Publix #1798
Crawfordville Commons
2343 Crawfordville Highway
Crawfordville, FL 32327
Live, Local, Late-breaking: This is the Sing Oil Blogger
Today I am reporting to you live from the Crawfordville Commons Shopping Center on Crawfordville Highway (US Highway 319) where Publix #1798 is holding its grand opening celebration. This marks a milestone in the chain's history as this is its 1,300th store, and the first Publix in Wakulla County. Although the company calls the Sunshine State its home, there are still several other rural counties which do not contain a single Publix, primarily concentrated around Florida's Big Bend region; however, Wakulla County no longer holds that distinction!
Some Background
For those who aren't familiar with the area, Crawfordville is an unincorporated community located about 15 minutes southwest of Tallahassee. It also happens to be the county seat of Wakulla County and is one of only two unincorporated county seats in the state. The county is famous for the nearby Wakulla Springs State Park, and is a common place for travelers to stock up before heading to the beaches at Alligator Point or St. George Island. Crawfordville has been home to a Winn-Dixie for a number of years, but Publix recently decided it was time for them to get in on the action.
I bring up all of this because this store has one more unique quirk: it is an Evergreen-built 45M from an era full of 49M-2 builds. It seems like Publix is determined for their default prototype to be the 49M-2, and has only sprinkled a few 45Ms around sparingly. I was interested to find out what (if anything) has changed with this prototype since the rollout of Evergreen, so I was excited to learn that #1798 was built to that design. I suppose the smaller population of the area led Publix to shy away from building a fancy 49M-2 and instead resort to a tried-and-true 45M.
Publix announced that they would build this store back in 2021 after months of speculation. Fast forward to August 4, 2022, and we see the culmination of that work with the grand opening ceremony for the 46,811 sq. ft. store. I have been to one other Publix during its first day in operation, but this was the first time I attempted to visit a grand opening. I certainly enjoyed the experience and had an excuse to see the sun rise, which is nice; the only problem is I missed the ribbon cutting by a minute or two since I was caught in the traffic. Oh well, I still got to be there!
The store held its grand opening at 7 AM sharp, but I was out of bed well before then. At least I had some nice weather for my morning drive!
The Store
We'll take our first look at the store from Crawfordville Highway. The attached shopping center is also scheduled to include a Publix liquor store and several other tenants, none of which had opened as of this morning.
The ribbon might've already been cut, but there was still a line to check out this place at 7:04 AM.
I'd like to also point out how this store still received the windows flanking the façade, which typically allow for stock photos to be displayed. This is customary in 45M stores, but I don't believe I have seen this feature in a 49M-2 or 54M-2. I'm curious as to why Publix left them in this design and if they will add stock photos eventually.
A lot of people woke up bright and early to check out their new Publix!
As I entered the store, I was greeted by several employees, handed a sales flyer and store directory, and passed a matte grey buggy for my shopping trip. I've noticed the grey shopping carts before, but this is the first store I've seen them exclusively used as opposed to the typical chrome ones.
I didn't manage to get a picture of the customer service island, but it was placed in the same location it has been for the last 15-20 years. This location got one of the "deluxe" Evergreen customer service islands as opposed to the rectangular ones rolled out during the later years of Sienna. I haven't seen many of these in person, but they seem to have more storage used for Instacart staging.
Otherwise, this section of the store looks largely the same as any other 45M I have seen.
The biggest exception to that statement is the addition of a dining nook to the right of the bakery. Typically, cake refrigerators would be located between the bakery counter and the floral section, but this store carved out a space for customers to munch on a Pub Sub.
This change resulted in the bakery using taller display tables for their product on the sales floor (as opposed to the nesting tables seen in other stores) and other cake coolers being in the middle of the sales floor as well.
The bakery may have been altered for the new design, but the deli looks the same as every other recent 45M store I've seen (the tile backsplash being the one exception).
Sorry for the unflattering picture, but Plato even made an appearance at the grand opening! I just hadn't realized that Publix decided to change the costume for Plato at some point, and still thought he looked like this. I personally like the old look better.
Another familiar sight is the placement of the produce department. I've been to stores dating back to the 1990's which have this identical configuration, but it seems to work well for the chain (if you didn't guess, the produce department was in the back right corner of the store).
Publix may be known for the cleanliness in its stores, but that effort
is heightened during a grand opening. If you can't tell, every single
piece of fruit was perfectly placed, and I couldn't resist taking a picture (a lady also got out of the way for me to have a clear shot).
I can see how there is an art to store openings, so I'm glad I was able to capture a glimpse of how perfect everything was intended to look. I also didn't have to shy away from taking any pictures because people were gawking over the sights of the shiny new store!
The meat and seafood department found their standard placements, just to the left of the produce service window. I do find it interesting that this store received the premium, frameless glass seafood display cases. I haven't paid attention to other recent new-builds, but those cases were the hallmark of an especially premium Sienna store nearly 10 years ago.
We'll take one last look down aisle 1 (the grand aisle) before we mosey our way through the rest of the store.
I'd imagine that the one yellow pipe in the ceiling is probably colored as such for safety reasons (it is probably a gas line), but it still seems very distracting against the otherwise grey ceiling. I'd be curious to see if I notice this in other stores, or if it is a piece of modern Floridian building codes.
The rear actionway was full of action today! This would also be a good time to point out another observation I've made: it seems like any store which received grey aisle sign frames with its Evergreen remodel was either a new-build or remodeled from an Invigorate (CM 2.5) flavor which used older aisle signs. Most Sienna remodels seem to reuse the existing green frames, which could be an easy way in the future to identify the remodel history of a store. I'll also note that several of the early Evergreen stores still received the green aisle sign frames, but they were likely existing stock.
Our first aisle examination will be on aisle 4: home to a plethora of baking supplies (and some sugar products which continue to sport the phased-out Publix packaging).
Turning around, the meat counter proudly boasts its offerings of beef, pork, lamb, veal, turkey, chicken, and smoked meats. Wouldn't smoked meats likely fall into one of those other six categories?
The next piece I want to highlight is how perfectly stocked the grocery aisles were. Most aisles had one or two Publix employees stationed at each end who would move product to the front as a customer removed an item. The soft drink aisle was especially crowded because it hosted representatives from Coca-Cola and Pepsi who were ready to replenish the shelves after one item was selected.
The fact that most shelves were fully stocked was a sight to see in its own right (especially after the last few years), but a brand-new store still couldn't escape the infamous "Our Apologizes" tags. Only thirteen-minutes into this store's life, it already had vacancies on its shelves; however, I believe this section was empty before the store opened. I would like to note that I saw a shortage of Topo-Chico at other stores I have visited recently, including ones run by other companies such as Winn-Dixie.
If you didn't know it already, I had a doggone good time visiting this store! Let's check out all of the pet supplies on aisle 8!
I wonder how long it took somebody to ensure every bag of dog food was perfectly placed and spaced on the shelf; regardless, it looks really nice!
At this point, I've probably been to around 10 Evergreen stores since my first visit to Publix #1306 in November. It seems like every store I visit still boasts a new stock photo, and the one which caught my eye today was the rosemary over the meat coolers.
The rosemary may be new for me, but the faithful I 💚 Green #Publix collage was still on proud display over the packaged lunch meats.
We also find Mr. George residing over the coffin cooler between aisles 10 and 11. I've had mixed results finding this picture in every new or remodeled Publix, but the company has been doing this since at least 2014.
Likewise, aisle 11 looks like most other grocery store freezer aisles.
I mentioned how I wasn't able to get a great view of the customer service desk, but we can see the edge of it (or the entirety of the "R-VICE" desk, Publix's place pickup information about all of its vices) along with half of the checkout space.
Aisle 13 was lucky enough to be fully stocked with paper products. Even though we have mostly recovered from the run on toilet paper, it is still surprising to see so much toilet paper!
Dairy and bread round out aisle 16, which is the final aisle along the left wall of the store.
I feel like I only noticed this a week or two ago, but when did stores begin stacking the Pillsbury tubes (biscuits, crescent rolls, etc.) on their end instead of having them lie on the shelf?
These pictures may not all show it, but the store was very crowded for 7 in the morning – it was more like the crowd I'd expect to see around noon on a Sunday as people are racing to pick up groceries after church. This store also had tons of employees available to greet and direct customers, in addition to handing out samples. The only sample I got was a piece of croissant from the bakery, but I also saw a lady offering tastes of a savory dip near the deli (it was too early in the morning for that). I heard somebody mention ice cream, but I never saw that station.
Interestingly, many of the employees were likely serving temporary shifts and were on loan from some of the Tallahassee stores. I saw several workers buzzing around with blue nametags, which is a clear indicator that they worked at the GreenWise Market on Gaines Street and were only there to assist with the opening. I suppose a GreenWise uniform is good enough for Publix's standards, as opposed to providing a special shirt and nametag just for the day.
Grand opening celebrations are known for their giveaways and sales; likewise, the first 1,000 customers received a free insulated bag (you can see several examples in this shot). A table out front also offered information on Club Publix along with pens, chip clips, and water bottles, while several men were passing out Thomas Muffin Tops to every customer.
That, my friends, will round out my visit to the grand opening of Publix #1798. Off in the distance of this photo is where the liquor store will be located once it opens. I wanted to check it out, but it looked like it was still full of boxes and had more work which needed to be completed before it could open.
If there weren't already enough customers, Publix even had a mobile billboard set up in the parking lot advertising their famous Pub Subs to the people of Crawfordville. I do find it odd that the truck advertises a 770 area code, which means the company is probably based out of the Atlanta area. That's a long drive to just be sitting in the parking lot!
So what did y'all think? Was it Grand? It certainly was open! Don't expect my turnaround for future posts to be quite this fast (just over 8 hours may be a new record!), but I had a fun adventure to start off my day. Look out for more content coming soon; I've recently visited some very interesting stores run by the competition.
- The Sing Oil Blogger
Additional Resources:
I archived a few articles discussing the grand opening celebrations (it looks like my post was the first to be published, BTW), so check them out for more pictures and details:
I'm glad you were able to attend the grand opening! It's certainly an experience, and what you saw here in Crawfordville pretty much matched what I've experienced in the past at other Publix grand opening events (including the 7am crowds!). I'm always impressed myself at how perfectly stocked the shelves are on grand opening morning, and even on a regular day Publix's stores look pretty immaculate too!
ReplyDeleteThe turnaround on this post was impressive also!
Yeah, I am too! You are right, Publix typically does a good job of keeping their stores tidy and neat, but they take it to the next level for a grand opening!
DeleteThank you, I thought I would try something different and give a quick turnaround for this post. Be on the lookout for some other new things I'll be trying in the coming months as well!
That's certainly some dedication to make it to the actual store opening. Although I've been to quite a few 'grand openings' where I got to the store a few hours or days after the store opened their doors for the first time, I can only recall being at the actual doors opening grand opening once and it wasn't a supermarket. That was in 1993 when the CompUSA at I-45 and FM 1960 opened. I was there for a specific reason though. They had a promotion that if you were there for the grand opening and purchased an HP Deskjet 550C printer, they'd give you 50 free Sony 3.5" DS-HD floppy disks. That would have been about a $50 value at that time and we were in the market for that HP printer at the time, it was my first color printer, so it was something worth waiting in line for! It should be noted, however, that the CompUSA had a soft grand opening prior to their official grand opening so I had actually shopped at that store before that official door opening! Yeah, it's kind of weird, but such is the nature of soft grand openings, lol.
ReplyDeleteThat CompUSA was flanked on both sides by a very early Kroger Signature store that replaced an old Kroger Family Center store at the same intersection. The Kroger Signature store is still around. On the other side was a Venture that later became a Kmart. The CompUSA is now a Goodwill thrift store.
Mike from HHR recently re-wrote his history of Randall's 1966-present page and he shared with me a newspaper ad he found from around 1987 of one of the Randall's Flagship store grand openings here in Houston. Those Randall's Flagship stores were a really big deal at the time. Anyway, they held the grand opening at midnight! I'm not sure why they did that. It's possible they were expecting such a large crowd that they decided to hold the grand opening at a time when maybe most people wouldn't show up. It was a strange way to do things!
Walking into a store where everything is pristine and lined up correctly must be quite an experience. Then again, with the large crowds, it might be a bit difficult to take everything in.
I just noticed this with this post, but the all-caps decor in these nEvergreen stores, especially the aisle hangers, seems a little, well, shouty. Combine that with the grey and the store is a bit depressing. I'm more used to Safeway Lifestyle v2's all lower-case and earthtones along with the popular Kroger decor packages like Bountiful which generally emphasize the lower cases, lol.
Yeah, it did take some dedication on my part to make it to the actual store opening (but you'll see a trip which required even more dedication in a few weeks). I had the morning off, so I'd say the stars aligned for me to see the official opening; it isn't often when you can drive to a grocery store at 7 AM on a Wednesday or Thursday. I wanted to make it to an opening at some point, and this Thursday just happened to be my day! $50 in floppy disks may be worthless today, but I'm sure that was pretty cool to get those as a bonus with your new printer! I heard somebody in the line at Publix mention how the store had a "friends and family" night on Wednesday, so it seems like they technically had a soft opening too.
DeleteIt doesn't really surprise me that the Kroger is still around while the Kmart and CompUSA bit the dust!
Wow, a midnight grand opening?!?! Maybe the midnight grand opening was to signify that the store would be open 24 hours? I'm guessing that Publix holds most of their grand openings on Wednesday or Thursday to reduce crowds too because I'd imagine a Saturday opening would be even more of a zoo.
The large crowd was a bit overwhelming at first, but I was still able to take in a lot of the sights while also snapping pictures. Normally my photos would look terrible if I was in any other store as crowded as that one was, but it is almost expected for people to photograph a brand new store!
I think Publix probably decided to go with the all-caps fonts to look trendy. All lower case fonts seem to have been popular for a while (yet, I can think of several companies like Target who have only recently embraced them), so maybe they wanted something different? Publix also used Earth tones for a while and seemingly wanted a change. I still don't think the stores look that bad in person, but I feel like Evergreen won't age as gracefully as Sienna.
Yes, a midnight grand opening is hard to believe for a supermarket! I pulled up a link to that Randall's Flagship ad so you can see the midnight opening with your own eyes. Seeing might be believing! Indeed, that store was open 24 hours a day (the store was sitting on valuable property in a high-end Houston neighborhood so Safeway closed and sold it in 2013). Randall's was probably wanting to promote the 24 hour timing of the store, but it feels a bit strange to open it at midnight on a Sunday night/Monday morning...during the school year no less! Link: https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid/infoweb.newsbank.com&svc_dat=AMNEWS&req_dat=0D1C2A34C3EF45E0&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi/fmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=document_id%3Aimage%252Fv2%253A14DB39C1C40322B4%2540EANX-NB-164D7E03B1BABC5A%25402446373-164D7750EC0FE06D%254025-164D7750EC0FE06D%2540/hlterms%3A
DeleteIf you're interested in reading about those early Randall's Flagship stores, keep your eyes out for a guest post I have coming soon on HHR where the topic is a current-operating Randall's that was also an early example of a Randall's Flagship store. I'm not sure when Mike will publish that blog post, but I'm sure it'll be in the next few weeks at the latest.
As for the aforementioned Kroger, it has the dubious distinction of being one of the lowest rated Krogers on Google's user reviews in the Houston area. I know Atlanta is no stranger to low rated Krogers, but this particular store has no excuse scoring low as it's not some old Greenhouse store or something like that, but rather an early example of a Signature store. I don't think the problem is the physical store, but rather the attention to detail at this location. Someone posted pictures a couple of weeks ago from this location of food that had expired in October 2021! Yikes! Fresher than fresh...or not! Link: https://goo.gl/maps/UQPNraX9gvYUTe7z8
You are correct... that store indeed opened at midnight... and the designer of that ad... loved using ellipses between every clause! The Sunday night / Monday morning timing is even more bizarre though.
DeleteI'll have to check out your post when it publishes in a few weeks!
That Kroger Signature does look much nicer than many of the Atlanta division stores I have been to, so it must be the service that makes it undesirable for Houstonians! From my experience, the service at Kroger seems to have taken a turn for the worse over the last few years so that isn't surprising to hear. I've seen plenty of expired food at various Krogers (and fruit flies, for that matter)!
Great as always! So what I will say today:
ReplyDelete-Interesting seeing that round produce sign. I don’t know if it is now the norm or reskinned from Sienna’s stock.
-Is there really a pharmacy? There curiously seem to be no signs for it inside or out.
-The inclusion of a café seems to be in line with a few 45Ms remodeled to Evergreen.
I think they did a decent job conforming the layout to Evergreen standards but it feels less inviting than the 49M-2s.
Thank you!
DeleteI didn't really think about the round produce sign until you mentioned it, but it seems like new-build Sienna stores didn't receive a round sign over produce and only got wall signs. I wonder if this store did have a re-skinned sign or if this will be the way all 45M Evergreen stores will look. If it was from Sienna's stock, it could have been intended for a wine department.
That's also an interesting point. The main road sign says "drive thru pharmacy" below the Publix logo and the drive through canopy states the same, but I had thought the sign on the façade looked out of place. I wonder if they will add some secondary signage below stating "Food & Pharmacy". I didn't notice if there was a pharmacy sign facing aisle 16, but I see what you mean about there not being any noticeable signs inside. I definitely saw people working behind the pharmacy counter and a lady was telling people how to transfer their prescriptions from Walgreens.
Publix seems to be pushing the idea of eating in the store, which makes sense based on how much they promote Pub Subs.
The grand aisle isn't as open as the setup in the 49M-2 stores which probably makes the 45M feel less inviting; I've just gotten used to the layout of a 45M where I don't even think much about it. It's always interesting to hear what people think who are outside of Publix's territory!
Indeed, you are welcome. So I do know that the round produce sign was used at Sienna 49M-2s and a few other stores with the package. Perhaps it is a less deluxe equivalent to the square produce sign we see in Evergreen 49M-2s or its replacement.
DeleteIt is weird that signage does not exist for the most part. Must be some ordinance or perhaps they are looking to transfer enough prescriptions over before applying signage.
I know that’s been a problem with the 45M since inception but I am speaking of the wall structure. The deli feels so flat and so do some other departments compared to Sienna and before where each was well balanced.
The café is an excellent way to keep traffic up in the age of Instacart, and is a useful tool as Publix intertwines their market with that of Wegmans.
It could be a less deluxe equivalent, but I think the ring looks better in person than the typical Evergreen produce signage. At least you can't look at the ring and immediately tell it is made of Styrofoam (if it is). The bottom, dark grey portion of all of the Evergreen signage prominently shows a cross-section of Styrofoam on the front of the sign which you can't unsee once you notice it!
DeleteI would guess that the pharmacy signage was just delayed due to supply chain issues or something of the sort.
I see. I agree, the walls do feel flat compared to stores from previous eras. I really like the few stores which have retained awnings around the perimeter of the store since they add a lot of depth and texture.
Good point on the café!
Thanks, I had fun and I'm glad I was finally able to experience a grand opening! I was surprised to see how many employees were in the store (and especially surprised to see that some were there on-loan from the local GreenWise), but it seems like Publix had a purpose for all of those people.
ReplyDeleteThe turnaround on this post is much more of an exception than a rule; I have photographed many more stores than I have written about to-date. I'm also trying to prep a few posts while I have some free time. I'm sure you'll get time some day to write a few more posts, but enjoy being busy (as long as you are a person who likes staying busy)!
Nice grand opening recap and great photos! Looks like a very nice store overall. From a cart nerd perspective it's not surprising they would switch to powder coat vs. chrome, better rust protection generally and I believe the coating is cheaper as well.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me Publix, HyVee and Wegmans are all becoming the mid-range supermarket juggernauts. I hope they each can continue in their success and stay independent of getting snapped up by Kroger or some other monopoly. It'll be interesting to see if in the future all three brands start to meet up in certain market areas. It looks like Wegmans and Publix are already closing in on each other in the North Carolina region. HyVee is in western Missouri and working down through Illinois while Publix is in Western Tennessee, so perhaps they'll be bumping into each other eventually as well.
Thank you! Overall, it was a nice store and I'm sure the residents of Wakulla County will enjoy it.
DeleteI have noticed a few of the current Publix carts already showing some rust, so they might've decided to swap to the powder coat for financial reasons in addition to design reasons! I think there are Publix stores which opened in 2015 and have already received a new fleet of chrome carts several years ago (I'm not sure what model the old ones were, but they are pretty rickety if you still find them). Oddly enough, I still occasionally come across a few of the white-handled carts which haven't been purchased for at least 10-15 years and they have held up alright for their age.
It would be a crazy sight to see if Kroger was somehow able to snatch up Publix! I personally couldn't imagine that happening, but I suppose stranger things have. Kroger and Publix just seem to have extremely different views on the level and quality of service provided, and any buyer would need to maintain Publix's level of service to preserve the business. I still think Publix is too strong and daunting for an acquisition, though.
I'd be interesting to see a HyVee or Wegmans at some point. I've heard from others that both chains will introduce some good competition for Publix in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky. We shall see who will survive in the end!