Hitchcock's Markets Presents: A North Floridian Supermarket Anomaly

Hitchcock's Market

6005 US 301, Hawthorne, FL - Hawthorne Square Shopping Center

     Dark skies, an empty parking lot, and an old grocery store that looks a little worse for wear...while that could have been an interesting scene for an Alfred Hitchcock movie, I'm not setting up the premise for a Hitchcock movie, but my visit to Hitchcock's Market instead. (No relation between Alfred Hitchcock and the supermarket chain though, as far as I'm aware). Our supermarket travels today will take us north by northwest into the Floridian Peninsula, to this grocery store in the small town of Hawthorne (located about 20 miles east of Gainesville). Situated at the crossroads of State Route 20 and US 301, Hawthorne is a junction town of roughly 1,500 people, its main attractions being this shopping center and a truck stop located next door. We touched a little bit on Hitchcock's Markets earlier this year when we toured the company's failed "Hitchcock's Green Market" down in St. Petersburg, however, today we'll explore the chain's history in a little more detail, while we explore one of the company's older "legacy" stores that more or less gives us a feel of what the rest of the Hitchcock's chain is like. So while I keep a close eye on the growing flock of birds gathering in the parking lot, let's talk a little more about the history of Hitchcock's Markets:

     In 1945, Bob Hitchcock and his father opened the first Hitchcock's Market in the city of Alachua, a small town about 15 miles northwest of Gainesville. Under the control of Bob Hitchcock, Hitchcock's grew its Alachua store from a storefront on the town's Main Street (now named "Bob Hitchcock's Main Street") to a new modern supermarket building at the corner of Main and US 301, which opened in 1977. A year later, Bob would pass control of his grocery store to his son Alan. Alan wanted to grow his father's business even more, so one of Alan's first projects as the new head of the company was to begin an expansion effort. The second Hitchcock's Market opened in 1979 in the small town of Archer (located southwest of Gainesville), followed by stores in Jasper, Trenton, Williston, and Newberry. One of the largest expansion efforts that Hitchcock's Markets undertook was the purchase of select stores from the Miller's Supermarket chain in 2001 when they went under, which added 5 new stores to the company (including the one we'll be touring today).

     Hitchcock's saw a lot of growth under the control of Alan Hitchcock, who established the brand as a staple for small towns throughout north-central Florida. By 2008, Hitchcock's had grown into a chain of 12 stores, evading many of the problems that plagued most other Floridian supermarket chains by focusing their service on small towns that the big names in the Floridian grocery scene wouldn't touch. Most of the towns Hitchcock's serves are not only small enough to lack a Publix, but are small enough to lack Winn-Dixie too, with Hitchcock's being the only grocery store in town in many cases (like here in Hawthorne). 2008 was a pivotal year for Hitchcock's, as after 63 years in family control, Alan Hitchcock decided that year to sell the chain to Huag Enterprises, a fellow Supervalu affiliate (Hitchcock's supplier at the time), as he prepared for retirement. Under Huag's control Hitchcock's remained relatively stable, with a few really small stores being cast off, and a new modern prototype store opening in Old Town in 2013. Huag also refreshed the Hitchcock's brand and created the chain's current logo. However, come 2019, Huag Enterprises sold the Hitchcock's chain once more to a man named Carlos Alvarez, who would run the company alongside his daughter, Giselle. The Alvarez family were the ones who tried to once again expand the Hitchcock's brand, pushing the chain to its limits with new stores in far flung areas of Florida like Indiantown (near Stuart in Martin County) and Homosassa Springs (near Crystal River). The Alvarez family also created the concept of "Hitchcock's Green Market", which we toured a few months ago on AFB. While the Alvarez family had good intentions and no shortage of ambition at the start, most of those crazy new projects were big flops, with both the Green Market and the new Homosassa store closing after only two years in business in 2022. The fancy new prototype store in Old Town, opened under the prior ownership, was also sold off by the Alvarez family. However, the far-flung new store in Indiantown seems to have been one success for the Alvarez family so far, as it's still open, and one of the 11 stores Hitchcock's currently operates. As far away as the Indiantown store is from the rest of the chain, the Indiantown location does fit the mold of Hitchcock's traditional operating pattern, of being a small-town store with no other competition around for miles. Other than some of those big new expansion projects failing rather quickly, Hitchcock's still seems relatively stable under the ownership of the Alvarez family as we continue further into the 2020's, which is good, as the chain serves a purpose in these towns too small or isolated to get the attention of Publix and/or Winn-Dixie.

GIF courtesy of Alachua Freenet's Hawthorne Page

     So that's the summarized history of Hitchcock's Market, however, if you'd like to read some more details about the chain's past, this 2006 article from the Gainesville Sun and YonWooRetail2's post about the (now closed) Old Town Hitchcock's are also an interesting read. As for the Hitchcock's store we'll be touring today, this was one of the 5 stores Hitchcock's bought from Miller's Supermarket in 2001. Miller's Supermarket was, like Hitchcock's, a small chain of supermarkets that served small towns in North-Central Florida. However, there really isn't much more detailed history than that available online about Miller's Supermarket. I do know the Hawthorne Miller's opened in 1986, around the same time Miller's built similar stores along the State Route 20 corridor in Interlachen and East Palatka (which are also Hitchcock's stores today). Amazingly enough, I found the GIF above (which came from a website that looked like it was made in 1996), which contains a number of images of the Hawthrone Square Shopping Center from the late 1980's or early 1990's, including one of this store's exterior when it was still Miller's. Even though the image will pass by quickly, you'll see all Hitchcock's did to this store was swap out the "Miller's" sign for one of their own, and Hitchcock's even placed their sign on an angle just like Miller's did too! The entire exterior of this store looks the same today as it did back in 1986, and you can very much use that as a hint for what the interior of this store will look like too...

     Stepping inside, the vestibule is filled with pallets of bottled water, blocking us from heading straight ahead and forcing us to loop around and proceed into the store's produce department:

     Produce is located in the front right corner of the building, in a little alcove. For a small-town grocery store, the produce department (and this store in general) was quite large. The store itself comes in around 20,000 square feet in size, which is on the larger side for Hitchcock's (and for a supermarket in a town of 1,500 residents). When Hitchcock's bought those 5 stores from Miller's in 2001, 4 of the 5 stores purchased were these larger-sized stores. However, Hitchcock's also bought a tiny store in Astor, Lake County, from Miller's, which Alan Hitchcock even described as nothing more than a "glorified convenience store with a meat market". As such, Hitchcock's ended up closing the Astor store after only a few years due to its size, however the other 4 stores purchased from Miller's remain with the Hitchcock's chain today.

     I'm pretty sure all the wall decor in this store originates from Miller's, as the other three Miller's conversions still in the Hitchcock's chain have this exact same decor, and I've never seen it in any of Hitchcock's other stores either. While I feel pretty confident the decor originated with Miller's, I can't say for sure that it's original to this store's construction in 1986. The decor is old and somewhat dated, but it doesn't look quite 1980's dated (it seems more late 1990's to me). However, the decor is generic enough it still could be from 1986, and as a smaller chain, it's possible that Miller's passed up on some of the fancier features like neon and pastel that were all the rage back then!

     The back wall of the produce alcove is home to the "Wall of Values", which acted as a pseudo-dollar section of sorts, where Hitchcock's kept a selection of dollar store type deals and items. In front of the Wall of Values were a few tables of sale items, which upheld the Easter theme of the area.

     From the produce alcove, here's a look across the front of the store toward the deli and bakery. We'll work our way over there shortly, but for now let's make a right turn and head down aisle 1:

     Here's a look down aisle 1, which abuts the store's side wall. According to the aisle marker, aisle 1 contains canned juices, Kool Aid, and school supplies. I'm guessing the school supplies were moved at some point, unless teachers are asking kids to being canned yams to school these days!

     Coming out from aisle 1, we find the meat counter along the store's back wall. From what I understand, the meat department is one of the highlights of Hitchcock's Market, and where a lot of the company's business comes from.

     Looping back around into aisle 2, we find a lot of cardboard displays. Thankfully it wasn't very busy while I was here, as I can see this aisle getting cramped with all those displays in the way at busier times.

     While I took a photo of Hitchcock's house-brand jellies at the Green Market, this photo shows the company's house brand also expands into canned fruits and pickled vegetables as well. Outside of this though, Hitchcock's uses Supervalu's Essential Everyday house brand for most everything else. Originally, Hitchcock's started out as an affiliate of Foodway, which was a brand used by a lot of independent grocery stores in small towns throughout Florida. Like Miller's, Foodway's history is a bit hard to come across, however, they seemed to operate like IGA. However, I don't quite know what happened to the Foodway brand or when Hitchcock's switched to Supervalu as a supplier. Miller's was a Supervalu affiliate, so I don't know of the purchase of those stores from Miller's is what brought Hitchcock's into the Supervalu system, or if Hitchcock's affiliated with Supervalu prior to that as Foodway's original distribution program dissipated.

     Moving along to aisle 3, we find frozen foods.

     At the very back of aisle 3 is this small coffin cooler, straddled between aisles 3 and 4. While positioned to look like an extension of the frozen foods department, I believe the coffin cooler was mostly home to more meats.

     Some more meat coolers occupy the back wall of the store as well, taking up the remaining back wall space between the meat service counter and the back left corner.

     Cereal, candy, crackers, and cookies - all of our C's are accounted for here in aisle 4.

     Even though this store is only 20,000 square feet in size, it doesn't feel small when you're in here shopping. It's an interesting illusion, and the fact that the sales floor is almost perfectly square probably helps, as you don't have a narrow dimension giving you the impression the store is tiny.

     Here's one last look at the store's back wall, looking toward the meat counter.

     Paper products and baby supplies found their home in aisle 6.

     The store's last aisle is aisle 8, home to the dairy wall and soda.

     Aisle 8 spills out into the bakery and deli alcove. These two departments share a counter in an alcove in the building's front left corner, although the counter skews much more heavily toward deli products than baked goods. The store's selection of baked goods is mostly limited to the prepackaged goods on these tables in front of the counter itself.

     The service deli counter was fairly large, especially for a small-town grocery store. The fact that a town of 1,500 has a grocery store with both a full-service deli and meat counter is pretty impressive, so this store must do a decent amount of business (although I'm sure being the only grocery store around for miles helps with that too).

     The remainder of the deli and bakery alcove is home to snack foods and "beverages". While soda, juice, and water may have been located over here at one time (at least going off the graphic on the wall sign), the "beverage" department in the alcove skews toward the more potent kind of beverages these days. Also, that creepy advertisement trellis looks perfectly fitting to be placed in a store called "Hitchcock's".

     From the deli and bakery alcove, here's a look across the front of the store back toward produce. Like I said before, this store is very good at misleading you into thinking it's much larger than it really is! The store looks pretty wide from this viewpoint, but the way the produce alcove was carved into the right side of the building adds on a tiny bit of length.

     This store had 4-5 checklanes plus the customer service desk, which was located in an island between the checklanes and produce. Those curved lamp-like check lane lights I believe were installed by Hitchcock's (probably when the store was converted and the registers were swapped out), as I've seen those style lights at other Hitchcock's stores besides the ones acquired from Miller's.

     Thank you for shopping Hitchcock's, the sign reads in large letters visible from the back of the store. If the font used for the "Thank you for shopping" part of the sign looks familiar to you, that's because it's the same font Winn-Dixie used for the wall signs in its Marketplace decor. That font (which is called 'Laser', in case you were curious) was pretty popular in the late 1980's and 1990's, as I've seen it make its rounds in other retail uses as well.

     Back outside, here's a look at the cart corral. I probably should have placed this photo toward the beginning of the post, but here it is now. The cart corral is another one of the few instances where we saw the current Hitchcock's logo in use at this store, although it appears after my visit, the main sign on the front of the building was updated to the current logo as well. Since the Alvarez family has taken control, they've been trying to roll out the current logo to all the chain's storefronts, as most of the chain's stores still had a patchwork of old signs and inconsistent logos, dating back to ones from the Foodway days.

     In addition to that, I believe all the carts Hitchcock's was using at this store were old Food Lion carts, as they looked pretty similar to the ones Food Lion used to use.

     Over by the left side doors (which don't appear to be used anymore, as they were locked during my visit), I spotted this relic of the past - a payphone (which, according to that snarky sticker above it, still works). While I didn't test that claim, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the phone that people used to dial 'M' for murder...

     Off in the plaza's left wing is this Family Dollar store, which is a longtime (if not original) tenant to Hawthorne Square (as it was visible in the old GIF posted at the beginning of the post). In addition to Family Dollar, the plaza's other original junior anchor was Eckerd. The Eckerd was at the opposite end of the plaza, and converted to a CVS in 2004 with all of the chain's other stores. CVS eventually moved to a freestanding building out in the parking lot, with the original Eckerd space now home to an O'Reily Auto Parts (which was under construction during my visit, but appears to be open now).

     Turning our attention back to Hitchcock's, here's one last look at the store's exterior to wrap up our post with. Hitchcock's leogetivity here in Florida most likely comes from the chain's penchant to serve small towns mostly overlooked by other grocers. The company found its need, and for almost 80 years now, continues to serve shoppers in rural North Florida (and Indiantown). I think a lot of the reason Hitchcock's new ventures into St. Petersburg and Homosassa Springs failed so bad was because Hitchcock's wasn't used to operating in such highly competitive areas. I don't know what the new owners plan to do with Hitchcock's going forward, but if they want to expand, I think it would be best for them to stick to other small towns and not try to make a leap into a big city again. Considering their niche, I think Hitchcock's is in a good position to stick it out as an anomaly of Floridian retail. Hopefully the new owners will continue to invest in the current stores as well, as a lot of them (like this location) could use a freshening up (and whoever the Alvarez family contracted to design the decor in the St. Petersburg and Homosassa Springs store did a really good job too, so it's a shame all that went to waste!)

     Anyway, that's all I have left to say about Hitchcock's Market. It's a bit of an oddity that there's a tiny supermarket chain hiding in the woods of North Central Florida that people rarely talk about, but Hitchcock's serves its purpose, and hopefully the chain will be around for many years more.

While that's everything for today, I'll be back in two weeks with more Albertsons, so until then,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger

Life After Lucky's - Hitchcock's Green Market - St. Petersburg, FL

 

Lucky's Market #32 / Hitchcock's Green Market

6765 22nd Avenue North, St. Petersburg, FL - Tyrone Square Mall

     So what happens when your luck runs out twice? You get Hitchcock's Green Market, that's what. Picking up not too far from where we left off last time, we find ourselves at St. Petersburg's Tyrone Square Mall for the latest installment in my "Life After Lucky's" series. Unfortunately, unlike most of the other installments we've seen thus far, today's doesn't have a happy ending. Hitchcock's Green Market, the store we'll be touring today, was a complete flop, lasting only two years as part of an odd foray into the natural foods segment by a chain that's primarily concentrated in small towns in North Central Florida. That being said, this was one of the stranger Lucky's conversions I've explored over the last few years, so let's dive into this supermarket anomaly with a little bit of background on this site, before we jump into the details of the strange Lucky's knockoff standing before us today:

Photo courtesy of Lucky's Market

     The plot of land on which Hitchcock's Green Market stood began its life in retail back in 1968, when Sears built a large freestanding store at this site. Only 4 years after the Sears store opened its doors, the Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation (the developer behind many of Florida's enclosed malls) constructed Tyrone Square Mall, a new enclosed shopping center that would be attached to the existing Sears building. In addition to the existing Sears, the new mall would feature three additional anchors including JCPenney, Maas Brothers, and Robinsons of Florida. Sears remained at Tyrone Square until it was included in one of Sears Holding's famous closing rounds of the 2010's, the round in question occurring in late 2016. The Tyrone Square Sears officially closed for good in January 2017, with the mall's current owners, Simon Property Group, already having redevelopment plans in place to follow the closure of Sears. To replace Sears, the old department store building would be demolished and replaced with 4 new junior anchors, including Dick's Sporting Goods, Petsmart, Five Below, and the Tampa Bay area's very first Lucky's Market. Lucky's opened in St. Petersburg in June 2018 to a huge buzz, like most of Lucky's new store openings in Florida. The photo above (which I took from the store's old Google Maps photos page) shows the new St. Petersburg Lucky's Market shortly after it opened, the seemingly indestructible leader in natural food sales in Florida ready to grow, grow, grow...

     …until, well, you know what happened. Come January 2020, the seemingly unstoppable Lucky's was brought to its knees after its primary investor, Kroger, scrapped its involvement in the company. The pulling of Kroger's investment was the end of Lucky's Market as we knew it, the company financially crippled, forcing Lucky's to close most of its stores and declare bankruptcy. The St. Petersburg Lucky's Market closed alongside almost all of the other Floridian Lucky's Market stores in February 2020, bringing to an end the story of one of the craziest supermarket expansion efforts Florida had seen in years.

     At bankruptcy auction, the former St. Petersburg Lucky's Market store was purchased by a surprising buyer - Alachua, FL based Hitchcock's Markets. I have a post coming up in a few months where we'll go into much more detail about Hitchcock's Markets and its history, but in short, Hitchcock's is currently a chain of 11 stores primarily clustered around the Gainesville area (with one odd outlier in Indiantown, FL, a small town west of Stuart in Martin County along Florida's Atlantic Coast). Hitchcock's is a chain that has always focused on operating stores in smaller towns without a lot of other grocery options, hence the chain's longevity and relative stability in our very Publix-centric grocery scene. That being the case, I have no idea why Hitchcock's decided to buy this former Lucky's in the middle of Florida's 5th largest city, which Publix rules hands-down. Hitchcock's did go through an ownership change in 2019, so my guess is the new ownership (which was trying to expand the chain at the time) wanted to try something new and see if Hitchcock's could find a system that appealed to city shoppers via Lucky's format. Well, sadly, they didn't.

     According to a really good article from the Tampa Bay Times about the new Hitchcock's Green Market store, one of the things that appealed to Hitchcock's when looking through the locations Lucky's was shedding was that "the St. Pete Lucky’s performed well sales wise, which is what attracted Hitchcock’s to bid on it." While the store may have done well for Lucky's, it must have begun to slip under Hitchcock's. Hitchcock's opened this store on July 10, 2020 to a crowd of 300 waiting for the doors to open. Hitchcock's tried to make the most of their new store by copying as much as they could from Lucky's - offering similar products, similar services (like the cafe, sushi, and sip and stroll), and even a similar atmosphere and decor. Stepping inside, you were essentially walking into a low-budget version of Lucky's. It was an interesting attempt, I'll give Hitchcock's that, but running a natural foods store in a big city was just a bit of a stretch for this small-town grocery chain. This small-town chain got chewed up by the big city, and Hitchcock's learned the hard way what happens when you play with the big boys in Floridian grocery.

     Hitchcock's Green Market closed in June 2022, just shy of its 2nd anniversary. An official reason for the store's closure wasn't given, although from what I saw here during my visit (which happened about halfway through this store's life), the store didn't seem very busy, and the product selection didn't seem all that great (especially in the fresh departments, which a lot of space in this store was dedicated to). Something about the store seemed very off when I was here, like the store was struggling. I even thought to myself I was surprised this place was still in business while I was here, with the sparseness of the products and dead vibe I was getting.

     The old rusty carts weren't helping set the scene much as I was walking in, and definitely went along with the small-town low-budget independent store feel over the big city natural foods store vibe.

     Stepping inside, it's not the strong beverage you chose for your sip and stroll playing with your mind, you are seeing that right - Lucky's lives! Turning to the right after stepping inside, we see the cafe, which is practically untouched from how Lucky's left it. The menu board appears to be the only thing over here Hitchcock's modified, otherwise all the remaining signage and furniture are direct holdovers from Lucky's. The large table in the center of the photo was custom designed for this store by Lucky's, and had a special St. Petersburg theme to it. Every Lucky's store got one of these themed tables for its cafe, a staple of the cafe decor. That being said, I of course forgot to walk over and get a better picture of the table. I didn't even think about the table when I was here, actually, as looking at this photo while writing this is what made me remember it was there. If you zoom in on the above photo, it appears the picture in the middle of the table was of the downtown skyline, with "St. Petersburg, FL" printed in the red rectangles on each end. Even though I slacked a bit here, I did get a good photo of the table at the former Winter Park Lucky's if you want to see a better example.

     Turning around from the cafe, we walk past the check lanes for a look at the produce department, where we well begin our tour. Unlike the cafe we just saw, the produce department, while it does reuse most everything from Lucky's fixture-wise, actually has a new wall sign. When Lucky's was here, that faux-wood (at least I think it's faux-wood) panel on the wall would have contained Lucky's famous "Food Glorious Food" sign, which usually substituted for an official produce sign. While Hitchcock's did reuse a lot of Lucky's old signage, they also added some new signs of their own that heavily mimicked Lucky's old decor, like we see here in produce. If you didn't know any better you'd probably think this produce sign was carried over from Lucky's, as Hitchcock's did a really good job matching Lucky's style with all the signs in the store.

     At the front of the produce department was the juice bar. Neither Lucky's nor Hitchcock's ever used the juice bar as a fully staffed counter where one could order juice drinks (like Earth Fare did), as it instead served as a station where an employee would prepare the various fresh squeezed orange juices, infused fruit waters, etc. sold in the produce department every day. I think Hitchcock's only used this station to make fresh-squeezed citrus juices (orange, grapefruit) from what I saw, which were kept in ice-filled containers in front of the counter.

     Hitchcock's reuse of all the fixtures and much of the decor helped speed up this store's reopening, with the gap between Hitchcock's purchase of the store in March 2020 and its reopening the following July being 4 months. Even with that fast turnaround, Hitchcock's Green Market ended up being the second re-tenanted Lucky's to open, missing out on the honor of being first by Seabra Foods in Orlando, which held its grand opening one day prior to Hitchcock's Green Market on July 9, 2020.

     Hitchcock's had a really nice produce department in this store, probably one of the strongest departments they had in here. From reading other reviews online, it seems like this store also had a decent following for its meats too. I didn't look too closely at the meats while I was here (as buying meat three hours away from home doesn't do me any good), but from what I read Hitchcock's carried a lot of cuts that were hard to find elsewhere in the area.

     That sign in the corner looks like something straight out of Lucky's, but yet again, that's another Hitchcock's knockoff. While Hitchcock's older stores are pretty blah when it comes to decor, the current owners did a really good job with whoever designed the decor for the company's newer stores. I visited another Hitchcock's that opened around the same time as this store, and it had a really neat, professionally designed custom decor package that intertwined a lot of local color into it. We'll tour that store eventually, but we need to visit one of Hitchcock's legacy stores first to get the full picture of this chain.

     While not as prolific here, Hitchcock's did try to intertwine some local flare into the signage here. Much like the last sign we saw, another Florida reference was slipped into the main produce sign, and what better way to do so than with a giant orange? Oranges are the state fruit of Florida after all, with orange juice being our official beverage and the orange blossom being our state flower. We love oranges so much here, we even put them on our license plates too!

    Behind these carts of freight someone left out, we can see down the left side wall of the store, looking toward frozen foods (where we'll be heading shortly).

     How do you like them apples? I don't know, these apples taste a lot like oranges to me! (And people say there's no comparing the two!) Oh, those kooky Floridians and their oranges...

     Anyway, another way Hitchcock's tried to copy Lucky's vibe was with these quirky signs containing various jokes and puns, another Lucky's staple (see here and here for some examples). There were a number of these signs throughout the produce department, a few more of which can be seen in the next photo (such as "You look radish-ing today", the rather clever "Grape deals before your berry eyes", the somewhat lackluster "You used to call me on my celery phone", and the always classic "It's party thyme.")

     If Hitchcock's carried some of these punny signs over to more of their stores, they could have given Ollie's a run for their money!

     Including the lone aisle of frozen foods, this store had 7 aisles for groceries, the same number of aisles Lucky's had. Even though this store was called "Hitchcock's Green Market", most of the dry grocery selection was the usual grocery store fare, skewing more heavily toward traditional supermarket brands with a few natural/organic options thrown in. Like Lucky's, the service and fresh departments are what most of the emphasis was on at Hitchcock's Green Market, which had more full-service features than just about all of Hitchcock's other stores (most of which lack all service departments outside of a tiny deli and meat counter). We'll see more of the grocery aisles shortly, but first, frozen foods:

     A lone aisle of frozen foods occupies the first grocery aisle, providing shoppers with a condensed variety of frozen staples.

     What's interesting about the Frozen Foods sign on the wall is that the sign itself appears to be original to Lucky's, but Hitchcock's put a new design on the letters to make them look like ice cubes (instead of the original plain red color from Lucky's). Red is too warm of a color for a frozen foods department, symbolizing fire and all that, so I guess ice makes more sense here!

     Turning the corner out of Frozen Foods, we find dairy located along the back wall behind the grocery aisles. While convincing, yet again, we find the dairy signage was installed by Hitchcock's, and not the original dairy signage installed by Lucky's. I actually think Hitchcock's dairy sign looks better back here than Lucky's did, as it takes up more of the blank wall space than the original did.

     Turning the corner into aisle 2, we find our usual dry grocery stuff (canned tuna, pickles, etc., etc.)

     From produce, here's a look across the front of the store, looking back toward where we entered.

     The aisle markers seen in here are the standard issue ones for newer Hitchcock's stores, and as a fun local touch, they include the names of local roads on the bottom (something supermarkets seem to be doing a lot these days, especially smaller, locally-owned stores - although Safeway's three Florida stores had the same feature).

     Hitchcock's primarily carries Supervalu's Essential Everyday brand as their house brand, as Hitchcock's is a longtime Supervalu partner (with some of the chain's older stores being branded as "Hitchcock's Supervalu Foods"). Interestingly, Hitchcock's does carry their own brand of jams, jellies, and other jarred fruit, pictured here, which I found intriguing. I know there are a lot of small locally-owned manufacturers of jams and jellies out there, so Hitchcock's probably partnered with one of them to make these products, adding to the locally-made theme Lucky's was also known for.

     Pasadena Avenue (aka aisle 6) brings us to the small selection of cleaners, paper products, and other non-food items sold by Hitchcock's Green Market.

     Bulk foods occupy the front of the store between produce and the check lanes. Hitchcock's kept the original footprint of Lucky's bulk department, which was quite large (about 3 full aisles worth), and I'm quite impressed a small-budget store that doesn't sell bulk foods at any of its other locations managed to keep this department going as-is for so long. However, while the original size of the bulk department was kept, its original sign from Lucky's was not.

     The last signed grocery aisle, Pinellas Point Drive aisle 7, was home to the classic combo of chips and beer. While beer was located here in the aisle, if we turn the corner...

     …the beer sign magically transforms into one for the wine department! How neat is that? (What this store lacked product pizazz, it made up for with the decor - Lucky's old beer and wine sign certainly wasn't as interesting as this one!). The display of chips blocks it, but wine lines the side of the last (unnumbered) grocery aisle, with the meat coolers between that and the service counters.

     I like pork butts and I cannot lie, these punny signs are clever you can't deny! (I think you people dread the thought of me walking into a store with too many puns on the wall by now, and I've never even posted about an Ollie's yet!) Now that both you, the reader, and myself have that song stuck in our heads now, we'll turn our attention to the sushi bar behind the aforementioned meat cooler. Originally, that counter was co-branded as the sushi and ramen bar when Lucky's was here, however Hitchcock's scaled that back just a bit, converting the island into solely a sushi counter. Hitchcock's swapped out the signing due to the change, but they did leave behind that Kroger-esque wooden "basket sign" decoration piece from Lucky's (so maybe Kroger did have some subtle influences on Lucky's decor?).

     Behind the sushi island is the back wall, home to more meat coolers, with the service meat and seafood counter straight ahead before the Cheese Shop.

     Since we saw the side of it before, here's a look at the front of the sushi counter, with its accompanying sign. In front of the counter was the olive bar (to my left) and a partially empty salad bar (to my right), which were a bit sad looking when I was here. The counters still have Lucky's original graphics on them, with Hitchcock's stickers covering the old Lucky's logos on both counters.

     The "Meat & Seafood", "Cheese Shop", and "The Kitchen" signs are all original signs from Lucky's. While prepared foods were supposed to be a large aspect of this store, it was this part of the store that felt the most lackluster to me. As I mentioned before, Hitchcock's doesn't do a lot of prepared foods in their other stores, as slower, small-scale, small-town stores typically don't do the volume to justify a massive prepared food experience like we see here. Hitchcock's was a bit out of their comfort zone with this area, so a lot of what we see here was very experimental for the chain, and when I was here, it was pretty clear they were struggling with all this.

     The Kitchen, which also served as the store's deli counter, can be seen up close here. In addition to the traditional deli cold cuts, Hitchcock's was also running a sandwich counter and a pizza kitchen here. However, I didn't see either of the latter two for sale when I was here, as I would have tried a slice of Hitchcock's pizza just to see if it tasted just like Lucky's pizza did (as Lucky's made some of the best pizzas I've ever had). Hitchcock's had a lot of deli salads to choose from though, with a tiny hot food bar as well.

     From the front of The Kitchen, here's a look back toward the grocery aisles. If I remember right, that lone barbecue grill was part of a raffle the store was holding, with some random tiki torches next to it for a little backyard inspiration.

     The very corner of the kitchen was home to the bakery, with the apothecary in the alcove next to it.

     Hitchcock's replaced Lucky's original bakery sign with one replicated in the same vein, with the bakery displays lining the main aisle in front of the apothecary alcove.

     While I started this tour over in produce and grocery, the better put-together parts of the store, my actual visit here began over in prepared foods, which was how I began to piece together this store was a bit sad around the edges. An empty, leaking cooler partially stuffed with canvas bags to make it look somewhat full wasn't the best first impression for me, and must have been a sign of this store's eventual fate less than a year after my visit.

     Also shoved in this odd corner between the bakery and the apothecary was this small cooler. Hitchcock's wasn't using this cooler (the old mochi ice cream cooler) for anything, so it was just left here to fill up some empty space (with Lucky's logo still on it - my main reason for taking a picture of it).

     As you probably expect, Hitchcock's apothecary department was a bit lackluster. While there were some fancy soaps for sale on that display table, most of this area was dedicated to regular health and beauty items, with some coolers of chilled drinks filling space along the back wall under the department sign ("Dedicated to your health and happiness" - I guess that means I should grab a Diet Coke from the cooler instead!) The Apothecary sign is a carryover from Lucky's, with Hitchcock's just putting a sticker over the spot where Lucky's logo used to be.

     Returning to the front of the store, we can see a few of the check lanes come into view. The check stands themselves are a holdover from Lucky's, although the lane lights were installed new by Hitchcock's, as those are Hitchcock's standard issue lights used in their newer stores.

     While I admire the attempt Hitchcock's made at trying to mimic Lucky's, I think this store was a bit too much to chew for Hitchcock's. That really came across in the prepared food and service departments, which certainly weren't running at full capacity, and made the store seem like it was much emptier than it should have been. Of all the former Lucky's stores I've been to, Hitchcock's Green Market was the best replication of Lucky's I've seen though. While Publix, Winn-Dixie, Seabra Foods, etc. all tried to copy some elements of Lucky's in their converted stores, Hitchcock's was the only chain I saw that tried to replicate the entire experience. With a little more money and experience maybe Hitchcock's could have made this store work, but in the end, I don't think this store was a good fit for the chain. However, I have to give honorable mention to the decor designer for this store, as the replication of Lucky's style was really good, and even better than Lucky's original decor in many places!

     Back outside, here's a look from the front of Hitchcock's Green Market toward the mall entrance. The big glass entrance was added as part of the redevelopment of the Sears store that once stood here, as that would have been Sears' mall entrance back in the day. I didn't go inside Tyrone Square while I was here, but if you're curious to see what the inside is like, here's the mall's Google Maps photo album.

     From what I can tell, the former Lucky's Market and Hitchcock's Green Market space is still sitting empty as of January 2023. Tyrone Square is a healthy mall, so there shouldn't be any issue in finding somebody interested in this space. Another supermarket to fill this void will probably be a bit of a stretch though, as all the big names are accounted for nearby (Publix, Winn-Dixie, and Aldi, and Sprouts is in the process of opening a new store up the road from here in the old Kmart building). However, the nearby Publix is a whole half-mile away from here, so I guess that could be just enough buffer room between stores for them, especially considering this scene across town!

     As sad as it is to see Hitchcock's fail here, hopefully something new comes along to fill this space. I'm glad I was able to visit this store when I did, as this was probably the most interesting of the "Life after Lucky's" conversions I've visited. I still have more former Lucky's stores to share with all of you in the future too, but that will have to wait for now, as next time we're back with more Albertsons for your reading entertainment (no guarantee on less puns though!).

I'll see everyone in two weeks! So until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger