversions was create a bunch of purple and teal Food Lion stores throughout Florida. Other than the new decor, these new Kash n' Karry stores were just Food Lions in disguise. As the 2000's began, Kash n' Karry was struggling even worse than before, now with even more intense competition from a rapidly expanding Publix and the further growth of Walmart Supercenters. In 2004, Kash n' Karry announced they were closing 34 stores throughout Florida, including complete pullouts from Florida's East Coast and the Orlando area in order to focus on their core Western Florida markets. This closure round was also one of the preludes to Kash n' Karry's eventual conversion into Sweetbay Supermarkets, a topic I discussed previously at this post. Of those 34 locations Kash n' Karry closed in 2004, Publix stepped in and offered to buy three of the effected locations. Those locations included one in South Orlando, this one in Fort Pierce, and one in Auburndale. The South Orlando and Auburndale Kash n' Karry stores were both really nice mid-late 90's built Kash n' Karry stores, still very modern for the time, well kept, and both over 45,000 square feet. And then they took this place too - a tiny 30,000 square foot former Food Lion with no pharmacy. I think this store's location to the higher income areas on Hutchinson Island is what made Publix take this location, as that's about all this place has going for it.

     And while Publix has since torn apart some rather nice former Albertsons stores that you would have thought fit their model better (for example, Albertsons #4390 and #4473), they seem oddly content with keeping their tiny old Food Lion in North Fort Pierce completely in-tact. There's even plenty of space off to the left of this building too for Publix to expand into, but they don't. I really don't understand Publix sometimes. From the exterior to the interior, this place is essentially a Food Lion with Publix decor, which makes this place rather strange to walk through (although I will say, the Pub-Dixies I went to were rather strange to walk through as well!).

     So let's head inside the Pub Lion for this rather unique experience...

     Upon entering, there is a small floral department when you turn right from the vestibule. Immediately to the left of the Floral department (from the vantage point the above photo was taken at), is produce.

     The produce department is located in the front right corner of the store, and is set up to be the first department you walk through upon entering. This is an unusual layout for Publix, as they usually push produce into either the back right or back left corner of the store, depending on when the store was built. If you are familiar with the layout of a typical 80's or 90's Food Lion, this store has that exact floorplan still. If you don't know that particular layout, you will see what it is as we continue through our tour.

     Looking from produce toward the left side of the store. Usually when Publix takes over a building that wasn't theirs originally, even if it's a building they only do a decor swap to, they still take the time to redo the floor tiles. However, that wasn't the case here. The tile pattern you see on the floor is the 90's Food Lion pattern (the brown and tan stripes).

     The very first aisle is Frozen Foods, which runs along the right side wall of the store. I know this was the typical placement for Frozen Foods in these older Food Lion stores, but it just seems strange seeing frozen foods on this side of the store (at least around here). I think what makes the placement strange (at least to me) is that the natural layout of the store pushes you into Frozen Foods first here, rather than toward the end like in many other stores.

     Behind the Frozen Food department was this small fishing section, complete with fishing poles for sale. You don't see fishing poles for sale at Publix too often! This store is right across the street from the Indian River, and right at the end of the causeway to North Hutchinson Island and the beaches, all of which are popular fishing spots in this area.

     Just about the entire back wall of this store is dedicated to meat and seafood. The coffin cooler to my right is filled with frozen meats, and looks to be original to Food Lion (as do all of the other coolers in this place).

     A better view across the back of this store, taken from the other side of the coffin cooler. Here we can see all the way down to the left side wall, where dairy begins.

     The meat and seafood counter, located about center along the back wall.

     A few of the grocery aisles...

     Seafood department signage.

     Here we can see part of the meat and seafood counter close-up. I'm pretty sure the tile backsplash is Publix's, as it looks more like one of their tile designs than something Food Lion would have used (although I don't remember what Food Lion's tile backsplash would have looked like, but I think it was more tan and didn't have as many colors as you see here).

     Here you can see where the meat department begins to transition into dairy.

     In the back left corner of the store is this wide corridor that leads to the restrooms, the stockroom, and the walk-in freezer. This is another very typical 80's/90's Food Lion trait. Because this corridor is so wide, usually this area is used to store random pallets, overstock merchandise, or even a phone booth.

     Aisle 13 is the last aisle in this store, and is home to dairy and ice cream.

     In the front left corner of the store is the tiny bakery and deli, which still retains the very Food Lion style setup. Publix tried to get the most out of what space they had here, and placed a bunch of display tables and a deli cooler in front of these departments, making for a very cramped environment.

     Close-up of the bakery. In addition to this part of the store being very cramped, it was also very busy, especially by the deli counter where a giant cooler takes up much of the floor space in front of it.

     Looking toward the deli from the bakery. The part of the deli counter where the fried chicken is kept actually encroaches a bit onto the bakery side.

      Here's that giant cooler in front of the deli counter I mentioned a few times.

    Between the deli and the front entrance is the customer service counter.

     A look across the front end.

     And that wraps up our tour around the inside of the Pub Lion. This place is something you really have to experience in person to get the full Food Lion effect, and to truly appreciate the uniqueness of this particular Publix.

     And outside we go. Now that we're back outside, let's take a look at some historic aerial imagery, courtesy of Google Earth:

Publix #1102 - 2017 - Here's an overview of the entirety of the Taylor Creek Commons shopping center, with the location of the Pub Lion marked. As you can see, there's a large empty patch next to the Publix where a shopping center expansion was probably planned, but never happened. Also, the old Eckerd (later CVS) two spaces up from the Publix in the plaza is now empty again, leaving a number of options for Publix if they wanted to build a new, slightly larger store here. Not that I want to push Publix to get rid of this unique store, but I'm kind of surprised they seem to not mind this building so much. But if they're happy with this store for now, then let them be happy with it.

Publix #1102 - 2012

Publix #1102 - 2005

Kash n' Karry #1875 - 1999

Food Lion #828 - 1994

     While much of this post was dedicated to looking for Food Lion artifacts in this particular Publix, it did spend those 5 years as a Kash n' Karry, as one of their few Eastern Florida locations too (even though there wasn't much left behind from that period in this store's life). So I will wrap up this post on a Kash n' Karry note, with this Kash n' Karry commercial from the early 2000's. This commercial features Kash n' Karry's odd spokesman from that period (who has been identified by a commentor below as comedian Jim Menskimen, and you can read about this particular ad campaign here), as well as a few glimpses of the deluxe version of that purple and teal interior I mentioned before. However, a discussion of Kash n' Karry's interior will be the topic of a future post here on AFB.

     Well, that's all I have for now. In lieu of a feature post two weeks from now (September 10th), I will instead use that day to debut a new project of mine that I think many of you will enjoy. Just be prepared to have a lot of information thrown at you that day!

So until then,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger