Winn-Dixie Comes In Like a Lion, and Goes Out Like an Aldi

Food Lion #2162 / Winn-Dixie #112 / Aldi #112

181 Blackford Way, St. Augustine, FL - Shores Village

Today's post is a presentation of St. John's County retail

     I was originally unsure of what I was going to write about for this post, as I wanted to find something that was sort-of kind-of near the old Palm Coast Albertsons to feature. With Winn-Dixie still being the talk of the town, I came very close to prepping a post on the Daytona Beach Shores Winn-Dixie one county south of that former Albertsons, that being (until you-know-who came along) the oldest Winn-Dixie left in the chain per the MFR Aldi conversion list. But as I was writing the final paragraph of my last post, the old adage "March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb" popped into my head, which made me think of Food Lion, which then made me think of the St. Augustine Shores Winn-Lion, which then gave me the title "Winn-Dixie Comes In Like a Lion, and Goes Out Like an Aldi", which I thought was too good of a title to go to waste! Being one county up from the Palm Coast Albertsons, the timing, the title, and the location couldn't have been any more perfect - it was a Winn Win Win! That said, we'll take a look at the Daytona Beach Shores Winn-Dixie another time, and instead take a look at this funky Winn-Lion today (which also succumbed to the same fate as the aforenoted Daytona Beach Shores store and 219 of its other brethren). Unlike Daytona Beach Shores, which had 69 years to serve its community, the St. Augustine Shores Winn-Dixie didn't even get to see its 4th anniversary. Honestly, I don't know which situation is sadder, as a community losing its full-service supermarket in a fabulous display of corporate greed is horrible no matter which way you slice it! Anyway, we'll spend today talking about the first two iterations of supermarket to occupy this building, starting off by seeing how it came in like a lion:

Photo courtesy of Google Maps

     While it may be hard to believe, Food Lion was actually opening new stores in Florida until the late 2000's. The Food Lion we see here opened in 2009, one of a handful of new Food Lion stores to have opened around Jacksonville and St. Augustine during that timeframe. With the areas on the southern, western, and northern edges of St. Augustine growing rapidly in the late 2000's, Food Lion actually took the opportunity to enter some of those newer Northeastern Florida communities, such as St. Augustine Shores. Its only other competition being a Publix two miles to the north, this Food Lion was well positioned to capture shoppers from St. Augustine Shores, Crescent Beach, and even the northern fringes of Palm Coast.

     Food Lion's 2000's Floridian newbuilds were identical to the stores the chain was building elsewhere in its footprint at the time, down to the unusual (for Florida) all-brick exteriors, a design trait more common going further north. This style of Food Lion is called by many the "Rutherfordton" design, as the first prototype of this design and decor opened in the town of Rutherfordton, North Carolina in 2006. These late 2000's Food Lion stores were nothing like their 1990's counterparts that spread across Florida during the chain's peak. Gone were the dingy, tiny, no-frills atmosphere Food Lion had a reputation for, and in came a modern prototype with a full suite of amenities such as expanded deli and bakery, wider aisles, and in some cases, the addition of a full-service pharmacy counter (a rarity for Food Lion stores). The new decor was designed to have a "neighborhood" feel, and would make the stores feel more cozy and comfortable. Even though the decor has been changed a few times in the years since, Food Lion newbuilds of the 2020's still use a very similar design to their late 2000's counterparts, just paired with the chain's modern Easy, Fresh, Affordable (EFA) 3.0 decor - Food Lion really did something right with this design for it to still be in use 20 years later!

     Anyway, since we won't be seeing any 2020's Food Lion newbuilds in Florida anytime soon, let's get back to the Food Lion of the late 2000's and early 2010's. Even though Food Lion gave Florida one last chance with some new stores in the late 2000's, they were feeling the squeeze from Publix and Walmart, just like their fellow competitor Albertsons was. In January 2012, Food Lion announced a massive closure wave, a wave which included the complete exit from the state of Florida and quite the thinning of stores in its remaining southern expanses. Only 3 months after Food Lion's announcement, Albertsons also announced its near withdrawal from Florida in April 2012. 2012 was not a good year for supermarkets in Florida, but part of the reason this blog exists is because of all the events that transpired in Florida's supermarket scene that year!

Seeing one of these Rutherfordton-style Food Lion stores in Florida just seems so strange to me.

     Barely 3 years old at the time of its closure in early 2012, this store would sit empty for the next 9 years awaiting a new tenant. I happened to pass by this store during its time sitting empty, intrigued by the fact this was not only one of the last new Food Lion stores to open in Florida, but also the fact that it probably still had traces of the Rutherfordton decor inside.

With the parking lot palm trees hiding in this shot, I probably could have convinced everyone this photo was taken somewhere in North Carolina!

     When I stopped by here the first time in 2019, I never would have guessed Winn-Dixie would have opened a store in this building only two years later. Back then, Winn-Dixie looked like they were barely able to keep their existing stores open, let alone open new ones. While this store appeared to be a tough sell to a new tenant at the time, an identical Food Lion store on St. Augustine's northern fringes was scooped up by Publix in 2018 and promptly flattened for a store of their own. My best guess in 2019 about this building's future would have probably been similar to what transpired on the north side of town (once Publix felt the surrounding neighborhood was built out enough), so I will give Winn-Dixie a lot of credit for taking an opportunity like this one and making a go for it before Publix could! Too bad someone else had other plans though...

     Not only were the exteriors of these late 2000's Food Lion stores quite nice, the interiors were just as complimentary. We'll begin our brief interior tour of this store in abandoned form with a look into the vestibule. The exterior's brick work bled into the vestibule area, which had a high gable ceiling and a lot of natural light flowing into it. The doors we see in front of me were the entry doors, which angled into the store's former produce area.

     From the vestibule's right side window, here's a look across the space. The carts would have been stored in the center of the vestibule, between the two sets of doors. The interior exit door can be seen at the end of the old cartwell area, with the exterior exit doors funneling shoppers out the side of the vestibule onto the walkway.

     Looking up into the high ceiling, Food Lion's Rutherfordton-era "Welcome" sign remained in place above the entrance doors.

     While the vestibule contained most of the building's windows, the windows did extend toward the right side of the building, allowing natural light to enter the store's produce department.

     Having to hold my phone up high to see through the produce department windows, here's our peek at the store's interior without the vestibule windows in the way. A few Rutherfordton remnants managed to hang on in here following the store's closure, including the faux wood floors and the produce, deli, and bakery departments' hanging trellises.

     The deli and bakery departments lined the right side of the building following produce, with deli just beyond produce and the bakery in the back right corner of the store. Interestingly, Winn-Dixie actually kept much of this store's general floorplan in place, even though they did quite a bit of work to this building in their conversion. The floorplan we'll see Winn-Dixie use in here was pretty much the basis for the remaining new stores Winn-Dixie opened in the 2021-2023 timeframe. This being the first of those following the Lucky's and Earth Fare conversions, could it be that Winn-Dixie based their future new stores off of Food Lion's Rutherfordton design, or was it just mere coincidence?

     That's all I have from my visit while the old Food Lion was still sitting empty. In case you noticed the lack of pictures from the left side of the building during this visit, that's because a homeless man was camped out on the walkway on that side of the building. In addition to the Food Lion being vacant at the time, much of the adjoining strip center was empty too, leaving this to be a quiet place for someone like that to make camp. Not wanting to stir him up, I stayed to the right side of the building on this day, but I still think we got a good picture of this place before Winn-Dixie moved in.

Photo courtesy of Winn-Dixie

     Moving along to Winn-Dixie, following the chain's sudden rebirth in 2020 following the purchase of 8 stores from the rubble of Lucky's Market and Earth Fare, Winn-Dixie shocked us all with the announcement of even more new stores to come after that. After using the former Lucky's and Earth Fare stores to debut its new prototype, the first new store to follow that was this location in St. Augustine Shores, opening on December 8, 2021 to much adoration.

     While there are a handful of other Winn-Lions out there courtesy of the chain's purchase of Sweetbay's stores in 2014, none of those other Winn-Lions looked as nice as this one! (Fine, fine, there's that identical-to-this-store Harvey's in Lake City that will eventually convert into a Winn-Dixie, but since it hasn't yet, that doesn't count!). Winn-Dixie didn't change the exterior of this building any following their conversion, and I'm fine with that! (However, I can't speak for what atrocity of a subdivision Aldi is doing to this place right now - I've yet to find a drawing of the final result or see any recent photos of the conversion's progression to know, but at least Lidl knew how to make one of these buildings work for them).

     As you can tell by all the exterior photos, I really liked this store design!

     Stepping inside, one of the first modifications we'll see Winn-Dixie made was partitioning the vestibule. Instead of the open design we saw from Food Lion, Winn-Dixie added a full drywall cartwell where Food Lion's used to be, flattening out the interior wall in the process and removing the angled interior entry door in favor of one flush to the new wall.

     Even with the modifications to the entryway, the first department you saw upon entering is produce, just like it was during the Food Lion days. Instead of repurposing the few Rutherfordton relics Food Lion left behind, like the hanging trellises, Winn-Dixie decided to start "fresh" with their remodel by removing those trellises and installing their own Winn Win decor on the walls.

     The windows looking into the produce department were a nice touch too - it's not often you find a Winn-Dixie with lots of natural light like this!

     Beyond produce, here's a look down the store's grand aisle, which spanned the building's right wall. Over here we find the deli, followed by the bakery. While Winn-Dixified, this is still the same layout Food Lion had in here.

     Even being one of Winn-Dixie's modern stores, the deli and "kitchen" departments weren't anything too out of the ordinary compared to the offerings at most other Winn-Dixie stores out there. Unlike the stores Winn-Dixie was opening in the early 2010's "Transformational" era, which were designed to be showy and over-the-top, the Winn-Dixie of the early 2020's was much more utilitarian, featuring basic, clean, and modern facilities without all that expensive showy stuff most chains give up on after a few years (or even months) after opening.

     Following the deli we find the bakery, with coolers of pre-packaged chilled deli and bakery items in the cases to my left.

     According to the layout, what we're looking up here is aisle 1, the inner portion of the grand aisle running along the pre-pack cooler. From here, we also get another look at the nice exterior windows too!

     Entering the back right corner of the store, we find the meat and seafood service counter.

     From my rough understanding of how an original Rutherfordton Food Lion is laid out, one of the only major modifications Winn-Dixie made to this building's floor plan was reversing the locations of the meat and seafood service counter with those department's complimentary pre-packaged options. Pre-pack would have originally been in a small alcove where Winn-Dixie's service counter was installed, with Food Lion's meat service counter located next to that further down the left wall, just before dairy.

     Leaving the service counter, here's an overview of Winn-Dixie's pre-packaged meat options, roughly placed in the former home of Food Lion's old meat service counter.

     Making good progress with the perimeter, it's time to cut into the grocery aisles.

     As you've probably noticed by now, Winn-Dixie removed Food Lion's original tile floor in favor of polished concrete throughout. Winn-Dixie's 2020's newbuilds typically opted for the polished concrete look as well, with this store following that trend, even though it was officially a conversion. For being a conversion, the floors don't look that bad at all. I noticed very few marks and scars on the floor from any rearranging Winn-Dixie may have done in the conversion, so either Winn-Dixie paid to have a nice refinish of the floor before opening or they did so little rearranging from the Food Lion days, there just weren't any scars to try to hide.

     While the concrete floor condition was passible, like any good supermarket conversion, some inconveniently placed support poles made some places quite impassible! It was a bit awkward having some poles blocking a few of the front endcaps like this!

     Like all but one of Winn-Dixie's new stores from the 2020's, this location did not receive a pharmacy counter. However, this store did receive a very nice (and quite extensive) health and beauty aisle, complete with lit category marker toppers.

     Supplies for both babies and your fur babies could be found in the next aisle over from health and beauty.

     Our clean sweep of the grocery aisles takes us to the paper towel aisle now, with paper plates located opposite.

     Entering the back left corner of the store, we find the dairy department's beginning along the back wall, under the "Milk" sign.

     Frozen foods occupy the store's last two aisles, much in the same way they did when Food Lion was here too.

     Dairy does wrap around to the building's left wall to occupy a small portion of the store's last aisle, however, outside of that, the remainder of this aisle was home to frozen foods.

     The last department we've yet to see was beer and wine, which was located in the front left corner of the building in front of the frozen foods.

     Assorted wines occupied the outer shelves, with most of the beer was located in coolers along the wall. From this vantage point, we can see part of the front end, located just ahead opposite the greeting cards and seasonal department.

Thinking about it now, I should have worn this to the grand re-opening of the St. Cloud Winn-Dixie - it was pretty cold that morning!

     Having visited this store just before Christmas 2022, peak time for the company's "It's a Winn Win" marketing campaign and its complimentary spokespeople, the Winn Win Twinns. As part of all the "winning" going on at the time, Winn-Dixie released these Winn Win Twinn-inspired ugly Christmas sweaters that year, which also had a complimentary matching hat too (not pictured here, but visible at that second link). As much as I wanted it, I thought spending $29.99 for something I'd never actually wear was a bit steep, but fret not - AFB got himself both this sweater and the matching hat on a 50% off after-Christmas deal at his local Winn-Dixie store! Now that's winning!

Photo courtesy of siviaiz11 on Google Maps

     Possibly distracted by the sweaters, I totally missed getting a decent picture of this store's front end! As such, I pulled a few front end photos from this store's Google page, with this particular shot giving us a nice overview of the self-checkout lanes and the service desk beyond them. I believe the angled design of the service desk is a leftover from Food Lion, and that crown molding above it may possibly be a leftover from the Rutherfordton decor too.

Photo courtesy of L Cardinal Google Maps

     Like most of Winn-Dixie's new stores from the early 2020's, this location had a bank of 6 self-checkout lanes - standard Winn Win remodels from the same time only got 4 self-checkout lanes if those were added. 4 regular staffed lanes were included as well, and while only one of those were open when L Cardinal visited this store...

     …three were open when I was here, in addition to all 6 of the self-checkout lanes. I must have caught this store during a busy time!

     Like in the Food Lion days, you exit the store by getting pushed out onto the plaza's front sidewalk facing the left-end of the strip. That placement just happened to push shoppers out in front of Winn-Dixie's attached liquor store, conveniently enough. Being way out here in the plaza strip, this liquor store ended up being spared after Aldi took over the main supermarket building, and lives on today as an orphan.

Photo courtesy of Tom Whiteside on Google Maps

     To wrap up this post, I found the above photo of the store's exterior on its Google Maps page, and thought it looked really nice with all the grand opening day balloons and window art. As such, I felt compelled to include it in this post. On that joyous day, I'm sure no one would have guessed the untimely fate this store would have coming for it less than 4 years later!

     So there you have it - the soon to be St. Augustine Shores Aldi. Once I find a picture or rendering of what this store will look like by the end of the year, I'll have to add it into the end of this post for completeness, as it will be interesting to see what Aldi will do with the facade. However, in terms of Winn-Dixie, this store was just another example of how that chain constantly takes one step forward just to take two steps back. Following the Aldi sale, Winn-Dixie lost both of the stores it opened in St. Johns County in the 2020's to Aldi - this one and the Grand Cypress store just over the line from Jacksonville, in addition to losing its early 2000's build off CR 210 to Aldi as well. That knocked Winn-Dixie back to its cluster of 3 older stores right around St. Augustine proper that the company has had for years, neutralizing all the progress Winn-Dixie was trying to make with entering the newer parts of St. Johns County in the process. There's still plenty of open land in the newer parts of St. Johns County for Winn-Dixie to attempt to make up for some of what they lost, but with Publix and even Harris Teeter already grabbing real estate in the area, Winn-Dixie better not hesitate for too long before those two grab all the good sites left for a supermarket!

     Another tale of Winn-Dixie behind us, we'll see what I can pull out of the Albertsons archives for next time. Come back in two weeks for more, so until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger