Albertsons #4368 / Winn-Dixie #2328
961 E. Eau Gallie Blvd., Melbourne (Indian Harbour Beach), FL - Ocean Springs Shopping Center
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| Today's post is a presentation of Brevard County retail |
What's Old is New Again
Welcome everyone to the first store tour of my special 10 Years of AFB posting series! To kick off this series, what better way to do so than to revisit the store which also happened to be the subject of AFB's very first store tour (which occurred way back on March 1, 2014). Since that post went live roughly 9 years and 9 months ago, we'll see quite a bit has changed here at former Albertsons #4368 in Indian Harbour Beach, FL, one of the small beachside communities on Southern Brevard County's barrier island. While we'll be seeing some changes to the paint and decor around the building since our last visit, hopefully you'll also notice that my writing and photography skills have improved quite a bit since that original post went live back in 2014! So in relation to the building itself and my posts, what's old is new again today, so let's jump on in and give former Albertsons #4368 the modern AFB treatment:
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| Photo courtesy of YonWooRetail2 |
Albertsons #4368 opened for business sometime around July 27, 1988. July 27th was the date the local Florida Today newspaper reported this store in the "New Businesses" column, so the grand opening had to have occurred within a few days (if not the same day) of that report. Located in a new shopping center with its co-anchor Wal-Mart, the Indian Harbour Beach Albertsons had set up shop on a prime piece of real estate located directly across the street from the beach. The entire length of East Eau Gallie Boulevard from where it enters the barrier island at South Patrick Drive and ends at Route A1A serves as the primary commercial corridor for the Southern Brevard barrier island, a little retail oasis for locals who don't want to make the trek to the larger shopping areas over on the mainland. In the late 1980's, Albertsons was one of 4 grocery stores in the general area, with Winn-Dixie and Publix having stores just to the west of here on East Eau Gallie, and a Goodings just north of here on A1A in a former Florida Choice.
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| Photo courtesy of YonWooRetail2 |
While all seemed pretty good for grocery stores on the barrier island in the late 1980's, by the late 1990's, things seemed to take a turn for the worst. In 1996, Winn-Dixie closed its store on East Eau Gallie, followed by the closure of all of Gooding's Brevard County stores a year later in 1997. In 1998, Albertsons followed suit, announcing the closure of its Indian Harbour Beach store. Closing almost exactly 10 years to the day later, the Indian Harbour Beach Albertsons closed for good on July 27, 1998. According to the article above, Albertsons closed this store because it "just wasn't able to get the customer acceptance we were looking for," per a corporate spokeswoman, who then refused to go into more detail about the reasons for closure. Lasting for almost exactly 10 years, it seems like the store's lease was up, and sales volume wasn't justifying a renewal. Albertsons has closed stores at the 10 year mark a number of times in the past (like this store, for example), as it seems like that was the company's prime time for deciding if a store should stay or go back in the 1980's and 1990's.
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| Photo courtesy of hmaxhanson |
Upon the closure of Albertsons in July 1998, Indian Harbour Beach now had three empty grocery stores to fill. Around the time Albertsons announced its closure, rumors began to swirl that Winn-Dixie was interested in the space. Only a few months later in November 1998, those rumors were confirmed, and Winn-Dixie announced that a new 58,000 square foot Marketplace store would be replacing the old Albertsons.
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| Photo courtesy of hmaxhanson |
Winn-Dixie's return to Indian Harbour Beach brought much relief to locals, who now only had a Publix nearby to shop at. The new 58,000 square foot Winn-Dixie Marketplace was to be a "showplace retail space", featuring such frills like a "dry cleaner, pharmacy, photo lab, and gourmet delicatessen". When they first opened, the Marketplace stores of the late 1990's were a sight to behold, especially the Food Pavilion stores like the one at that link. As far as I'm aware, the Indian Harbour Beach Marketplace was never a Food Pavilion store, as its floorplan follows that of the more stripped-down late-1990's Marketplace builds. However, when this store opened on August 5, 1999, I'm sure it was still an impressive sight of what a supermarket for the new millennium would look like.
Also in the article above, one of the shoppers interviewed said jokingly to the reporter that "maybe Publix could set up an annex there," in reference to the vacant original Indian Harbour Beach Winn-Dixie across the street from the Publix store. With Publix being the only grocery store in the area, she was complaining about how the Publix was always so crowded at the time, and that was her somewhat snarky response for how to address the situation. Sometimes there's truth in humor, as come 2006, Publix did exactly what the lady said and ripped down the vacant Winn-Dixie for a new modern store. While the new Publix was a replacement for the old one across the street and not a true annex, it's still interesting how that comment made back in 1999 seemingly predicted the future!
Even though it's a blurry Google Streetview image from 2007, this was all I could find in relation to what the new Indian Harbour Beach Winn-Dixie looked like on the exterior during its Marketplace days. In the year-long conversion of this store, its interior was completely gutted and rebuilt, as after stepping inside you'd think you were in any other late-1990's built Winn-Dixie. However, outside of consolidating Albertsons' dual side-facing entrances into a single entrance in the middle of the building, as well as adding that point to the roofline for the old Marketplace-era diamond logo, the exterior of this building hasn't changed at all since Albertsons built it in 1988.
In the late 2000's, the Indian Harbour Beach Winn-Dixie was remodeled to the Post-Bankruptcy interior, which is the interior we saw when we first toured this store back in 2014, and when we made a quick revisit back in 2016.
Returning to the present in 2023, our latest revisit to the Indian Harbour Beach Winn-Dixie will showcase this store with its current Winn Win decor, which this store remodeled to in the Summer of 2021. The 2021 remodel, while not super fancy, did a nice job of cleaning this store up, as a lot of the remaining Post-Bankruptcy decor stores were looking a bit rough around the edges of late. While the Post-Bankruptcy decor was a nice decor during its prime in the late 2000's, it wasn't a very durable one, and a lot of stores that hung onto Post-Bankruptcy into the early 2020's have been plagued with broken signs and pieces falling off the wall. However, with the recent remodel wave, while I haven't done an official count, I can't imagine there being more than 10 or so stores left in the chain with Post-Bankruptcy as of late 2023. For what was once Winn-Dixie's most widespread decor package prior to the Down Down/Winn Win-era, that's a pretty good effort at trying to clean up the existing store base.
To me, the exterior of this store looks much nicer with the current logo and Winn Win paint scheme compared to the old Post-Bankruptcy one. The new logo is bigger than the one it replaced, and the red and white accents make the facade pop more than the old yellow and brown paint scheme did.
Stepping inside, let's shop 'n' roll Melbourne! While I keep calling this store the Indian Harbour Beach Winn-Dixie (as that's what most people refer to it as), Indian Harbour Beach's southern boundary is officially across the street from this shopping center. This side of Eau Gallie Boulevard (home to the Winn-Dixiesons) officially falls within a small beachside enclave of the City of Melbourne (the rest of which is on the mainland), and for Winn-Dixie's signage, they opted to stick within the official political boundaries for that designation. However, at least this time around the signage is accurate, as during the Post-Bankruptcy days, the signage referred to this store as the Melbourne Beach Winn-Dixie. Melbourne Beach is a totally separate city a few miles south of here, and I think someone in the decor department in Jacksonville didn't realize that Melbourne Beach was something totally different from a store located in Melbourne that happened to be next to the beach! Oh well, if you're confused about what jurisdiction this store is in and what to refer to it as, just call it the "Beachside Winn-Dixie" - the locals will know what you mean!
Stepping inward just a bit from the cart corral, we see the floral department just beyond the carts, followed by produce in the building's front right corner. The cart corral and the floral department are located in what would have originally been Albertsons' right side vestibule. Albertsons' doors would have been located on the short wall where the balloon display is now (to the left of the "Give your room some bloom" sign), with the front wall extending to that pole before opening up to let shoppers pass into the main store.
The remains of the right side vestibule are the only indication from the interior that this store was something else prior to Winn-Dixie, and even then those remains are pretty subtle and probably wouldn't stand out to anyone unless you were really well versed in how a late 1980's Albertsons was laid out. Outside of that, the interior of this store looks like any other late 1990's Winn-Dixie Marketplace. The interior was totally rebuilt by Winn-Dixie - the floors, the lights, the ceiling - everything was installed new. Unlike the Holiday Winn-Dixie we saw not too long ago inside former Albertsons #4324 (which kept a small amount of the Albertsons interior feel alive after a pretty intense remodel), Winn-Dixie decided to start fresh here in Indian Harbour Beach...
…fresh indeed. For those of you who always wondered what grocers meant by the Fresh Departments, here you go, the "Fresh" department in the flesh! One quirk about the Winn Win decor is that it doesn't actually sign the produce department as "Produce" - Produce only gets the "Fresh" sign as its main label, with the slogan on the opposite wall stating "The freshest daily" on Produce's unique green backdrop - a bit of a contrast to the red on the walls throughout the rest of the store. Regardless of how it's signed, produce occupies the front right corner of the building. When Albertsons was here, the deli counter would have been located to my right, with the photo above looking straight into the Albertsons bakery counter. Produce would have been further down the grand aisle, stretching from the end of the bakery into the back right corner (where Winn-Dixie's beer department is now).
From produce, here's a look across the front of the store. While it seems pretty wide, this store isn't much larger than a typical late 1990's Marketplace store Winn-Dixie would have built themselves, with this former Albertsons being 58,000 square feet compared to the typical 55,000 square feet for a late 1990's Marketplace build. For fun, here's what this store's front end would have looked similar to back in its Albertsons configuration, compared to the typical late 1990's Winn-Dixie design we see here today.
The right side of the building is still home to the service department "grand aisle", although configured much differently than Albertsons would have had it arranged. With Winn-Dixie's current configuration, the deli and bakery are located along the right wall. The sliced cold cuts are the first area along the wall following produce, followed by "The Kitchen" and then the bakery.
Here's a close-up of the store's bakery counter, with a refrigerated case for chilled cakes located in front.
Beer and wine is poking out from the back right corner of the building, although we'll get a closer look at that department in just a moment.
A specialty cheese counter occupies this small island across from the bakery. While late 1990's Marketplace Winn-Dixies would have had a specialty cheese counter, the counter we see here was installed during this store's Post-Bankruptcy remodel in the late 2000's, probably the replacement for the Marketplace-era counter that would have been located in the middle of the grand aisle. Specialty cheese counters weren't a common feature to be installed in a Post-Bankruptcy remodel, and this store's slightly larger size and location in the relatively well-off Brevard County Beachside area probably kept the cheese counter alive. The Winn Win remodel didn't change much to the counter besides the addition of the floating "Cheese" sign, as Post-Bankruptcy didn't have a sign of its own for the counter (and floating signs like that aren't a common sight in Winn Win stores either). While this counter doesn't appear to be staffed anymore, it's still fully stocked with specialty cheeses.
What better place to put the cheese counter than next to the wine? Beer and Wine follows the bakery and the cheese counter, and is located in the back right corner of the building.
In addition to the wall signage, Beer & Wine also has a square overhead sign, the typical overhead signage design used in Winn Win for the store's various specialty departments.
The wall curves around in the back right corner of the building, in a similar manner to how Albertsons' Superstore-era produce departments would too (although I don't have a great photo of that design still in-tact, but in that linked photo you can see remnants). While this seems like a potential Albertsons remnant, I've seen other late 1990's Winn-Dixie Marketplace stores with a similar curved beer department like this back here. However, it's still interesting to see the similarly between the two designs!
Finding ourselves along the store's back wall, we find the meat and seafood departments. The meat and seafood service counter is roughly in the same location where Albertsons' used to be, with meat coolers following the counter toward the left, in a similar fashion to Albertsons as well.
A spacious actionway runs along the back of the building, lined down the center with some of Winn-Dixie's famous coffin coolers (which I don't believe are new, just repainted during the Winn Win remodel).
The first grocery aisle we'll cut down is aisles 3 and 4, a double aisle home to sodas in the back half (pictured above), and seasonal in the front half (pictured below).
A pallet of Winn-Dixie's famous Chek cola rests in the middle of the aisle as we look toward the seasonal merchandise half of this wide aisle. It will be interesting to see what Aldi's plans are for Chek sodas, as Chek is arguably one of Winn-Dixie's most valuable house brands. As we saw in the original post about this store, Chek soda has one of the widest selections of flavors of any supermarket house brand of soda I've ever seen, and gets as much (if not more) shelf space than Coke or Pepsi. It's popular stuff, and who knows, maybe it will become Aldi's new house brand of soda.
Like most late 1990's Marketplace stores, the grocery aisles are cut in half by this center aisle, which runs the entire width of the building. With the aisle markers on both sides designed to face the center aisle, you get a nice perspective shot of them closing in on the dairy sign on the left wall, which lines up perfectly with the center aisle (thank you decor designers for keeping that proper alignment in mind!).
Following the meat coolers, we find the remaining subcategories of meat - the frozen and lunch kinds - before the back wall transitions into dairy in the back left corner of the building.
The frozen food aisles are located in the center of the building, just like Albertsons would have had one of these stores arranged. However, the frozen food aisle of this store has changed quite a bit since Winn-Dixie opened, as it would have originally looked more like this. As part of the Winn Win remodel, it appears the freezers were given new doors and trim, as looking at this image, I think those are still the original freezers, just tastefully modernized.
The curse of the inherited building gives us some support columns down the middle of the cereal aisle, leaving a tight squeeze between the column and the Cheerios.
Canned vegetables and rice pictured here in aisle 10...
…with health and beauty only a few steps further down. While not a true "double aisle", the shorter shelf in the middle of the aisle gives off a similar impression, with additional health and beauty products spilling over from this area into the store's last aisle across from dairy as well. Health and Beauty also got an overhead sign in this store, one of only 3 departments in here to get one (the others being Beer and Wine, which we saw already, and a super special one we'll see in a moment).
Here's another look at the store's back wall, this time as seen from the left side of the building. The floor tiling we see in here is all left over from the store's late 2000's Post-Bankruptcy remodel, including the wood-style tile we also saw back in produce. In most Post-Bankruptcy stores, Winn-Dixie didn't bother swapping on the flooring, as the muted colors of Post-Bankruptcy's design don't clash too bad with the new Winn Win decor. Thankfully stores that remodeled from Marketplace to Winn Win had the more garish examples of the funky Marketplace tiling ripped out and replaced with plain white tiles, preventing a disaster like this from occurring (which Down Down remodels were notorious for).
Paper products are presented perfectly pristine in aisle 14.
Now that we're on the opposite side of the store, here's a reverse view down the store's center cut-through aisle. We get a similar effect from the aisle markers from this side, but sadly the Bakery sign isn't lined up as perfectly with the aisle like the dairy one was!
The store's last aisle, aisle 15, is home to dairy coolers on the left, with the remainder of health and beauty and PB&J supplies opposite (kind of a weird combination of stuff).
Leaving the dairy department and the last aisle, we find this store's Sand & Surf department. The Sand & Surf department is a special department reserved for Winn-Dixie stores within close proximity to the beach, although it never really got any signage of its own until the Down Down era. This store's Sand & Surf department is a very tasteful reuse of the store's former pharmacy space, one of the many pharmacies Winn-Dixie purged back in a 2016 pharmacy closure wave (and if you're curious, here's what the pharmacy looked like when it was open). Albertsons' pharmacy would have been located in this same area in the front left corner of the building, just arranged differently.
The prior photo does a much better job of showcasing the special Sand & Surf hanging sign in more detail, as the sign is complete with cartoon beach graphics including a Winn-Dixie logo surfboard. Those same cartoon graphics from the sign carry over onto the backing graphics on the wall over the old pharmacy counter, although the overhead spotlights washed out those graphics in a good portion of the above photo. I thought it was neat Winn-Dixie created special graphics for this department, which I can't imagine is in a lot of stores.
I also managed to catch the store's impulse banana rack in this photo, showcasing the price of 69 cents per pound for those keeping track. 69 cents per pound is the going rate for bananas in Florida these days at Winn-Dixie and Publix, although Aldi and Super Target will typically have them for 55-59 cents a pound (and those two are typically the cheaper banana options around here).
Sun, surf, and bananas aside, here's one final look across the store's front end as we finish up our interior tour of this Winn-Dixiesons.
The customer service desk is located in what used to be Albertsons's left side vestibule, with the kiosk alcove presumable the former home of the Winn-Dixie photo counter or the dry cleaners mentioned in the grand opening article.
"'Til next time! Take it easy!", we're cheerfully told as we walk toward the store's exit, with the arrangement of the doors at this store unique compared to that of a typical late 1990's Marketplace store, stemming from the way the entrance was carved out of the middle of Albertsons' existing facade.
Back outside, the morning sun shines down on the architectural remains of this former Albertsons building. Winn-Dixie has done a nice job keeping this store up to date, and even though it's not a funky Albertsons-esque interior inside, it's certainly a nicer example of a Winn-Dixie.
Strolling toward the liquor store, here's a look at the wall that once contained Albertsons' right side entrance doors. When Albertsons was here, this scene would have looked more like this. Even though the old vestibule doors and windows were walled in, the recessed can lights in the ceiling are a remnant from Albertsons. I can tell they're a remnant because there are two lights above the walled-off entrance - representing the light that was above each door.
Turning around to look the other way, we see the entrance to the liquor store. Winn-Dixie replaced the liquor store doors with their own, although Winn-Dixie's doors are configured just like Albertsons' would have been. The liquor store was also rebuilt by Winn-Dixie before moving in, but managed to keep much of the same floorplan from Albertsons (as it is a tiny space, so there wasn't much that could be changed). That linked photo shows the liquor store with Post-Bankruptcy, but it too has Winn Win now (I just couldn't find any current interior photos online).
Replace Winn-Dixie's sign with one that says "Liquor" in the blue Introspect font and repaint the building beige, and we'd be back to 1996 here.
Of all the 70-something Publixsons stores out there, ironically, it was one of the 3 Winn-Dixiesons that kicked off AFB almost 10 years ago! It's somewhat fitting though that this blog began with a Winn-Dixiesons, as it's certainly been interesting watching and documenting the changes at Winn-Dixie over the last decade, and how that chain went from the lows of bankruptcy in 2018 to the shocking turnaround of the early 2020's (and the even more shocking sale to Aldi announced this year). How Aldi will continue to operate Winn-Dixie will be one of the big things to keep track of as we enter 2024 and 2025 (Winn-Dixie's centennial year), as I still can't decide if this deal is a blessing or a curse, or figure out what Aldi's long term plans for Winn-Dixie are. A strange pairing like that of Winn-Dixie and Aldi sounds about right for Floridian retail, as one thing I have learned writing this blog for the last 10 years is this - if something strange is going to happen, it's going to be in Florida!
While that's all I have for this post, the party continues next Sunday as we explore another store as part of the blog's 10th Anniversary celebration, so be sure to come back next week for that.
So until the next post,
The Albertsons Florida Blog
Retail Retell made a note of this in his reply to the 2016 post about this Winn-Dixiesons, but hopefully this first comment will be better than the first comment on that 2014 post! How could someone complain that the AFB doesn't have enough Albertsons coverage?!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I had no idea that the first store tour post was of a It's Your Beef People. That is interesting! As for that woman's request for a Publix annex, I wonder if that was a comment made jokingly or if it is a reference to Publix actually having annex stores in certain locations. I don't know, I suppose it realistically could go either way!
I'm not quite sure how to feel about this Winn-Dixiesons as it currently exists. If I just look at these photos, it looks pretty nice for a Winn-Dixie. It doesn't have jarring Down Down decor or anything like that. It is not nearly as industrial looking as the new Apopka Winn-Dixie we saw a while back. It even still has a proper floor with designs not too dissimilar from Blue & Grey Market's Tetris floor (though I'm not sure if this store ever would have had that as an Albertsons). These are all positives. Then again, when I compare it to how the store looked a decade ago, it looks like the new decor is a downgrade! Yeah, it is a bit more modern looking, but it is not like the old decor was all that dated looking. Safeway's Colorful Lifestyle v2, a current decor package and one that looks quite nice, isn't too far off from how this Winn-Dixiesons looked a decade ago! I also think the colors from a decade ago are more fitting at a Floridian beach store like this location.
Oh well, I won't be too negative about this remodel. The store still looks okay. It is funny to see the beach department here given that NW Retail just showed an Albertsons (now Pavilions) which had a lot of beach stuff even though it wasn't near a beach!
Also, I'm not sure what kind of alcoholic product is that pink stuff, but it looks like Pepto or old dish soap! It also looks like something The Golden Girls might drink so I guess it fits in at Winn-Dixie!
It'll be interesting to see what the future holds for Das Rindfleischvolk here in the second decade of the AFB. Winn-Dixie wouldn't be Winn-Dixie without drama so at least we can count on Das Rindfleischvolk to be reliable in that manner! It also wouldn't surprise me at all of this location somehow ends up being an actual Publix annex at some point! It would surely be demolished before it became a Publix annex, but Publix has plenty of experience demolishing Winn-Dixies and Albertsons so why not do both with one swing of the wrecking ball!
🤣 Of course you translated "The Beef People" to German!!! I'm dead!
DeleteThe internet is a strange place, but thankfully (and I don't want to jinx this) I haven't had to deal with any crazies on here in a long time! If AcmeLover is still around, hopefully he/she will see there's plenty of Albertsons related stuff on this blog a decade later! However, the comments to this post are off to a much better start! :)
DeleteI didn't think much about starting off the blog with an It's Your Rindfleischvolk back then, and I didn't even realize the irony of that until I began writing this post, especially with how the ubiquity of the Publixsons has become a bit of a running gag on the blog. Back when the lady made that comment, Publix did have some stores relatively close together in places like South Florida, but the comically close together ones (like the stores across the street from each other in St. Petersburg) didn't start to become a common thing for Publix until they bought those 49 stores from Albertsons in 2008.
This store would have been a Blue and Gray Market store being a 1988-build, and it would have been fun to see this store if it was remodeled as cheaply as Publix tended to remodeled these stores when they took them over. The previous Post-Bankruptcy decor in this store didn't look bad, and I actually really like the Post-Bankruptcy decor's design overall - it's just that some stores have/had very poorly kept versions of that decor where pieces of the signage would fall off, and it really made the store feel dumpy. The Post-Bankruptcy decor on the walls of this store was kept up really nice prior to the remodel, although the lane lights were removed prior to the remodel because those had begun to fall apart. All of the flooring throughout the store if left over from Post-Bankruptcy, and thankfully it matches the new Winn Win decor rather well!
What's rather interesting is all of the Floridian Albertsons stores near the beach didn't last long or closed a long time ago, so I never got to see what a Floridian Albertsons beach department looked like. My local Albertsons wasn't near the beach, but thankfully Albertsons didn't put in a big beach department there like at that California store!
Pink wine sounds like some kind of weird Floridian beach drink, so I guess it fits the aesthetic of this store, even though I wouldn't trust drinking wine the same color as a plastic lawn flamingo!
I'm really curious to see what becomes of Winn-Dixie these next few years as we enter the era of Das Rindfleischvolk, so I'll be keeping an eye on any changes. This store seems to do pretty good business, but I have no idea what kind of criteria Aldi might be using to determine what stores may convert and what won't. If Publix were to get this building, I would like to see the original building get used for a little while so we could see the world's only Winn-Publixsons!
Wow, this store looks great now! And congrats on 10 years! I began following the blog in late 2015, so it's been quite a journey!
ReplyDeleteYou are correct on the opening date. Looking at a July 1988 calendar, the 27th fell on a Wednesday. Albertsons always opens a new store (or at least for many years) on Wednesday to coincide with a new sales week.
What irony it is that the store closed exactly on the 10 year mark. That's crazy!
I agree with you about liking the new logo and paint scheme on this store. I'm glad to see Winn Dixie doing so well at this location. Publix appears to be most popular in vacation areas, with Winn Dixie coming in 2nd place. Publix and Winn Dixie both do good in Panama City Beach, one WD right across from the shore like this one.
Interesting enough (and I predicted this 7 or so years ago). I saw just recently that the Sweetbay Community in Panama City proper (the site of the city's original airport) just had a groundbreaking ceremony for new shops and a Publix supermarket. That's going to be quite a nice development in the next 3- 4 years!
Thanks, and thanks for sticking around for so long too!
DeleteThanks for confirming the store's opening date as well. It makes sense Albertsons would want to open a new store at the start of a new ad week, as Publix does the same thing as well. It is strange how this store operated as an Albertsons for exactly 10 years to the day - they couldn't have planned that any better!
This appears to be a pretty high-volume Winn-Dixie, and it's a pretty well-liked one from what I understand as well. That said, Publix has three stores within 5 mile radius of this Winn-Dixie these days, but it seems to hold its own. Albertsons never seemed to have any luck with operating stores near the beach, as this store, 4365, and 4342 all closed long ago after a short period of time.
Publix also seems to be doing a decent amount of expansion in the Panhandle recently too, and it's nice to hear about the new store in PC. Glad to hear about some new stores coming to the area there!
This store is looking nice with the Winn Win remodel! That special Sand & Surf sign is cool, and like you said, the Dairy sign being centered on the actionway is beautiful (do better next time, Bakery! XD ) Pretty awesome to be able to revisit the very first store on the blog -- and also agree that it's funny how the first store was one of the few Winn-Dixiesons, and not one of the many (many!) Publixsons!
ReplyDeleteI've been impressed with how most of the Winn Win remodels turned out, as they've certainly been more thorough than some of the Down Down ones were. WD did a good job with the special Sand & Surf signage and graphics as well. With all the changes here, I thought it would be fun to see this store again 10 years later in a new light!
DeleteI Have Barely Seen Any Albertsons On This Blog.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun way to celebrate, and thanks for the link! I don't think I had ever read your OG post, so that was a fun activity. The Post-Bankruptcy interior may still be quite familiar, but the "Dependable Deal" signs just look bizarre to somebody who never ventured into a Winn-Dixie during that era: no Down Down in sight!
DeleteOtherwise, it is so funny to read your old stuff! "I saw that interior called the 'Blue and Gray Market' somewhere online, but I don't remember where. I don't think that was the official name for that look, but I'll go with it." -- Oh how things have changed yet they still remain the same! It's also nice to see that you've become more confident with your photography!
Here's another good one: "See that area in the back corner that looks like a part of an octagon, where the word 'beer' is? That area was a distinctive feature in every Albertsons superstore model's produce department." I hate to break it to 10-year-younger AFB, but that beer corner is 100% a remnant from the Winn-Dixie Marketplace & Food Pavilion cold cuts corner!
Also, "I'm pretty sure Winn-Dixie added that lowered ceiling area over the checkouts. I've never been to a Florida Albertsons that had something like this." -- yet another Winn-Dixie commonality!
Probably the thing that got me the most, though, is how offended you were by the comment that "AcmeLover" left! Hopefully you have since learned that internet trolls exist, and sometimes it's just to leave them alone in their land of negativity.
As for today's post, here's some insight: I hate to break it to you, but this WD was actually a Food Pavilion when it opened. I had that suspicion when I glanced over the post this morning so I decided to do some digging. (The only time I've ever seen that deli/bakery layout and the angled pharmacy in the front corner is in a Food Pavilion store.) What I found is that one of the articles you linked to says, "The 59,000-square-foot Winn-Dixie Marketplace and Food Pavilion joins Wal-Mart as plaza anchors." That article also goes on to mention Publix #704's pending opening and the pending conversion of two Food Lions to Kash 'n Karry.
The only thing I see this store lacking from being a standard Food Pavilion is the "grand isle". I have a theory that Winn-Dixie ripped out the old island during the Post-Bankruptcy remodel and shifted the deli over to the old floral alcove. The bakery is still in the same location as it originally was, making this an otherwise textbook Food Pavilion layout. The fact that this store received a premium cheese island and salad bar during the post-bankruptcy era also shows that it is a really high volume, upscale store and received a vigorous remodel out of Marketplace. As for the cheese counter photo you linked to, that setup was only used in the smaller "Deli Cafe" Winn-Dixies which used the stereotypical 1990's layout we all think of.
I about lost it when you said "Winn-Dixie decided to start fresh here in Indian Harbor Beach . . ."! That was such an easy pun to make, but it still cracked me up! That's also a neat picture you took down the dreaded center aisle--I like how the aisle signs lined up to frame the dairy sign so well!
That Sand & Surf department was also cool to see! And you couldn't resist in helping Anonymous in Houston go bananas! You just better not bring one of those bananas on a boat with your new Winn-Dixie snorkel or else bad things may happen . . . (like seeing every last Winn-Dixie sink into an Aldi--I hope you have a big life raft). As for the photo counter, it would have been on a triangular island in front of the pharmacy. Winn-Dixie obviously didn't think they would need to take refuge on it in the future.
How is there barely any Albertsons on this blog?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!! :) (I actually haven't read that first post since back when it was first published, and I totally forgot about that comment and my ranting response to it until everyone brought that up again here.)
DeleteAfter 7 years of Down Down, it is strange seeing all the old "Real Deal/Dependable Deal" and "Fuelperks!" signs throughout the store. However, to this day, whenever someone says the phrase "The Real Deal" I think of Winn-Dixie, much like how the phrase "It's a win win" will forever be a Winn-Dixie reference to me now!
Well, I guess "Blue and Gray Market" did manage to stick around! I've seen that same octagon cold cuts corner in other Marketplace stores over the last decade as well - WD was just trying to tease my younger self into thinking it was an Albertsons remnant! I think I've also learned to play nicer now with my responses to comments, as (without jinxing anything) I haven't had any negative comments like that one AcmeLover left in a really long time. Still though, I'm sure it was interesting to see how this blog (and myself) have evolved over the last decade!
I only saw the blurry garbled OCR version of that article, so I just picked out whatever info I needed from that at the moment and didn't try to piece together the entire thing. While this store may have had a Food Pavilion, I'm not too sure though that it had the island though. The Winn-Dixie at Port Malabar and Babcock in Palm Bay, which opened within a year of this store, has the exact same layout, but kept its original Marketplace decor until a year or so ago. It never had the island, as I doubt WD would have ripped it out without ever changing the decor: https://myfloridaretail.blogspot.com/2018/12/winn-dixie-2333-palm-bay-fl-babcock.html
In addition to that store, the stores in Delray Beach, Alafaya & Lake Underhill in Orlando, and the Military & Okeechobee in West Palm WDs all had the same layout as the linked store in Palm Bay, and all closed with Marketplace decor, and all never had the island either. Maybe this store had a deli island that was ripped out, but I think it's likely that some Food Pavilion stores never had the island to begin with (with the island possibly being an older Food Pavilion element phased out in later stores that had the concept?)
Regardless, the IHB Winn-Dixie certainly gives off the impression it does good business, and it's by far the nicest Winn-Dixie in the area. I'm just surprised it lost its pharmacy back in the 2016 closure wave, but I guess with Walmart's pharmacy and an independent pharmacy (which is now closed, but was around back in 2016), having three pharmacies in the same shopping center was just too much, and Winn-Dixie's was the weakest of the bunch.
See center aisles all can't be that bad, especially when the symmetry is spot on like it is here (at least when looking toward the left wall, just disregard the view the other way!) And I should probably grab one of those inflatable floaty rings from the Sand & Surf department to right this sinking ship, but that may not be enough!
Wow, have I discovered something that I think will shock you: I believe that 3/4 stores you linked to had their deli islands removed. Let's begin.
DeleteFirst, I can't really make heads or tails of the Palm Bay Winn-Dixie. It is an interesting one, as it seems to break a lot of other norms. I'm guessing that store didn't have a Food Pavilion based on how far back the produce department looks compared to the deli. The caged off liquor store is also very strange. I see the old tile where the salad bar would have been in that store, but the produce department oddly seems to lack porcelain tile of any kind which also makes me skeptical as to whether it was set up like this to start with. The dairy/beverage center layout is also not conventional.
Second, the Delray Beach store 100% underwent a remodel at some point based on how the pink tile under the checkout ceiling abruptly ends at the green flooring for produce. It also has the old salad bar tile and cafe seating area tile in the back of the grand aisle that is now covered by full aisles. I'd have to have seen that store in person, but I'm not ruling out the fact that WD could have removed the deli island to allow them to shift the produce department and add the liquor store. The cage also seems like a cheap remodel stopgap rather than something from new construction. Lastly, the 5th picture on the Google listing shows the ceiling over what would have been the grand isle. The ceiling tiles over that part of the store look oddly whiter, but even better, the florescent lights leave the standard grid alignment in favor of the exact layout we would have seen over the power alley. This store also had the Food Pavilion facade.
The Orlando store you mention had the Food Pavilion facade as well, and also had the misaligned lights and mismatched ceiling tiles.
Finally, the West Palm store also had the facade, misaligned lights, and some ironically placed vinyl tile that is a different shade than the rest of the store, along with a few capped floor drains.
What stuck out to me the most is how the latter three stores all had tan Marketplace with green lettering. I've only seen that interior in person in Auburn, and I feel convinced that store underwent a remodel from its original configuration back before Winn-Dixie's first bankruptcy. I feel compelled that the latter three stores above would have opened as full Food Pavilions with Rose & Teal Marketplace, and WD decided to remodel them away from the concept as the writing on the wall became apparent but before the bottom totally fell out. I never would have thought it, but now I believe that most cream Marketplace stores with teal lettering underwent a pre-bankruptcy Marketplace facelift!
So with all of that evidence in mind, I am willing to wager that an island-less Food Pavilion wasn't a thing and also that the trapezoidal facade almost guarantees a former Food Pavilion.