Winn-Dixie #6??* / Big Lots #1501 / Future Winn-Dixie #641
4840 Allen Road, Zephyrhills, FL - Westgate Shopping Center
*The original Zephyrhills Winn-Dixie's store number was either #614 or #685 - I couldn't figure out which it was on the document I found, but whichever one it isn't is the store number for the old Dade City location, which I also couldn't confirm. If anyone remembers what store number it was, please let me know in the comments!
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| Today's post is a presentation of Pasco County retail |
While Aldi isn't totally out of the picture just yet (conversion closures are still trickling out, but much slower these days), Winn-Dixie seems to finally be back on the upswing, or at the very least setting the basis for that upswing as we enter mid-2026. In the next few months, Winn-Dixie will be opening two new stores in Keystone Heights and Alachua, both of those locations former Hitchcock's Markets the chain purchased late last year. While we've known about those Hitchcock's conversions for a while now (both of which will be replacing stores set to become Aldis), Winn-Dixie is apparently working on filling some other holes Aldi's gutting of the chain created. There are plenty of rumors out there about potential sites Winn-Dixie has been sniffing around at (and a number I think Winn-Dixie should be looking at), but so far only one of those rumored new locations has been confirmed, that being a new store in Zephyrhills (yes, where the water comes from, or at the very least, is where it's currently bottled). The new Zephyrhills store is significant as this will be Winn-Dixie's first from (nearly) scratch build-out of their new store prototype, so the new Zephyrhills store will open showing us the future of the chain. As such, this store has created a lot of buzz, and seems to be on track to open sometime later in 2026 or in early 2027. The building Winn-Dixie is taking over in Zephyrhills is located in the Westgate Shopping Center, where Winn-Dixie took advantage of another chain's woes by moving into a former Big Lots. However, that former Big Lots building isn't a stranger to being a supermarket, as from 1983-1997, it was home to a Winn-Dixie!
It's fascinating just how many stores Winn-Dixie has in their fold that closed under their tenure, either sat empty or became home to another store for a while, and then reopened years later as a Winn-Dixie again. Not counting the future Zephyrhills store, I can think of at least 7 other "double Dixies" out there off the top of my head, and I think I'm missing a few too. I don't think any other grocery chains can claim to have returned home to their former buildings that many times! Aldi left Winn-Dixie in a strange predicament, so it was either take their old store in Zephyrhills or have no store in town. While an older building in an older shopping center, Winn-Dixie's original Zephyrhills location isn't bad at all - the shopping center draws decent traffic from a busy (and growing) side of town, and Winn-Dixie's current store down the street must have done good business for the company to go through the trouble of replacing it so soon before a large void was created.
Winn-Dixie opened in Zephyrhills' Westgate Shopping Center in October 1983, joining other anchor tenants Wal-Mart, Bealls, and Eckerd Drugs. Westgate was the first major shopping center constructed on Zephyrhills' west side, straying away from the city's traditional retail corridor along Gall Boulevard stretching northward from downtown. Zephyrhills' west side was just starting to blossom with new development in the early 1980's, especially mobile home communities targeted to retirees, and Westgate was looking to take advantage of this new population boom.
After only 7 years in business, Winn-Dixie overhauled this store and remodeled it from its original decor to Neon Marketplace in early 1990. As part of the remodel, the Winn-Dixie building was expanded out the right side, bringing it more in-line size-wise with the early Marketplace prototypes of the time. The layout was also reconfigured to follow the traditional Marketplace floorplan as well (as far as I'm aware, anyway, from what I can tell one Big Lots later). Following that remodel, Winn-Dixie would continue on at Westgate Shopping Center for another 7 years, but on the other side of town, something else was brewing in the mid-1990's:
Over on the north side of Zephyrhills (in the city's original retail strip) stood a Kash n' Karry. Located in Zephyr Plaza off Gall Boulevard, the Kash n' Karry opened in 1969.
Dating back to the chain's early days of the late 1960's, Kash n' Karry outgrew their store in Zephyr Plaza come the early 1990's. As part of the chain's 1990's modernization effort, Kash n' Karry built a new store further north on Gall Boulevard, which opened in 1992, replacing the Zephyr Plaza location.
So why am I bringing up a Kash n' Karry located on the other side of town from the subject of today's post? I felt the need to mention this because in 1994, the old Kash n' Karry in Zephyr Plaza became home to Zephyrhills' first Big Lots store. One of Big Lots earlier stores in Florida, Big Lots was opportunistically searching around the state for empty retail spaces to open their new closeout stores, and the old Kash n' Karry filled their needs.
Having researched Big Lots a bit, I've noticed the chain had a number of short-lived stores in the 1990's. Some of those stores were outright closures, but in a number of cases, Big Lots would jump on the opportunity to take over a larger building nearby, especially as the chain became more involved in the sale of furniture come the late 1990's and early 2000's.
As such, when Winn-Dixie moved down the road in 1997, their former store at Westgate began to sit empty. Probably wanting more room for furniture than this tiny 1960's Kash n' Karry could handle, Big Lots made the move across town in 2000. As for the original Big Lots building, in the years after Big Lots left, this building became home to an independently-run closeout/bargain store called Bargain Warehouse, which remained in business until the early 2010's. After another few years of sitting empty, the old Big Lots eventually (and ironically) became home to Zephyrhills's new Ollie's Bargain Outlet in 2016. Ollie's moved into Zephyr Plaza as part of a major overhaul and renovation to the center, and as such, the space was totally gutted and rebuilt when Ollie's moved in. As such, there wasn't anything from Big Lots or Kash n' Karry left inside here, so I didn't take any additional photos of this store besides this exterior one. However, having visited another former Kash n' Karry that Big Lots took over around the same time as this one, I can only imagine the supermarket relics that could have been left behind in here during the Big Lots days!
While I might not have any Kash n' Karry relics to showcase today, I can offer up some Winn-Dixie ones in exchange. By the time the new Zephyrhills Big Lots opened in January 2000 (a photo of the store's interior at the time visible in the center of the collage above), Big Lots was nearing the tail end of when they would hardly do anything to most of the buildings they took over. While Big Lots stores of the 2000's evolved to become more cookie-cutter, a number of these older stores managed to make it until the demise of the original chain in 2025 in mostly original form, relics and all. While a number of the older Florida Big Lots stores were sterilized in the chain's store-of-the-future remodels of the late 2010's and early 2020's, I am happy to report the Zephyrhills location managed to remain in mostly original form all the way until it closed with the rest of the original chain in early 2025.
The original exterior logo was modernized in the late 2010's, but other than new exterior paint and a few shelving resets throughout the years as Big Lots debated what it wanted to sell, the store is basically the same as it was in 2000 in terms of look and feel. To add to that, the exterior of the building is still the same as it looked since Winn-Dixie's expansion in 1990, just with a Big Lots logo swapped out for Winn-Dixie's.
Approaching the entrance, the swinging doors and the vestibule are also virtually untouched since Winn-Dixie moved down the street. Big Lots preserved Winn-Dixie's swinging doors on both sides of the vestibule, although only the left side doors were in use at the time of my visit. The right side doors, while still there, were kept locked and no longer used, as that side of the vestibule was turned into a cart corral in recent times.
I believe it was Big Lots who added that partial partition wall to my left, as I've only ever seen Winn-Dixies of this style open up fully into the salesfloor one you walked through the doors. Big Lots' check lanes backed up to that half-wall, and Big Lots appeared to install that wall in order to keep the check lanes in it own confined area.
Entering the store, as usual for a Big Lots in the early 2020's, you ended up in "The Lot". The Lot was Big Lots special promo closeout area, added as part of the chain's backtracking and returning to their roots as a closeout store after many years of trying to chase various discount concepts (one of the many factors that led to the chain's ultimate demise in 2025). The Lot would change themes seasonally, with the theme at the time of my first visit being "Bigionaire Camp", where "the games are in-tents and the fun never sleeps!" (I sense a small piece of the Ollie's playbook sneaking into that slogan, and it won't be much longer until we see Big Lots use s'more puns around the store too!).
For much of the early 2020's, Big Lots primary marketing campaign involved the "Be a Bigionaire" tagline, a tagline inviting "savvy shoppers to feel like a million bucks when they hunt for the best deals at their neighborhood Big Lots," according to PR Newswire. Big Lots went all in with the Bigionaire campaign, even changing their store decor to feature the "Be a Bigionaire" tagline all over the place. Unfortunately the Bigionaires of the world weren't enough to save Big Lots from bankruptcy, as this was the campaign the chain used until the filing was announced in September 2024, at which point Big Lots switched to a nostalgia-based campaign featuring their 1990's mascot Closeout Man, who couldn't come to the chain's rescue either before the Chapter 11 filing converted into Chapter 7.
Anyway, I'm sure most of you probably toned out that speech of mine about Big Lots' marketing campaigns as you were too busy staring at the floor. Looking toward the back of the store from the entryway and The Lot, housewares was located straight in front of me with furniture in an alcove to my right. However, amongst all the bargains, closeouts, and a sofa set or two, yes, that is Winn-Dixie's original flooring still in place throughout the store. The floor tiles we'll be seeing correlate mostly with Winn-Dixie's 1980's decor, however, there were bits of Marketplace tile patterns mixed in (like the one seen above), which is what made me believe this store received Neon Marketplace during its 1990 remodel.
The striped brown tile we saw in the previous photo marked the location of Winn-Dixie's grocery aisles, although as we move into the furniture department in the front right corner of the building, some more tile colors begin to appear.
The front right corner of the building was home to Winn-Dixie's produce department, and as such, some of that department's old blue-green tiles start to come into view under all the furniture.
Produce was located in the part of the building added in 1990, the expansion allowing for an enlarged produce department and the installation of a new meat and seafood counter in the back right corner. While all that extra space was a plus for Winn-Dixie to enhance their service departments and expand the grocery floor, Big Lots was a bit overwhelmed with all that extra space, even with large pieces of furniture to sell. As such, Big Lots created a partition wall out of shelving blocking off a chunk of the salesfloor, including the remainder of the old produce department and extending all the way into the back right corner of the building. The partitioned off space became home to the furniture stockroom, which also preserved the old floor tiles within it as well from the quick peek I got through a propped open door.
A number of the colored tile areas in this store were patched up though the years, seemingly with any tiles Big Lots was able to get its hands on. Some random avocado green tiles that look straight out of an old Grant's-turned-Kmart were used here in the old produce department, which would have had a tile pattern that more like this in the Neon Marketplace days.
Rounding the corner of the furniture stockroom partition, we find the 1980's grocery department tile pattern once again. I've seen a number of stores where Winn-Dixie replaced some of the tile around the perimeter during a Marketplace remodel, but left the grocery aisles untouched, even in remodels dating back to the 1990's. That appears to be what happened here.
Leaving the furniture department, the aisles to my right comprise the housewares department, with a few additional aisles of housewares to my left where the rugs and vacuums are visible.
Along the back wall, we find a red tile stripe, a stripe that denotes the former location of Winn-Dixie's meat coolers. Meats would have extended along the back wall from the service counter (located in what was now the furniture stockroom) about two-thirds of the way down the wall, where we would have transitioned into dairy.
The red stripe has seen its fair share of patchwork, the stripe now intermittently broken up with some plain off-white tiles.
From the back of the store, here's a look toward the front and where we entered.
Moving into the grocery aisles of Big Lots, we see a little clash of Winn-Dixie's 1980's tiles and some Marketplace flare. Those blue stripes represent the old frozen food department from the Winn-Dixie days, with those teal/pink Marketplace embellishments added to modernize the aisle it seems. Turning to the old North Port Winn-Dixie again for comparison (this store's closest twin that I was able to document while open), here we can see those same Marketplace embellishments in that store's frozen foods aisle, although that store lost its 1980's blue stripes when that store remodeled to Neon Marketplace.
The patchy frozen foods tile converges with the even patchier brown tile stripes up here near the front end. Big Lots' (as well as Winn-Dixie's) check lanes were located to my left, with Winn-Dixie's customer service desk located against that wall facing the check lanes.
Around the corner from customer service would have been the store's pharmacy counter if it ever had one, although I'm leaning toward the fact that this store may have never received one (as the grand reopening ad didn't mention one here as well as there having been an Eckerd a few doors down in the plaza too). The indent in the wall represents where the pharmacy would have gone, with the deli/bakery extending into the front left corner itself, probably in a similar arrangement to what we saw in North Port (which may have never had a pharmacy either, just a weird alcove where that would have gone).
Before we move any further into the store's left side, let's take a look at a few additional photos I took in the center salesfloor, focusing on some of the different tile patterns I noticed throughout this area.
Dry groceries replaced frozen foods in the Big Lots days, although Big Lots did have a brief foray into frozen foods in the late 2010's, another one of their many "see-if-it-sticks" ideas from those days.
Mirrored support columns were a very 1980's Winn-Dixie thing, and would have complimented this store's chrome accents during the Neon Marketplace days quite well.
I really think Big Lots was taking a subtle jab at Ollie's with these punderful signs.
Another very 1980's Winn-Dixie trait can be seen in this photo - the large round air diffusers on the ceiling.
Finally on the left side of the building, we enter what was Winn-Dixie's dairy department, as well as home to additional services from the deli/bakery as well (such as a cheese island).
Dairy would have lined the left wall, and we can see a little bit of dairy's beige tiles sticking out from under Big Lots' shelves.
Moving into the store's front left corner, the old deli/bakery red tiles are much more prominent amongst the patio furniture. These red tiles are another 1980's decor holdover, which would lead me to believe this store received much less work than North Port's remodel involved, as North Port had an updated tile pattern in this part of the store.
A few more red stripes lead us past the potential pharmacy space and back toward the front end.
Our final interior photo - for now - looks across the front end toward the furniture department.
Back outside, here's a look at the no-longer-used right side entrance. Considering Big Lots put in and out arrows on these doors, I'd have to guess Big Lots used both sets of doors until semi-recently, when they decided to lock these permanently and direct all shoppers to the other side of the vestibule.
When I first visited this Big Lots back in 2022, the last thing I would have ever guessed is that only 4 years later it would become a Winn-Dixie again - back then I was just afraid Big Lots was going to eventually remodel this store to their new format, which would have involved ripping out the floor tiles. While it was nice to see those old floor tiles in the Big Lots, I sure hope I won't be seeing them again in the new Winn-Dixie!
While the building itself was a decent Winn-Dixie relic, another interesting part of this building's past was hiding out in the parking lot too:
All the way until Big Lots closed, they continued to use the original Winn-Dixie cart return signs. Even though Winn-Dixie used these tri-sided cart return signs into the 1990's, they had used them for a number of years before that. I wouldn't be surprised if these signs were original to 1983, and with how badly they were faded, that would seem to support my theory as well.
Jumping ahead to early 2025, after hearing that Big Lots would be closing the remainder of its stores, I began to spend a lot of time driving around Central Florida revisiting many of the area Big Lots one last time. In particular, I wanted to get a last look at the ones with various relics of tenants past, before those relics would most likely be wiped away for good by a future tenant. Of course, the Zephyrhills Big Lots made my cut for a revisit with all those Winn-Dixie remnants inside, and I set out here on a very, very cold January morning to clean up my photos of this store and see if the closing process would unveil any additional hidden remnants from Winn-Dixie.
Stepping inside once again, here's a look from the main salesfloor back into the vestibule. Other than some extra clothes brought up here as part of the liquidation, not much more to see up here that we didn't see already.
What I neglected to get a good photo of the first time around was the Marketplace-era floor tiling installed along the front end where Winn-Dixie's check lanes used to be. Big Lots' check lane queue and the fixtures from The Lot blocked much of this pattern, which must have led to me missing a decent picture of it during my first visit. This time around with "The Lot" is disarray, the obvious rose and teal stripe pattern became much more visible.
The thinning out of the furniture department also revealed a little more of the produce blue for us in the front right corner.
The avocado green tiles were still there too - of all the colors Big Lots could have chosen for a tile patch!
As merchandise began to run low, additional furniture was pushed out into what was the main actionway on the right side of the store, where we get another glimpse of the old grocery aisle tile stripes. The furniture was also an additional 10% off the closing sale price, so Big Lots wanted to get some furniture moving!
The center store aisles were split down the middle, which we can see here.
A stockroom door was located to my right, with a look down the back wall toward the former meat department visible too. With how many relics were left out here, I have to wonder if any other surprises were hidden behind the walls in the employees-only spaces here - peeking through a stockroom door in a different Big Lots store, another chain's former deli was perfectly preserved behind a wall, so you never know!
Being a Big Lots tour, I like to see what interesting products ended up in-store, as closeout stores (and closeout stores that strayed away from closeouts before realizing they made a very stupid decision) would sometimes receive random items, like this monkey shaped potato peeler (or is it a banana peeler - the package doesn't specify!).
If the monkey-themed kitchenware wasn't an a-peeling item to purchase this day, you could instead buy a new wardrobe for your Dolly Parton-loving dog with all that money you make working 9 to 5.
As we tumble out of the pet bedding aisle and stumble into the kitchen paper goods department, Big Lots had plenty of options we could use to wipe up a spilled cup of ambition! In addition, Winn-Dixie's frozen foods tiles are also visible here as well, spanning the length of this aisle.
My visit to this store in January 2025 was fairly early in the chainwide liquidation process, so the store was still decently stocked by the time of my visit - the only totally empty areas were toward the left side of the store and a few spotty areas in the very back like the shelf to my left. What's interesting is that I went to a second Big Lots this same day, on the same closure timeline as this location, and it was already half empty! These closures were a bit all over the place, as some stores were still stocked at a pretty high capacity heading into March (the entire chain ceased operations by March 17, 2025) while other stores were closing by mid-February due to lack of stock.
Moving over to the left side of the store, here we can see some of the total emptiness that was beginning to form at the salesfloor's extremities. What we see here was a portion of the old seasonal department.
What was left of the seasonal merchandise was consolidated toward the front endcaps of the left side aisles, with a few larger patio pieces and pallets of random stuff still lingering on the main seasonal pad just ahead.
As seasonal cleared out, that department gradually became home to the store's nascent fixture sale. Outside of one Big Lots I happened to visit on its second to last day, the fixture sales at these stores weren't anything too exciting - mostly old shelves and displays - not much to really intrigue the casual retail fan.
Leaving the fixture sale area, more of the old deli/bakery tile comes into view, much more visible compared to when all the patio furniture was over here during my last visit. The potential/set aside pharmacy counter notch can be seen from here as well as we return to the store's front end.
Our last interior photo shows us the front end's Marketplace tile stripe once again, this time from the end of Big Lots' queue line entrance. Big Lots' registers are hidden behind that rack of fake plants, backing up to the vestibule.
Concluding my coverage of the former Big Lots and former/future Winn-Dixie, this was the best I could get the AI robots to do for generating what this building could look like as a Winn-Dixie once again. The robots turned the checkmark into a slash, but otherwise this future Winn/Dixie turned out better than I expected. I certainly hope Winn-Dixie will give this building a modern overhaul, including an updated exterior and a rebuilt interior. For the first true "new" store of The Winn-Dixie Company era, they better spiff this place up nice - if I see any Marketplace relics when I visit the new store, that will be one of the few times I'll be upset by that!
UPDATE - As you probably know, I tend to pre-write my posts well in advance of the publish date. In the time between when I wrote this and when it went live, the Sing Oil Blogger was able to break the paywall and access the plans for the new Winn-Dixie #641, so you can get an idea of what the new store will look like by clicking here. It looks like Winn-Dixie is dumping a lot of money into this remodel, so even without those Marketplace floor tiles carrying over, it looks like this will be an interesting new prototype - I'm quite excited to see what the final result will look like when it opens!
Anyway, while that wraps up my coverage of the former/future Zephyrhills Winn-Dixie, please stick around for the rest of this post, which takes a look around the remainder of Westgate Shopping Center:
In addition to Winn-Dixie, Westgate Shopping Center included Walmart, Bealls, and Eckerd as co-anchors. The main strip of stores (home to Winn-Dixie, Bealls, and Eckerd) opened for business in late 1983, with Walmart joining the rest roughly a year later, not opening until September 1984. Walmart built its store at the back of the Westgate strip on its own parcel, the only building on the property facing State Route (now County Route) 54.
The Zephyrhills Walmart, store #706, was a typical Walmart Discount Store for the time, a modest 55,000 square foot building selling goods for less. It was a little hard to tell in the graininess of the black and white picture two photos back, but the Walmart would have looked similar to this when it opened.
Much like Winn-Dixie a few doors down, Walmart was also big into store upgrades during the 1990's, pushing newer, larger prototypes as the chain grew. While Winn-Dixie made it to 1997 at Westgate, Walmart was the first of Westgate's original anchors to jump ship, moving to a more modern discount store building on the north side of Zephyrhills in 1992 (not even 10 years after opening). While Walmart decided to move its main operations in Zephyrhills to the other side of town, Walmart considered using the spare building in town to house Florida's first location of Bud's Warehouse Outlet (also known as Bud's Discount City).
Bud's Warehouse Outlet was Walmart's answer to Big Lots, created as a liquidation outlet for unwanted and excess merchandise sourced from area Walmart stores. Bud's stores were typically located in smaller towns, primarily in the Southeast. The chain was named after Sam Walton's brother, Bud Walton, who also served as the face of the chain (much like how a man named Oliver "Ollie" Rosenburg does for a more modern counterpart in the same field). Following the opening of the first Bud's store in 1990, Walmart expanded the chain to over 60 stores throughout the Southeast. While Walmart did open some Bud's stores in Florida, I can't find any proof Walmart ever went through with their plans to open a Bud's in Zephyrhills. The only reference to it I can find is the article above, stating Walmart was considering it.
By 1997, Bud's was phased out by Walmart, becoming another blip in the chain's past. Whether Bud's ever opened in Zephyrhills or not I don't know, but I do know the old Westgate Walmart did eventually become home to a Scotty's Hardware by the late 1990's.
A roof fire occurred at the Westgate Scotty's in 2000, and these different articles covering that event all show a few different photos of the building. It appears Scotty's didn't do much to the exterior of the old Walmart building upon moving in, but I can only imagine they gutted the interior to make it feel more warehouse-like.
According to the article, everyone shopping inside the Scotty's store was completely oblivious to the roof fire. A police officer on patrol happened to spot the fire while driving by, and had to run into the store to alert everyone the building was on fire. Even then, it says some shoppers still didn't want to leave, with the last few holdouts still shopping until the fire department cut off the store's power. Crazy!
The day after the fire, it was announced that a frayed extension cord left plugged in by a roofing crew was the cause of the fire, the crew working on the roof the morning of the fire. The fire left the store closed for a while, but it eventually reopened. Still, Scotty's was on troubled footing come the early 2000's, and this Scotty's was shut down in a closing round in 2004, a year before the rest of the chain went under.
Following the closure of Scotty's, the former Walmart building was split between a self-storage center and a Habitat For Humanity ReStore. While the storage center occupies the left half of the building, they installed storage units all the way across the front of the building, even onto the ReStore's side.
I believe the facade we see here was constructed by Scotty's. The sliding doors leading into the storage center look like the same style doors I've seen at a few other Scotty's stores, and arranged in a similar manner. I don't know if the ReStore's doors are from Scotty's as well or if those were added when the building was split in half.
As we tour the remainder of the plaza, a few additional retail relics will appear, starting with some recycled Toys R Us carts Habitat for Humanity purchased for their own use. The beige carts at the front of the line look like old Linens n' Things carts, but one of the logo panels must not have fallen off for me to confirm.
Unlike most other thrift stores, Habitat for Humanity ReStores skew heavily toward furniture, appliances, and hardware - items that revolve around Habitat for Humanity's core mission of building homes and home improvement. While every ReStore will have those items, some will still carry a full line of pre-owned items and come across as more of a traditional thrift store but with extra hardware. This particular location kept the traditional thrift store fare (books, clothes, bric-a-brac) right inside the front doors in this "lobby" area near the check lanes, with the store opening up into a large warehouse of furniture and hardware as you move closer toward the right side of the building.
Here's a look from the lobby into the main warehouse area, where after those last few displays of glassware you can see the beginnings of furniture and hardware.
If you wanted a handbasket to carry your items in, you had a few eclectic choices to pick from in terms of retail history - that ShopRite basket traveled a long way to Zephyrhills! The Home Depot basket is an interesting addition to the stack too, as I can't even remember the last time I saw a handbasket in Home Depot.
Entering the furniture and hardware portion of the store, we can see the ReStore isn't much more than a warehouse with an open ceiling and concrete floor, more industrial in feel than anything. I'd have to imagine Scotty's gutted this building before moving in to make it feel more like a hardware warehouse, and Habitat for Humanity carried the theme over into their store.
Here's a look width-wise across the ReStore side of the building. Even with the little bumpouts installed by Habitat as a stockroom and donation drop-off area, there was still plenty of room in here for lots of furniture and even more stuff.
Since there's not much else to see in here (unless you were in the market for a wicker chair or complimentary patio set), let's head back outside and return to the main Westgate strip facing Allen Road:
Back at the main strip we see Big Lots in the distance, with the portion of building between that and Walmart home to the original Bealls store. Bealls remained at Westgate until 2002, when they moved to the north side of Zephyrhills. Ironically, the building Bealls moved to in 2002 was the same building Walmart built as a replacement for their own Westgate store, with Walmart moving next door that year to a new Supercenter.
Following Bealls' northward move, their former location was converted into a Bealls Outlet store, a common conversion when Bealls would relocate from their older 1980's and 1990's stores to larger buildings in the early 2000's. Bealls Outlet remained at Westgate until the early 2020's, after which the right half of the store was converted into an Ace Hardware. The left half of the building eventually became home to a furniture store in 2023, the furniture store relocating from a smaller space in Westgate on the other side of Big Lots.
Since we've already seen the old Big Lots store in excruciating detail, we'll skip past that for our next stop - the former Eckerd store.
Eckerd built a freestanding replacement for this store down the street on an outparcel of the current Winn-Dixie in 2004. With 2004 being the same year Eckerd sold off all of its Florida stores to CVS, I don't know if the replacement store managed to open under the Eckerd name or if it opened under CVS. There were a number of stores Eckerd was building in 2004 that CVS ended up finishing, so there's a chance CVS briefly operated out of this building too, but I don't know. With a relocation of some kind happening in 2004, the former Eckerd is now home to Life's Treasures Thrift Store, a small chain of thrift stores around the Tampa area run by a local hospice group. It appears the thrift store was the tenant to come immediately after Eckerd's departure, so let's see what kind of remodel may have happened here:
The classic concave entrance from Eckerd was kept in-tact, so let's head through it and see what the inside looks like:
Life's Treasures repainted the walls, but it appears the floor tiles could be original, and I'm pretty sure the lighting is original too. If you look really close, you can spot another Eckerd relic as well, one that's become increasingly rare to find in the wild…
Life's Treasures built a cheap partition wall at the back of the building to increase their sortation space, but if you look above the wall, you can see they left the old pharmacy counter ceiling in-tact. As various stores have cycled in and out of these old in-line Eckerd spaces, finding an in-tact pharmacy ceiling has become increasingly rare. At least that survived in here, even if it is partly hidden behind a wall! From another thrift store that didn't need as much sortation space, here's what that pharmacy ceiling would have looked like in more detail. (Sadly, the thrift store pictured at that link has since closed and that space was later gutted for a new Planet Fitness.)
Continuing with our retail relic thrifting finds, over at Life's Treasures, I found one I could actually buy! Over in the CD section, I found this copy of Parisian department store's 2000 album "You're Somebody Special", a collection of various Christmas covers by easy listening artists. Since this was something I'd probably never listen to I passed on buying it in the end, but an interesting find nonetheless!
Here's one final look across Life's Treasure's salesfloor, looking from the back of the store to the front. Not all was lost in here from Eckerd, and this space still feels quite a bit like a 1980's drugstore.
The storefront between Big Lots and Life's Treasures had a driftwood facade, which intrigued me enough to take a picture of it. The driftwood space was home to the furniture store that eventually moved to the other side of Big Lots next to Ace Hardware, but was still operating over here at the time of my visit.
Beyond Life's Treasures, we find a Dollar Tree store, a dentist, and an ice cream shop wrapping up this end of the plaza.
Would you consider a dentist next door to an ice cream parlor ironic or complimentary?
The dentist's office had an interesting facade with bay windows along the front, probably a remnant from a former tenant as that seems like a strange design choice for a dentist's office. More fun than a dentist, next door to that is Dice's Ice Cream Parlor, an ice cream shop with a rather vintage exterior sign, a sign that I'd have to imagine is original to this plaza's construction in 1983.
The vintage exterior sign intrigued me enough to pay Dice's a visit, and much like my suspicion, the interior was just as vintage as the exterior!
In addition to the vintage-ness of this entire place, there was a signboard on the sidewalk advertising that key lime milkshakes were the special of the day, and that too contributed to my visit as well. You can see part of my key lime milkshake visible on the table, and it was actually quite good! (It's not all about the pie!)
We'll conclude our tour of Westgate Plaza with a look at its road sign facing County Route 54. While the shopping center is older and has some "B-tier" tenants like thrift stores and storage units, it's certainly not a dying or decrepit place, and all the stores here do a decent business and maintain their older buildings well. I think the new Winn-Dixie will be a huge boost to this center, and I think the location will be just as good, if not even better, than that of the store Aldi is taking down the road. At least Winn-Dixie is trying to make up for some of that lost ground Aldi caused, and while it will take a while to recover, at least this new Zephyrhills store proves to us Winn-Dixie isn't dead yet!
In the coming weeks I hope to get a post written on MFR about the current Zephyrhills Winn-Dixie a little further to the west to complete my "before" coverage of this store prior to the new one's opening. The current Winn-Dixie is expected to close at the end of July 2026, and it appears the new store won't be ready to open by that time, so there will be a gap of some kind between that one's closure and the new one's opening. How long though, I don't know, but I hope Winn-Dixie works to minimize that gap as much as they can.
Anyway, more to come in two weeks, so be sure to come back then! So until the next post,
The Albertsons Florida Blogger
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