Former Albertsons #4431 - Clearwater, FL (Clearwater Plaza)

Albertsons #4431 / Publix #1329 / Future Publix #1861

1295 S. Missouri Avenue, Clearwater, FL - Clearwater Plaza (formerly Searstown Plaza)

     Clearwater was the birthplace of Albertsons in Florida, so when most people think about Albertsons stores in Clearwater, their minds almost immediately go to ol' #4301 at Gulf to Bay and Belcher. #4301 was a significant Floridian Albertsons store in many ways - it was the original Floridian Albertsons after all, and it lasted until 2015, serving Clearwater for over 40 years. To be the first, one of the best, and then one of the last Floridian Albertsons stores to close is phenomenal, but we also need to remember that Clearwater had 4 Albertsons stores at one time too! While #4301 tends gets all the glory, it's time to shine the light one of those other Clearwater Albertsons stores today - #4431, it's your turn today! Recently though, #4431, Clearwater's newest Albertsons and the 2nd to last new Albertsons to open in Pinellas County, has been getting its fair share of attention recently in the Floridian retail history discussions, but for a very unfortunate reason. I'll go more into what that reason is in a moment, but first, let's talk about this site's past before jumping into the discussion of its bleak future:

Photo courtesy of Pinellas Memory

     Long before Gulf to Bay Boulevard and US 19 became the major hubs for big box retail in Clearwater, the short stretch of S. Missouri Avenue just south of Downtown Clearwater was the place to be for major retail in the 1960's. It all started with the construction of a brand-new Sears store and attached 25-store shopping center in 1962, one of the many "Searstown" shopping centers built and developed by Sears in the 1960's. The above photo shows the new Sears store under construction, with the new full-line Sears department store replacing an old catalog store downtown.

Photo courtesy of Robert R. on Pinterest

     The new Clearwater Sears opened for business on October 31, 1962, and was the chain's 20th full-line store in Florida. The new 125,000 square foot store boasted "52 departments, including a garden shop, coffee house and separate auto service garage". I would have loved to see a Sears in those days, as the company was in its prime in the 1960's as America's largest and most formidable retailer. 1960's Sears buildings also looked really neat too, this Clearwater store being no exception with its wonderful mid-century architecture. While I've seen some more elaborate Sears builds from that time period, this store still has all the mid-century charm you'd want in a department store, as you know, you can count on Sears, because Sears has everything! (Today though, you're lucky if Sears has anything to sell in the first place...)

Photo Courtesy of Pinterest

     A few years after Sears and its accompanying Searstown Plaza opened, Sunshine Mall opened across the street on September 26, 1968 - the first enclosed shopping mall in Pinellas County. Sunshine Mall brought along with it JCPenney, Pantry Pride, McCrory's, and a single screen movie theater as anchors, solidifying this spot as Clearwater's premier shopping destination through the 1980's.

Photo courtesy of Robert R. on Pinterest - Sunshine Mall interior

     By the early 1990's, US 19 and the eastern side of town had really taken off as the retail destination for most of Clearwater. As such, Sears announced the closure of its Clearwater Searstown Plaza store in 1992 after a 30-year run, citing "declining sales and a building that doesn't offer the flexibility to revamp as reasons for closing the store." Essentially, Sears decided to consolidate its Clearwater operations into the company's Countryside Mall store on the north side of town, the much larger and slightly newer (built in 1975) of the two buildings, located in the prosperous retail district along US 19. Sunshine Mall across the street didn't fare any better, with JCPenney also consolidating its Clearwater operations into the company's Countryside Mall location in 1994. McCrory's left Sunshine Mall that year as well, leaving the mall as nothing more than a sad shell of its former self as more and more stores began to vacate.

     So with all this talk about Sears, department stores, and malls, how does all of this tie back in to Albertsons? Great question! By the late 1990's, Searstown Plaza and Sunshine Mall were two depressing, mostly vacant retail buildings. As part of a revitalization effort, the owners of Searstown Plaza managed to attract Albertsons to be the new anchor for the plaza, bringing a grocery store back to Searstown following the departure of Kwik Chek (one of the predecessors to Winn-Dixie) many years prior. The new 53,000 square foot Albertsons store would be built on top of the old Sears building, which was demolished for the shiny new supermarket (the rest of the plaza was left untouched in the redevelopment, although it did get a facade refresh at the time to attract new tenants). Albertsons #4431 opened on January 10, 1996, sparking new life into this once declining shopping center.

     Like all of the Albertsons stores in Pinellas County, Albertsons #4431 had a healthy run, lasting 12 years before it was included as one of the 49 locations the company sold to Publix in 2008. After a very light remodel, Publix #1329 would open in the former Albertsons building on January 22, 2009, this store serving as a replacement for Publix #517 just a bit south of here at 1229 Missouri Ave. North in Largo. Publix #517 was a really strange store, as it was a 1958-built Publix Wing Store that closed in 1994 for a 4-month-long remodel and expansion project (hence the 1990's store number, assigned following the remodel). Just going off the few exterior photos I've seen, that had to be a funky Publix inside. I would have loved to see more of that store, but sadly, the building was demolished for a new LA Fitness in 2014.

     Between a funky expanded Wing Store building and an old 1990's Albertsons, Publix has been dealing with all kinds of strange buildings here on Missouri Avenue for the last few decades. After many years of trying to adapt to oddities, Publix has finally grown tired of that, and now wants to bring standardization to this site. It was confirmed in late 2022 that Publix made plans to demolish and rebuild this former Albertsons store with a plain modern Publix building, a 45M to be exact. That new store, which will be Publix #1861, had its construction contract awarded in February 2023, and demolition of the old building is (tentatively) scheduled to begin in April 2023 (although I don't have exact dates for the current store's closure as of the original publication of this post). So if you really want to see this Publixsons before the bulldozers are summoned, you still can, but you have to act fast! (It's a fun one, as we'll see shortly).

     The impending doom of Publix #1329 is what made me prioritize writing this post, although I didn't realize its closure was targeted for April 2023 (so the timing is pure coincidence). I'm not surprised this store was chosen as our latest Publixsons sacrifice, as this store has a lot of parallels to Publix #1331, housed in former Albertsons #4413 in Fort Myers, which we toured a few months ago. Publix #1331/Albertsons #4413 and Publix #1329/Albertsons #4431 share almost identical buildings, although the two stores are mirror images of each other.

     Publix did splurge a bit here at #1329 compared to what we saw down at #1331 - #1329 did get Publix's usual sliding door update, replacing this. The decor inside is also a bit more modern compared to what we saw inside #1331, but the aesthetic isn't much different (which is your hint for what you're about to see). The old Albertsons cart corral is visible just ahead of me to the left of the doors, which we'll step through now for a taste of the quite vintage interior:

     You know it's going to be an interesting tour when you see blatant Albertsons decor remnants left on the wall! Just like we saw back in Fort Myers, Albertsons' Blue and Gray Market wall texturing survived into the early 2020's here in Clearwater. Unlike #4413 in Fort Myers, this store actually got updated decor from Publix during its 15 year run, although that "remodel" was almost as cheap as the initial one. From looking at old photos, the decor swap happened sometime in the 2014-2015 timeframe, with the store's original Classy Market 2.0 getting swapped out for this very cheap version of Classy Market 3.0/Sienna. I actually think the old Classy Market 2.0 decor looked better in here compared to the current CM 3.0 we see today. The original CM 2.0 installation actually tried to incorporate the old Albertsons texturing into the design, whereas the CM 3.0 remodel just painted over the texturing without much regard (like it was in the way, but Publix didn't want to be bothered to remove it).

     It's somewhat fascinating that Publix bothered to remodel this store, yet the identical (and replaced at nearly the same time) Fort Myers store never had its original decor swapped out. My guess is that Publix wasn't intending on keeping #1331 in Fort Myers as long as they actually did, hence why Classy Market 2.0 lived on for so long down there.

     I talked over the last few photos with decor comments, but in those photos we saw the floral department (located immediately to the right after entering the store), with the bakery in the front right corner just beyond that. Besides the paint color and signs on the wall, none of these department were heavily altered from the Albertsons days (a statement which holds true for most of the service departments in the store).

Photo courtesy of YonWooRetail2

     YonWooRetail2 visited this store not too long ago as well (and we'll see a few more of his photos in this post where mine ended up lacking). As part of the set of photos he posted to flickr of this store (which you can view here, and scroll to the left for more), he made this interesting comparison of what the bakery counter looked like as Albertsons, and as it does now. The bottom photo is of this store, but the top one from Albertsons was from a different (but similarly designed) location. Not much different to see besides the signage and the paint color!

     The right side of this store contains the "grand aisle", which connects the bakery and deli departments via a wide aisle containing produce. Our last look toward the bakery can be seen above, as we turn around now to focus our attention fully on the produce department:

     Between the lighting and the wall texturing, this place feels more like a strangely painted Albertsons than it does a Publix! A great example of the old Blue and Gray Market texturing can be seen here in produce. While the CM 3.0/Sienna remodel may not have tried as hard to incorporate the texturing into the decor like CM 2.0 did, I will give Publix credit for lining up all the new department signs inside the textured boxes (like the two produce signs we see here).

     We can see the deli counter off in the distance here, beyond all the produce bins.

     The very first produce table was on an angle, although the remaining ones were aligned parallel to the main grocery aisles like this. In most Publix stores it seems the preferred layout of the produce aisles (at least in modern times) is to have them perpendicular to the grocery aisles. However, the produce department managers must have some freedom in the arranging the aisles however they wish (especially now that most of produce displays have wheels), as variations like we see here do exist.

     Here's a close-up of the deli counter, which was actually very quiet while I was here. Give it a few more hours and this spot would probably be mobbed with people.

     Leaving the deli, here's a look across the (very quiet) back wall of the store, both similar yet different to what we saw in Fort Myers. At least with Classy Market 2.0, there were more decorations on the wall to break up all the blank space, whereas "cheap" Classy Market 3.0 is quite barren when it comes to wall decorations. In between the department signs, at least we have the old Albertsons texturing to break up the monotony on the walls, whether Publix wants us to recognize it or not!

     Moving along to aisle 2, when we see nothing but shelves and a bunch of fluorescent strip lights, it makes me feel like I'm in an Albertsons again. I've said it before, but lighting really plays a huge factor into what a store feels like, and bright fluorescent strips have ingrained themselves as an Albertsons staple to me.

     Leaving the aisle, here's a look across the front of the store. While we see a lot about the building in this view, I can't stop thinking about how perfectly stocked that endcap of chicken broth is - it's flawless and symmetrical!

     Aisle 3 is stocked nicely too, but it will be very hard to beat that chicken broth endcap!

     We find some canned goods and international foods over here in aisle 4. Interestingly, the shelves to my left (housing the international foods) have lit toppers on them. I don't recall seeing lit toppers in any other Publix store before, so those might have been recycled from Albertsons.

     About halfway down the store's back wall, dairy begins to transition into meats.

     I don't think it comes across as well in the pictures, but these milk coolers are also something straight out of Albertsons in terms of design. The milk coolers are in their own little grouping, and are the only part of the dairy department with doors. The style of the doors and the way the coolers are arranged is something I've seen in lots of other Albertsons stores, especially with the beer coolers. This is probably just one of those weird association things I have, but it goes to show that Albertsons was never truly killed off in this building - just painted over!

     Frozen foods occupy aisles 8 and 9 in the middle of the store, visible to my left. Beyond that we see another mid-1990's Albertsons classic - the lunch meat coolers opposite the rear wall, enclosing the back actionway and preventing aisles 10-14 from reaching the back of the store. Our friend in Fort Myers that I keep referring to was the only other Publixsons to keep this odd Albertsons feature into the 2020's, and was probably another sign that the store we're touring today was eventually going to meet the wrecking ball, since Publix didn't want to be bothered ripping out the cooler and relocating all that product.

     Turning into frozen foods, here's a look down aisle 8, which is a complete aisle of frozen foods...

     …followed by aisle 9, where only half the aisle is dedicated to frozen foods. The other side of the aisle appears to be the backyard grilling one-stop-shop, as I see charcoal, coolers, and paper plates over there.

     Leaving aisle 9, here's a look back toward dairy and the deli, a recap of what we've seen so far.

     Instead of continuing on with the back aisle, let's shift over just a bit and walk behind the lunch meats cooler. Over here, we find the last few grocery aisles, with baby products on the opposite side of the lunch meat coolers. The baby products also have top-lit shelving like we saw over in aisle 4, with some old-looking graphics covering the lit panels. Back in Fort Myers we saw wine in the spot where all the baby products are here, and I believe baby supplies were most likely what was here in the Albertsons days too (as I believe Publix was the one who moved the wine in Fort Myers).

     Aisles 10 and 11 were home to non-grocery products, specifically paper goods in aisle 10 and cleaning supplies (as we see here) in aisle 11.

     Soda sat sternly upon the shelves in aisle 12...

     …while snacks solemnly stared at strolling shoppers in aisle 13.

      Turning out of aisle 13, here's a look into the store's front left corner, where we find beer and wine. While wine gets the most prominent billing (and the matching wall color), beer is located in the cooler along the wall, with the old walk-in beer cave behind the display of cabana wear (as what more could you want on a Floridian evening than sipping a beer while dressed in your cabana wear?!).

     Getting closer to the wine corner, we can see beer's tiny little sign mounted to the wall, blending into all the burgundy on the walls (an appropriate paint color for the wine department).

     The last grocery aisle is aisle 14, which is more or less a half-aisle containing the PB&J sandwich supplies. Also over here were some personal shopping carts for sale as well, something I only see Publix sell at stores that get a lot of business from people who walk.

Photo courtesy of YonWooRetail2

      Beyond aisle 14 we find the pharmacy and health and beauty departments, which have their own unique layout. Instead of long aisles, this part of the store has a few short aisles that run parallel to the grocery aisles, like you can see in YonWoo's overview photo above. I'll explain more about the strange aisle arrangement in just a moment, but first, let's cut through this area to back of the store to finish up some loose ends back there:

     Navigating our way through health and beauty, we arrive in the back left corner of the building, home to the meat and seafood counter. Outside of the updated paint and signage, nothing much from this corner of the building has changed from the Albertsons days.

     From the meat and seafood counter, here's a look across the back of the building. The funky mid-1990's Albertsons lunch meats cooler can be seen to our right, blocking off the last few grocery aisles. Personally, I think Albertsons' placement of the lunch meat cooler makes the layout of the store a bit clunky and difficult to navigate with the way it blocks those aisles. I don't know how many others have experienced this layout in person, but what do you guys think about the placement of this cooler in the middle of the salesfloor like this? Is it difficult to maneuver or does it make some sense?

     Spinning around, here's a look back toward the meat and seafood service counter, with the meat coolers visible to my right.

     Between the meat and seafood counter and the pharmacy box was this little alcove, home to Publix's cosmetics department. Back in the Albertsons days, cosmetics would have been located in this little nook too. The alcove would have looked somewhat like this when Albertsons was here - with the black and neon color scheme for the department looking much funkier than the light blue walls Publix opted for instead!

Photo courtesy of YonWooRetail2

    Leaving the cosmetics alcove, here's another one of YonWoo's overview photos of the health and beauty section of the store, this time looking over this area from back to front. While Albertsons would have had a similar set-up to what we see here for health and beauty, Albertsons would have had all the short health and beauty aisles oriented perpendicular to the grocery aisles, rather then parallel like we see here. Over at the Fort Myers store, Publix wasn't able to obtain a pharmacy license for that location, so instead of having an oddly arranged health and beauty section facing an abandoned pharmacy counter, Publix converted this space into two additional grocery aisles (with the old cosmetics nook becoming home to greeting cards).

     Along the left side wall (set back just a tiny bit from the front left corner) is the pharmacy counter (which had yet to open for the day while I was here). #4413 in Fort Myers would have had an identical pharmacy counter when that store was still an Albertsons, however, Publix blocked the front of the pharmacy counter in that building with magazine racks after they were unable to get a new pharmacy license there, converting the old pharmacy box in Fort Myers into additional office space due to that circumstance.

     Returning to the front of the building, the first space we see along this store's front wall (just beyond the wine corner) is the former Albertsons Video Rental Center. In these older Albertsons stores, the video rental alcoves are easy to spot with the semi-circular trim piece (which I believe was a later addition to the store, as remodels from the turn of the 2000's seem to be when the semi-circles were added, and #4413 didn't have the semi-circle). The old video rental department has been an all-purpose nook for Publix since taking over this building, with the alcove currently being use for the store's grocery pickup coolers.

     Additionally, this store's office supply department is located on that little island in front of the former video rental alcove. A strange spot (and set-up) for that department, as office supplies seem lonely and forgotten over there!

     To the left of the old video rental center is another alcove, this one (I believe) being home to the former photo counter. Publix decided to put greeting cards in this alcove, and those have probably been in that spot since Publix reopened this store in 2009 (as Publix hasn't run photo counters in years - probably since the 1990's - although I remember Publix still used to do film drop off for off-site processing into the early 2000's).

     Beyond the old photo center is customer service, a portion of that counter's hanging sign visible in the above photo. From this spot along the front actionway we can see the store's approx. 8 check lanes, two of which were open on this early weekday morning (yet Walmart can't seem to be bothered having two staffed lanes open on a Saturday afternoon).

     I do have to give Publix a lot of credit for their front end staffing, as even at busy times of the day, I can't ever remember standing in a really long line waiting to pay (unlike at that certain other large mass-merchandise chain, where the line for self-checkout will extend halfway down the length of the store, and the line at their one staffed lane being even worse).

     Between the customer service desk and the entrance is another alcove, also being used for random things by Publix. I believe this alcove would have been home to an in-store bank branch, as from what I've been told, those used to be located near the doors in these mid-1990's built Albertsons stores.

     Back outside, here's a look across the front of the building, with the liquor store off in the distance if we follow the sidewalk straight ahead:

     The attached liquor store is of the standard design for this era of Albertsons building, with a blocky awning to match that of the main store.

     While the photo above isn't my best at capturing a good overview of the front of the store (curse those trees!), we do get a nice look at that classic (late 1980's?) Grand Wagoneer as a consolation!

Photo courtesy of Robert R. on Pinterest - Be sure to click on the above photo to see it in full size!

     Now that we've covered the old Albertsons building, we'll take a little time to explore the adjacent former "Searstown Plaza". While the old Sears store was demolished to make way for the new Albertsons, the shopping center next door received a very minor facelift, and that was it. I did manage to find a few photos of Searstown from its glory days courtesy of Robert R. on Pinterest, however, besides the tenants and the minor facade alteration, the shopping center is still a vestige of the 1960's living in the 2020's.

Photo courtesy of Robert R. on Pinterest

     The photo above shows the portion of Searstown closest to the former Sears building, with its modern equivalent below:

     From this angle it might just look like a boring shopping center in the modern day, but just wait until we step onto the front sidewalk:

     If it wasn't for that "Sprint" sign hanging from the ceiling, I would have thought I just stepped back in time to 1962! From the front sidewalk we can see the old storefronts and the pebble rock panels above the large display windows, all classic mid-century architectural elements. As we move further along in the plaza, that 1960's charm gets better too.

     Here we're looking across the front of Citi Trends and Dollar Tree, which occupy the former Kresge's 5 & 10 space. Citi Trends uses Kresge's old main entrance, and kept all the original windows in-tact too (although they blocked most of the windows with shelves).

     Unfortunately, Bealls Outlet (in the plaza's former Walgreens space) decided to wall off all the windows in their space, leaving just a few windows by their entryway further down. In that conversion, the pebble rocks on the wall above were preserved though.

     Bealls Outlet's space isn't too interesting anymore, and has the most significantly altered facade of all the spaces in the shopping center.

     Here's a look back at the wing of the shopping center that connected Sears to the courtyard...

     …and here's the portion that runs from the courtyard out toward Missouri Avenue, anchored by Big Lots. So, you are probably asking yourself, AFB, what is this courtyard you mention? Great question, and I have a great answer for you too:

     Gee willikers Batman, the 1960's lives! As soon as I walked into this little courtyard in the corner of the plaza (where the two pieces of the "L" connect), I felt like I was about to see Mrs. Cleaver walk by me running her errands. Everything about this corner looks like it hasn't been touched since the shopping center was built in 1962, even more so than what we saw in the rest of the plaza so far. The funky planters, the skylight, the pebble rock panels, the aesthetic of everything else - it's a mod, mod world out there!

     While the little courtyard was the most original part of the shopping center left, it was also the most vacant. I believe there was still a barber shop tucked away in the courtyard, but everything else was empty. The rest of the shopping center is quite lively and doing just fine, so hopefully some new businesses will find their way back here (possibly a malt shop or a record store - or maybe something a little more modern that will still fit in well with the architecture).

     Leaving the courtyard, we'll continue our walk through the former Searstown Plaza as we now find ourselves in front of Big Lots. Big Lots is housed in the left half of the former Kwik Chek space, as well as a former small storefronts to the left of that as well.

     Big Lots decided to take advantage of the old display windows to show off their furniture selection, which I thought was a neat idea. Big Lots wasn't open yet for the day while I was here, or else I would have gone inside and took a look around. However, from what I saw through the windows, it was a fairly plain Big Lots inside, so I don't think I missed out on much.

     From the parking lot, here's a look back toward Big Lots...

     …and back toward Citi Trends and Dollar Tree as well. Publix's construction of the new store will not directly impact the shopping center, as the old Albertsons is owned separately from the rest of the plaza. However, there's still a chance the owners of the shopping plaza could jump in and refresh the plaza at the same time to take advantage of Publix's remodeling, so we'll have to see what happens, but hopefully all that mid-century goodness we saw will get to live on for a while longer!

     The road sign for the shopping center can be seen here, with its modern name "Clearwater Plaza" at the top. This is the sign that faces Missouri Avenue, and would have originally stood across from the southern entrance into Sunshine Mall.

     Walking back toward the former Albertsons, we'll take another pit stop for a quick look at the former Albertsons Express gas station. The Albertsons Express gas station closed with the store in 2008, and following the store's closure, it was sold to an independent owner who rebranded the station under the Citgo name. After 3 years as a Citgo, the station rebranded to Chevron in 2011, and remained as a very poorly converted Chevron until 2015, when the station finally got a full remodel to the Chevron graphics. In 2018 the station then converted from Chevron to Shell, which it remains branded as today. The food mart has been completely remodeled away from the Albertsons look as well, and is quite plain looking inside these days.

     Lastly for our ground coverage, here's a look at the road signs for Publix and the gas station - neither of which are original to Albertsons. Publix replaced Albertsons' pylon sign with the short sign following the store's conversion, and the gas station sign was replaced when the station received its more thorough remodel by Chevron around 2015.

     The ground coverage complete, let's go up to the sky for some satellite images, starting with some Bird's Eye aerial images courtesy of Bing Maps:

Front

Right Side

Back

Left Side

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

Former Albertsons #4431 - 2021 - The former Albertsons building is the large building all the way to the right side in the above image, with north being to the left (I rotated the images 90 degrees counterclockwise so they would look better in the post).

Former Albertsons #4431 - 2012

Albertsons #4431 - 2008

Albertsons #4431 - 2002

Albertsons #4431 - 1998

Future Albertsons #4431 - 1995 - The abandoned Sears building can be seen in this image.

     Since I've been mentioning Sunshine Mall, while I had the historic aerial images up, I figured I'd throw in this one showing the old mall in relation to Searstown. Back in the 1960's and 1970's, I can see how this would have been a bustling little retail cluster! However, the image above was taken in 1995, long after this area began its decline. While Searstown was revived in 1996 with the addition of Albertsons at the old Sears site, the owners of the Sunshine Mall property had a different redevelopment idea:

     To compare, the above satellite image is of the same extent as the one we just saw from 1995, but taken in 2021. In 1995, the owners of Sunshine Mall announced that the struggling complex would be redeveloped into big-box power center with a small interior portion, however those plans never came to be. By 1998 all of the remaining tenants of the mall were evicted, and come July of that year, the old mall was demolished in order to make room for 600 new apartment units. Today you would never know a mall stood on that property, as every trace of it was removed when the apartments were built, with Searstown Clearwater Plaza being our only remaining relic from this strip of Missouri Avenue's glory days of retail.

     Even with Publix beginning demolition on the former Albertsons building any time now, bringing along the third building to stand on this site, at least the shopping center next door will remain as a nice little piece of retail history. With a planned April 2023 demolition date, old #4431 isn't much longer for this world, but at least we'll have some pictures to remember the place by. As of the original writing of this post, #4312 in St. Petersburg is the only other Publixsons where I've heard rumors about a tear-down and rebuild happening sometime soon, but I've yet to see any plans for that filed (meaning the process is in motion). I'm always keeping a watch out to see if any more of these come up, as knowing Publix and their pickiness, I'm sure another one of these supermarket relics will be sacrificed in the name of modern standardization before long. But for now, we need to enjoy these oddities of the Floridian supermarket world while we have them around, our little glimpse into past of what grocery stores in Florida were like before Publix began to swallow them all up!

     While that's all I have for today, we'll be back in two weeks with more Publixsons. However, the next Publixsons is a rather strange example of one, and why that is will be discussed in more detail in two weeks (and by someone besides me, although that being said, I can't guarantee it will be a pun-free experience either).

Anyway, be sure to come back then, and until the next post after next,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger