Welcome to Publix's newest prototype!
While we've seen plenty of older Publix stores on this blog, and I have a lot of them to feature soon, we haven't had too many looks at their newest model- featuring their new "Evergreen" decor. The rollout for this package has been painfully slow, with lots of stores presumably planned in the Classy Market 3.0 era opening with that decor, months after Evergreen first surfaced.
Welcome indeed! I mean, don't you just feel absolutely at home with this sea of cold greys and..... more cold grays? At least the ol' Publix green seems intact.
Now, unfortunately, these photos are actually from several months ago, and I had very limited time to make a racetrack-run of this store. So my knowledge of its layout is about... 0.2, if I'm being generous.
The service desk and the all-important sub & salad bar are visible here, in a stark departure from typical Publix stores. In a lot of older stores, this service desk is really shoved into a wall at the front of the store, and the subs are with the rest of the deli, again against a wall. This store, being a complete ground up, was able to be more free with its layout.
The seafood counter, however, wasn't as lucky, and did get shoved into a wall. A little splash of color can be seen here, with the dark blue tiles. Also note that the Aprons (Publix's cooking school/sample counter/recipe rack) area has been extended into a full-sized counter, instead of a kiosk like at older stores.
Dairy here really "stands out".... okay, bad joke. It's following the tried-and-true method of shoving the staples at the very back, in order to make you browse through and hopefully buy as much extra junk as possible. A little bit of color shows up in the photo panel above the coolers, but it's mostly green. They're really sticking to a limited color pallet in this package, which is a stark change from the more colorful Classy Market 2.0 and 3.0.
This annoyingly blown out photo (dang modern LED lights) is my best shot of the aisle markers. They seem largely the same as those from CM 3.0, just with gray placards.
Here we see both a good shot of a freezer aisle, as well as a good look at the exposed ceilings Publix sprung for in their newest models.
The bakery can be seen here, along with another Dairy sign- this time actually above dairy products. The bakery is another section that lost a lot of color coming over from 3.0, and it makes me sad to see it so gray. Also visible to the left is the sort of "suspended ceiling" Publix did for the center of the store. It's a neat feature, though I don't want to imagine how much dust will be up there after 20 or so years.
We'll round off with this shot, showing the end caps- which, well, haven't changed awful much. Whadda you expect, I guess. Another survivor are the tables visible to the right- I'm surprised they didn't get switched for gray ones! I am confused as to why they're double stacked like that.
Anyway, until next time, this has been Cape Kennedy Retail.
Anyway, until next time, this has been Cape Kennedy Retail.
While I lament that the D.C. market will likely never have Classy Market stores, this package has an okay vibe that is at least unlike most other grocers of today. I do hope they can still go back to the drawing board and take notes on their previous designs though.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, nice take - liked the emotion here.
What a disappointment! Instead of the fresh and vibrant look of the Classy Market stores, we get this dull and rather moribund look from Publix with the rather ironic Evergreen name. I know when AFB did a post about Evergreen a little while back with the St. Johns store, I noticed that a large number of cars in the parking lot of that store were grayscale colored cars and also a lot of the shoppers were wearing grayscale colored clothing. Well, that seems to be the case in Palmetto as well from the photos we see! While I expect Florida to be a more colorful place than the rest of the country, perhaps Floridians (and Publix) think otherwise!
ReplyDeleteOf course, a lot of supermarket decor is drab these days so Publix is hardly alone in that regard. In some ways, these Publix stores still look better than the rest since they have real floors, which takes away some of the industrial look, and a hybrid drop ceiling. Those of us in Houston are somewhat used to those hybrid drop ceilings as our 1990s Venture stores, most of which became Kmarts, had ceilings like that. One thing I remember is that during the Venture days (or was it Kmart?), a balloon got loose and drifted into the drop ceiling area, but from a part that was visible from the open ceiling part. The balloon got caught up in some support wires and such and remained there visibly until the store closed a few years later, lol. Hopefully Publix has higher maintenance standards than 1990s Venture/Kmart though!
As for the open ceiling part, I wonder if the dark painted open ceiling makes those parts of the store feel extra closed in.
I'm guessing the tables are stacked that way so that they can pull the smaller part out in times when they may need extra table space. I'm not sure if that happens all that often at Publixes.
While this store is still better than other supermarkets which combine drab decor with concrete floors and completely open ceilings, it's still a dud. This is a surprising swing and miss from Publix, but again, I don't know if it's really a swing and miss for most people given general trends (or is it merely acceptance?) towards grayscale colors.
I really wish Publix would bring back a more retro/vintage look to their stores but I guess that is just wishful thinking. I remember one store in Gainesville, Florida on 13th street that had the winged entrance on the outside that lit up green. I miss the good old days. Thank you for your blog. I really enjoy reading about all the stuff you post.
ReplyDeleteYeah that would be cool, or even bring back the 80s, 70s and 90s models too, maybe even revive Wavy Pastel but it's only a pipe dream now.
DeleteI'm not sure if the store has been shared before, but I remember seeing photos with this decor in a recent post from maybe a few months ago. At the time I didn't think it looked good because of all the gray, but a store in my area was recently remodeled to the Evergreen look, and it actually looks very nice in person. Despite the department signs and wall outlines being mostly Gray, there are splashes of color throughout the store, mostly green as the name would imply.
ReplyDeleteI was openly critical of Publix's Classy Market remodeling spree, mostly because it took the uniqueness out of individual stores, and also removed the photo collages from the stores that had them. Over time Classy Market 3 grew on me, but I think Evergreen is nice as well.
I'm not that huge on Evergreen as it isn't as colorful as most decors but in remodeled stores, it's pretty nice. The closest store to me (#753, built in 2000) just finished remodeled to Evergreen and it's pretty nice, mainly cause the ceiling isn't as dark as the new stores in my opinion. The only other stores I know that have remodeled are (#1005, #677 in photos, maybe #122 cause when I went back in December, the 3.0 was stripped and #1046)
ReplyDeletePublix #1312 in Gainesville is also being remodeled to the Evergreen interior as well.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful store but so bland! In the northeast, we are having a renaissance of the "more is more" decor packages where there's SO much stuff up on the walls... and I love it! That said, this is one of the nicest streamlined and simple decor packages I've seen in a long time.
ReplyDelete