The Land of Old Florida and Its Equally Vintage Supermarket

Food Ranch

40 US Highway 19, Inglis, FL - Withlacoochee Plaza

Today's post is a presentation of Levy County retail

The 1980's Called and They Want Their Supermarket Back

     From the teaser title to today's post, how many of you assumed today's tour was going to be of a Winn-Dixie? If I totally threw you off with that, then I did my job well! While we've seen some pretty ancient Winn-Dixies on the blog before, I feel the store we'll be taking a look at today tops anything Winn-Dixie had lying around into the 2020's in terms of holding onto a 1980's aesthetic. Having looked at numerous photos of supermarkets from Publix to Winn-Dixie to various random small-town IGAs, I feel pretty safe saying the Food Ranch of Inglis is probably the best example of a totally untouched 1980's supermarket left in the Floridian Peninsula (and if anyone can think of anything older still kicking out there, let me know). Food Ranch isn't a large store so today's post isn't going to be very long, but if you like old-school supermarkets or 1980's aesthetics (or both), then you'll certainly enjoy today's post!

     The Food Ranch of Inglis dates back to the opening of the Withlacoochee Shopping Center in 1985, the 15,000 square foot grocery store being the anchor to the small shopping plaza. In addition to Food Ranch, its original co-tenants included Family Dollar and Rexall Drugs as well, providing the town with a well-rounded retail option. The construction of this shopping center was seen as a big win for the community of approximately 1,000 residents at the time, as this was the town's first (and to this day, only) major shopping center and supermarket. Located about 10 miles north of Crystal River and just over the Levy County line, Inglis is the first of many small rural towns that dot the US 19 corridor as one heads northward into the "Big Bend" of Florida, where the Peninsula begins to bend westward into the Panhandle. The Big Bend region takes on a lot more of the characteristics of the Panhandle than the Peninsula, where folks in this area continue to preserve a lot of the old rural Florida way of life, and where pushback on the sprawl and urban development running rampant throughout the rest of the Floridian Peninsula is much more common. While I can't find a lot of specifics on the history of Food Ranch, the name of the store seems to reference the small town, rural way of life in this area, where farms and ranches are a common sight. Food Ranch appears to be a completely independent, one-off store, and currently operates as an IGA affiliate (which it has probably been since it opened in 1985).

     Even the building itself seems to have a western-style ranch-like feel, as the design of the facade reminds me a lot of an old-time western saloon. Also on the topic of things that remind me of other things, I'm not the only one who thinks Food Ranch's logo looks like a knock-off of Winn-Dixie's old logo, right?

     While the store's exterior is fairly unique and interesting, and probably original to 1985, the interior also follows suit. That being said, let's head inside and take a look around:

     From the very spacious vestibule, off to the right is your first taste of what we have in store in terms of 1980's aesthetic.

     When it comes to 1980's supermarkets in Florida, it seems like decor could go one of two ways: Golden Girls/Miami Vice/Florida-style funky chrome and pastel 1980's, or traditional brown and orange 1980's. While the former option can be an interesting sight, walking around a supermarket where you think you may bump into Rose, Dorothy, and Blanche while you shop, Food Ranch opted for the latter choice with the more traditional brown and orange 1980's approach. The first time I saw photos of this place I couldn't believe the interior still looked like this, and I knew one day I had to venture all the way out here for a look. Not knowing when that would occur, I informed YonWoo about this store, and as you may remember, he did a brief write-up about Food Ranch on MFR back in 2020. My visit to Food Ranch finally occurred a few years after that as I made the trek out to Crystal River to get some photos of its then soon-to-be-closing mall, after mall management placed an open invite to anyone who wanted to come out and take photos of the mall and see it one last time. Inglis was just up the road, so after exploring the mall, I popped by the ol' Food Ranch for quick visit.

     Entering the store, the customer service desk is located in the front right corner of the building, with a produce alcove just behind that in aisle 1. The color-scale blocks on the wall and the font of the department signs really embody 1980's design. The original coolers also add to the effect, however, the produce displays seen here appear to be a bit more modern. I would have expected to see a produce table more like this in here!

     Being a small store, Food Ranch lacks a service deli and bakery. For baked goods, there were some pre-packaged breads and cakes spread around the store, and this pre-packaged Cold Cuts cooler in the back right corner of the building substituted for a full-service deli. The cold cuts cooler still retains its original mustard yellow color trim too, which matches the red-orange graphics on the wall above quite well.

     Beyond the cold cut cases, the remainder of the store's back wall is home to a very large meat counter. While the meats are entirely self-serve in those (very much original) coffin coolers, Food Ranch does have an on-staff butcher. The edge of the window that looks into the butcher's room is visible to the right of the "Preferred Angus" banner on the wall, with a small corridor behind the coolers where the butcher can restock the cases from behind.

     Now that we've seen the meat counter, it's time to meet the grocery aisles.

     The center store grocery aisles aren't anything too exciting to look at. However, this store, as small as it is, managed to cram a pretty good variety of products into this 15,000 square foot space. However, it seems like the people of Inglis really like their Maxwell House, as there's a lot of facings of the larger size Maxwell House containers on the shelf, a lot more compared to the Folgers next to it!

     I'd have to guess the aisle markers are original to the store as well, as they seem to match the rest of the decor pretty well. The design of the aisle markers is pretty generic overall, and compared to the wall decor, the aisle markers don't come off as being as dated looking.

       Half of aisle 6 is home to frozen foods, with the other half of that department located next door in aisle 7 with dairy.

     Since this store isn't all that large, it didn't take us long to get to the other side. From the back left corner, here's a different look at the store's meat counter, with a better view of the butcher's area. Since this store lacks a service bakery and deli, the meat department is the only full-service department offered at Food Ranch, even if it is designed to be semi-self serve.

     The remainder of frozen foods is visible to our right in the store's last grocery aisle, aisle 7, with dairy lining the store's left wall. The dairy decor follows the same color palette of the meat department, although its matching floor tiles are mustard yellow instead of the burnt orange tiles used for meats.

     From dairy, here's a look toward the front left corner of the store, home to "Beverages". The "beverages" in question are of the more potent kind, as soda, water, and juices were located in the main grocery aisles.

     Returning to the front of the store, here's a look at the check lanes and the customer service desk, located in the corner under the brown and yellow stripe. With the aesthetic in here, you can probably hear the sound of one of these cash registers in the background. It would have been an interesting experience if this store was still using registers like those, however, the registers here were pretty typical modern scan-based ones.

     Heading back out, here's one last look at this tastefully vintage supermarket. We can see the "Beverages" and "Dairy" signs in the background, with a small greeting card and souvenir section as we head back out.

     And speaking of the souvenir department, Food Ranch had these Inglis t-shirts for sale, with a cartoon depiction of Food Ranch itself on the shirt (in addition to other local landmarks). I didn't look at the shirt too closely when I was here, but it's actually a pretty neat design. If I ever end up at the ol' Food Ranch again maybe I'll have to pick one up for myself!

     Exiting Food Ranch from the right side doors, here's a look across the front of the little strip of stores that branches off to the right of the supermarket. Those pallets of potting soil and manure belong to a small hardware store next door, which occupies the old Rexall Drug and Family Dollar space. (And interestingly enough, even though Family Dollar has a freestanding store in the parking lot these days, their space in the plaza was occupied by a Dollar General for a number of years, with Family Dollar's new store opening in the early 2010's shortly after Dollar General closed). Following the hardware store you'll find a bar and a guns & ammo store, a pretty complete collection of retail for a small town in Florida.

     As we wrap up today's post, here are a few more parting shots of Food Ranch's facade.

     Food Ranch isn't a big store, but it's an interesting one nonetheless! It's always fun to find a funky little piece of the past buried amongst the rampant modernization that has spread throughout the Floridian peninsula. With Winn-Dixie's recent remodeling spree and Publix just being Publix, on top of the Floridian supermarket scene having heavily consolidated over the last few decades, vintage supermarkets still giving us a glimpse of life in the 1980's and 1990's aren't very common in these parts. That being the case, this was a fun store to visit, and hopefully Food Ranch continues to serve the folks of Inglis for many more years to come, preferably the way it is!

     I'll return on Sunday to continue the celebration with a really interesting post (and a post that will more than make up for today's being a bit shorter than usual). Be sure to come back next week for that, however, this coming Wednesday, November 29th, the Sing Oil Blogger will be sharing with us a guest post to commemorate AFB's 10th Anniversary. He'll be sharing with us an interesting store that will give us a glimpse into a parallel universe, a reality that could have happened if the history of Floridian supermarkets had unfolded differently than it did. For more on that, be sure to come back on Wednesday to read his post at AFB's 10th Anniversary celebration continues!

So until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger