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| What better way to celebrate AFB's 12th anniversary than with the internet's most famous grocery aisle? |
In last year's anniversary post, I asked if 2025 would be the year that shows we can only go up from rock bottom, or if this year would show we have not even hit rock bottom yet. With 2025 coming to an end, I can safely say 2025 was the year that showed we can only go up from rock bottom, as even with everything going on, I think this year has put us in a very interesting place for Floridian retail. While Aldi's conversions of their Winn-Dixie stores still have two more years to go, Winn-Dixie has begun to show us our first signs for the company's new post-Aldi future, Florida's first new Harris Teeter in over 25 years was announced, and heck, even Big Lots opened a new store in Florida this year! Lots of surprises for sure, and a lot of things to make us excited for what will come in 2026. I certainly feel more optimistic for the state of retail in Florida now than I did a year ago! Outside of all that, one of the other major news pieces from the last year was the announcement that Kroger would be closing its delivery hub in Groveland, formally ceasing all grocery delivery operations in Florida on February 1, 2026. After last year's announcement that Kroger was closing its Miami delivery "spoke", I figured the announcement that the rest of the operation was in trouble and its subsequent closure wasn't too far behind. Oh well, maybe the closure of the delivery operation will allow Kroger to put more money into opening Harris Teeter stores here!
Anyway, hopefully we'll get more good news to report on in 2026, such as covering the openings of those new Harris Teeter stores, as well as some new Winn-Dixies too (and I assure you there were be plenty of new Publix stores in the mix as well). I know I'd like to cover some more grand openings after covering so many store closings over the last year! Current affairs aside, I would like to take a moment to thank everyone for your support (or toleration) for yet another year, as keeping a blog like this going for 12 years has been no easy feat! I have had a lot more going on behind the scenes this year than I have in years past, so I do apologize for my backlog in replying to comments and emails this year, something I hope to get caught up on (finally) during my upcoming winter break. I try my hardest to prioritize getting new content out to everyone before anything else, so in my mission to do that, sometimes my other blogging tasks get pushed to the wayside. However, I still have plenty more pictures to share and stories to tell, so we'll see what 2026 brings to the blog, and be sure to come back next year to see more! We will finish out 2025 with two more posts though, including my anniversary post below, followed by a piece on the future of Winn-Dixie next weekend. Be sure to stick around for today's tour of a very interesting Winn-Dixie in Temple Terrace, and if you want to recap the year, the rest of this post will feature my usual summary of everything we toured in 2025:
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| Aisle 12 - Jewel-Albsafelixsons style |
The Year in Review (and Some Random Stats):
Albertsons Stores Covered:
Albertsons #4320 - Seminole, FL (My second most popular post of the year)
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| Even Yellow Down Down made the cut to appear in today's post! |
Bonus Buy Stores Covered:
Lucky's Market #52 - Orlando, FL (A look back at Lucky's Market 5 years after the chain's demise, as well as a tour of the same store after it became an Aldi)
Publix #172 - Naples, FL (A guest post by Horizontal Horizons, featuring a tour of the last Classy Market 1.0 Publix in its later days, as well as tour following its closure)
Winn-Dixie #609 - Avon Park, FL (One of Winn-Dixie's last few Marketplace decor stores, which was closed by Aldi in 2024) (My third most popular post of the year)
Winn-Dixie #349 - Margate, FL (Winn-Dixie's first Transformational decor store, located in a former Publix)
Winn-Dixie #2444 - Ruskin, FL (A Winn-Dixie inside a mostly original 1970's Kash n' Karry)
Winn-Dixie #103 - Fleming Island, FL (A Winn-Dixie with an unusual mid-2010's remodel, closed by Aldi in 2025)
Publix #139 - St. Pete Beach, FL (A 1960's Publix that would later be destroyed by a fire in May 2025) (My most popular post of the year)
Winn-Dixie #2309 - Ormond Beach, FL (A Winn-Dixie located in a former Walmart building, closed by Aldi in 2024)
Publix #70 - Fort Lauderdale, FL (A tour of Publix's current 2nd oldest store, hailing from 1961)
Winn-Dixie #210 - Tamarac, FL (A tour of one of Winn-Dixie's last few Marketplace decor stores, which closed outright in October 2025)
Winn-Dixie #2425 - Palm Harbor, FL (A former Sweet-Dixie, which was closed by Aldi in 2025)
Winn-Dixie #2441 - Temple Terrace, FL (A Winn-Dixie that held onto Sweetbay's rare "Sweetbay 2.0" decor until 2022)
Winn-Dixie #2238 - St. Cloud, FL (Winn-Dixie's first remodel post-Aldi ownership, which is setting the stage for Winn-Dixie's future - post coming on December 14th)
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| And Sweetbay was able to contribute too! |
From all that, you can see it's been a very Winn-Dixie heavy year! With Winn-Dixie being the flavor of the week, that was bound to happen, and we'll still be seeing plenty of Winn-Dixie on the blog next year too (and yes, plenty of Albertsons as well, although I would also like to note I'm down to my last 20 of those I have photographed - throwing in the few fringe stores I've never been to, that would bring me to roughly 30 locations left, but either way, we're getting close to having them all posted). Along with Winn-Dixie and Albertsons, I'm sure Publix will be joining next year's lineup too, and maybe, just maybe, 2026 will be the year we see Harris Teeter on AFB? We'll see what my schedule looks like as far as that goes, but Harris Teeter would be a fun change of scenery, wouldn't it? Anyway, thanks again for joining me for another year, and be sure to keep scrolling down for today's post about the "downtown" Temple Terrace Winn-Dixie!
So until the next post,
The Albertsons Florida Blogger
Happy 12th anniversary to the AFB! It sounds like you have a lot going on behind the scenes, but I'm glad you've been able to keep AFB and MFR going throughout the year. Admittedly, I've had stuff going on behind the scenes as well and so I have not been very active on the retail blogs this year either. In fact, this might well be my first comment at AFB all year even though I've read all the posts! That said, I think I've made comments on a handful of MFR posts so at least there is that! Some of the stuff going on on my end of things was expected and some of it not, but none of it is bad news...hopefully! It has pulled me from the retail hobby somewhat though. My first (and probably only) guest retail blog post of the year was published just yesterday!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite post of the year is probably what the crowd says is the favorite, the Dolphin Village Shopping Center post. There's nothing like a photo of a flaming Publix to get one's attention! While a flaming Publix might well please some of the chain's critics, it is unfortunate that the flames took down a neat older Publix. Oh well, I suppose a lot of older Florida supermarket history came down this year so it was just part of the theme.
The Kroger/Harris Teeter news is exciting and I hope you'll be able to make a live visit to something Kroger this year. Harris Teeters are surely less objectionable than most things Kroger, at least new ones, these days so at least you have that to look forward to, hopefully. You know the state of a state's retail is a bit dull when Kroger expanding their presence is exciting news, but such is the case I suppose. At least it isn't Aldi!
A recent newspaper article quoted a Kroger Texas official (Kroger has recently re-merged the Dallas & Houston divisions) saying they are planning on opening new locations in Houston in the near future, but there was a certain sense of 'we'll believe it when we see it' given how long it has been since Kroger has opened a new store in Houston. It's been almost a decade now, and Kroger has closed around five stores in Houston this past year alone. Hopefully the end of the merger nonsense and the online operations will signal renewed investments in the stores and maybe the Harris Teeter stores are a sign of that, but we'll see!
Happy blogiversary friend!! 12 years is an exciting milestone to celebrate, and I love all the Aisle 12 pictures you've thrown in as well :) I've enjoyed tolerating your content for all this time!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations!
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit late to this, but happy anniversary!! 12 years is a very long time and you've done great work during that time. Here's to many more!
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