Key Food of Daytona Beach
(former Bravo Supermarkets/Jo-Ann Fabrics)
1509 S Nova Rd, Daytona Beach, FL - The Promenade
Welcome to Daytona Beach! And an uncommon supermarket. Key Food is a brand that's more well known in the Northeast, especially New York. But, perhaps in tune with all the people moving from New York, Key Food has had an expansion push in Florida recently, slowly opening stores, primarily in former Bravo Supermarkets, which had gained quite the rough reputation in Florida due to a lack of upkeep.
The facade here is pretty unassuming, and this can be traced to this spot's heritage as a Jo-Ann Fabrics, not a supermarket. There was a supermarket in this plaza originally, a Winn-Dixie with the distinctive "1st Generation Marketplace" facade, but we'll get to that later. The facade is also unchanged from Bravo's time here, except for the signage.
Before we dip inside, we'll take a look at their very eclectic cart selection, housed in a former Publix corral. A healthy mix of ex-Walmart carts, ex-Toys R Us carts, and some randomized red and wire carts for flavor. Even a child seat cart, which is rare for mix-and-match sets like this.
Entering the store, we'll take a quick look at the checkout stands. They're rather compressed, but are clean and modern, which is better than a lot of operating Winn-Dixies can say.
A quick look at the checkout lights, again clean, modern, but also not super remarkable.
Turning to the produce section, we get our first look at the proper decor, which I really like. It's similar, but not exactly the same, to the package YonWoo looked at back in 2019 in Winter Garden. And while the little "Fresh Seafood" banner at the back does kinda cheapen it, it's still pretty nice overall, certainly great for typically under-decorated small chains like this.
A quick aisle shot here shows them well-stocked, if a smidge narrow. They had a wide selection of Hispanic-market sodas, and I was able to pick up a few I hadn't seen before.
Our final shot shows the back of the store, as well as one of the aisle markers. The store was barely out of an active remodel at this point, so the cleanliness is expected, but still nice to see.
To round off our post, let's take a quick look at the rest of the plaza.
One of this plaza's other interesting features is it, at least had, an "arcade", a small hallway that contained some smaller tenants. Unfortunately, like many others, this one has fallen vacant and is now closed up, the only hint of anything more being some weirdly set entrances, and a hallway outline visible from aerial views. This one had even gone through the trouble of papering over the doors and windows, leaving me with no look at the interior.
The plaza swoops back here, adding a small green space in the corner. It was honestly quite nice. The windows shown here would have likely been the outward facing side of arcade tenants.
And, alongside some more surprisingly well-kept greenery, is the arcade's other entrance, sadly equally locked and obscured.
Our final shot is of a glorious sight: a 1st-generation Winn-Dixie Marketplace. These angular exteriors are some of my favorite retail facades full stop, and its always a delight to see one. This American Freight was a former Sears Outlet that ended up converted in the whole Sears branding shuffle/mess/clusterf--k. I didn't go inside, and while I doubt there were any remnants, I wish I did, just for completeness' sake.
Anyway, with that, until next time!
Cape Kennedy Retail.
Cape Kennedy Retail.
I have memories of visiting a very poorly run Winn-Dixie in Daytona Beach in 1997. That visit gave me a very poor impression of the chain. I suppose it could have been this Winn-Dixie Marketplace that is now the American Freight, but I don't think so. Either way, it's always neat seeing things from Daytona Beach as I have been there a couple of times.
ReplyDeleteThe Key Foods here looks a bit like a fancy Save-A-Lot, but I guess it serves the needs for the neighborhood's grocery needs. I like the mixture of carts and certainly there are a lot of sodas there I've never seen before. Jarritos and Inca are well-known here, but I can't say I'm familiar with some of those other brands!
It's really interesting to see Key Food's Florida expansion, which has been going on for a few years now. They have somewhere between 350 and 400 stores in total now, and they're the market leader by far within New York City. Plus they have roughly 50 in Florida (but those are all under various brands). They've taken on a few smaller chains like Sabor Tropical and Festival, as well as bringing in some of their NYC-area chains such as Food Fair, but their focus is all on the Latino market. Up in my area, they're much more mainstream -- and they have other banners, such as Food Universe and SuperFresh, that are more mainstream. They also have The Food Emporium, which is an upscale banner, and a variety of independent chains/operators under their own names. I think there's room for Key Food to expand in two areas, then -- they can take on Bravo stores and expand their Latino presence, but they could also take on some more mainstream locations as they have been up in the northeast. And most recently, they've announced plans to double their Florida locations by 2025, and most of those are probably going to be acquisitions/conversions like this one, not new stores. Anyway, it'll be interesting!
ReplyDelete