Harveys #1667
Gray Station
Gray, GA 31032
Former Harveys #2409 / Food Lion #1215
Rather than looking at another Evergray Publix today, we are instead going further down the Southeastern Grocers rabbit hole to visit the small town of Gray, GA. Located smack dab in the middle of the state, the Jones County seat may not be the first destination that comes to mind for tourists, but the town offers attractions such as an 1850's cotton plantation, several scenic nature trails, and plenty of Civil War memorials. Just across the Ocmulgee River to the west, one can also take in the sights of Macon, GA, in Bibb County or Juliette, GA, in Monroe County where the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes" was filmed.
While attempting to preserve as much information on pre-Aldi Southeastern Grocers as I can, I recently captured a snapshot of information on the present state of Winn-Dixie & Harveys. There are currently a total of 394 stores, including 369 under The Beef People banner and 25 bearing the Harveys name. Out of those locations, Southeastern Grocers still operated 227 pharmacies in August before it was announced that SEG would offload all pharmacy assets to CVS and Walgreens by the end of the year. I know this metric shocked both me and AFB, as we expected there to be fewer than 58% of stores still running a pharmacy following the 2016 purge. What is also surprising is how SEG claims that the current pharmacy eradication has nothing to do with the pending Aldi sale—if you say so! On another front, I'm also curious as to what Aldi will do with the 170 "Wiquor" stores, but I suppose that's a topic for another day.
Thankfully for Gray, this Harveys operates neither a pharmacy nor a liquor store, so the town has nothing to lose in that regard! We may not know what the future holds for this Harveys, but that can't stop us from taking a look at its past.
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| Google Earth - Future Food Lion #1215 - February 22, 1993 |
My guess is that the Food Lion which originally occupied this space, #1215, opened in 1993 based on the satellite imagery above and on the store number itself. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find anything mentioning this location in The Macon Telegraph before 1999, which also lists this store's address as being 613 New Clinton Street rather than 208 West Clinton.
This Food Lion disappeared from the Macon newspapers by 2003, and the 32,000 sq ft building seemed to have closed sometime around then and sat vacant for a number of years.
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| The Macon Telegraph (Newspapers.com) - October 24, 2009 - Construction progress at Harveys #2405 in Macon, GA |
Around 2007, Food Lion began to show a renewed interest in Harveys by rolling out a brand new interior package and constructing some of the first ground-up Harveys stores seen in years (if not decades). This progress may not have come at a blazing speed, but Delhaize managed to open or convert at least seven stores by late-2009, all of which sported the décor package we will examine today. Pictured above are some rare conversion pictures from former store #2405 in East Macon which opened roughly two years before the store in Gray.
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| Courtesy Charles Burgess Jr (Flickr) - Harveys #2409 - June 22, 2013 |
Based on Quitman's #2408 opening in 2011 and Camilla's #2411 opening either in 2011 or 2012, I'm inclined to say Delhaize finally gave up on trying to sublet the old supermarket space in Gray and decided to give it a shot as a Harveys around that time; this just seems a bit odd considering Food Lion announced it would close 29 stores in Georgia in early 2012. Regardless, Delhaize's last new Harveys store opened on February 29, 2012, before the brand and its 72 outlets were sold to BI-LO Holdings (now Southeastern Grocers) in 2013.
I'd also like to take a moment and thank Flickr user Charles Burgess Jr for the work he did over 10 years ago to preserve a record of so many Harveys stores. You've probably seen me reference his photos before, but I believe he documented every operational store in the chain at the time the BI-LO acquisition was announced. In addition to having clear photographs of some of these long-closed stores, he also lists the Delhaize store numbers in his descriptions, which provides a key piece of information for determining original opening dates, etc. Without work like his, it would be much more difficult for me to perform the research that I do.
While this store has been on my list to visit for quite some time, it was one sunny Sunday when I finally took the time to detour over to Gray after visiting a friend. This trip also came on the heels of Harveys' pending acquisition by Aldi which likely provided that much more motivation to go out of my way considering how this location's future is now up in the air.
Just as I was pulling into the parking lot, I felt a buzz on my leg from a familiar friend looking to catch up.
It was none other than Retail Retell, asking if I was awake by 2 PM (he should know better by now)! I asked if he could give me a few minutes since I was sitting in my car about to head into this very supermarket. As expected, he seemed to crack up at the remark and wish me luck. Part of me wonders what my life has come to, but the other part just thinks it's hilarious!
Even though the decade-plus old sign on the front of this store is a bit faded, I still love how classy the 3D lettering of the logo looks when set off by the grid pattern on the stucco.
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| Courtesy Laura Gillespie (Google Maps) - January 21, 2017 |
What is even cooler is the nighttime perspective of this sign; rather than using a standard backlit sign, Delhaize opted for the softer look of wash lighting to shine down on the logo. The fact that SEG decided to mostly kill off this look still perplexes me, but at least it got a second chance here!
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| Former Harveys logo (Delhaize era) recreation by The Sing Oil Blogger |
I couldn't resist trying my hand at recreating this logo after I identified the fonts Delhaize used for the design and the corresponding interior package. I'll also note that SEG adapted its own version of this logo by swapping the font used for "supermarket" to a subtly different one that was then carried over to the modern Foco logo.
The store itself may still use the Delhaize Jimbo logo, but the buggies out front all seem to sport the Foco font and are the same models we see in Winn-Dixie (except for the awkwardly short one off to the right which happened to be the one I grabbed).
Turning around toward the vestibule, it appears that Delhaize extended the doors outward to enlarge the space at some point. I'd guess they were originally in line with the brick columns and were moved at the same time this store's interior set of doors was removed.
Ahh, the Produce department looks just like Delhaize intended for it to! This is one of two active Harveys stores to still use the circa 2007 "Southern Farmstand" package, and I have to say I like it much better than the hideous Yellow Down Down interior from 2016 which adorns the remaining 23 outlets.
Unlike the former Camilla store we toured several months back, the Gray Harveys still has its agricultural stenciling on the walls in addition to the complimentary signage and flooring. This also happens to be the exact location this produce department would be if the store were still a Food Lion.
Something else I remember seeing in Camilla (or was it Ocilla: oh well) was this "Buy Local" sign. While it doesn't have any explicit Harveys branding, it absolutely uses the Harveys shade of yellow and the SEG Foco font which leaves me a bit surprised that nobody bothered to remove it from the aforementioned store. That also goes to show how the one we see today is five years old, at a minimum, since the other store I saw it in closed back in 2018.
This balloon, however, is likely a bit newer. Several of these were placed throughout the store in order to draw one's attention to various sales, and it seems they aptly do the job.
Just for Anonymous in Houston, I took my obligatory photo of the banana display; you happy now?
Jokes aside, 69¢/lb. seems to roughly fall in line with what I see at most stores around Georgia. It's also refreshing to see that none of these bananas are overripe!
I can't figure out why seemingly every Harveys I've been to, both current and former, has an articulate display of artificial flowers over the produce coolers; this store was no exception. Do people actually buy these, or are they more used as part of the décor?
The bouquets give a brief pause for the salad toppings before resuming just to my left.
But wait, there's more! Just to the right in my terribly blurry photo above, Harveys had a small display case of . . . wait for it . . . real flowers before closing out the produce department with yet another fixture of the fake stuff.
We then find ourselves graced by the "Wall of Values" before entering the frozen foods department. Other than in a 1990's Food Lion, I can't think of another supermarket layout which places frozen items adjacent to produce like this, especially when dairy is on the opposite side of the store. It just seems so iceolated.
The layout may be 30-years old, but it looks like Delhaize at least installed new freezers when it retrofitted this store into a Harveys.
The next décor pieces I'd like to point out are the round "Highest Quality" signs which frame either side of the major department signs. While these were absent from the Camilla store (obviously, since they have the Harveys logo on them), at least I still managed to photograph some of them in action here in Gray. I do, however, wonder how a TV dinner tray can be described as the "highest quality frozen foods"!
Turning down the rear of the store, the flooring transition is our cue that we are now in a new department.
We can also see how "Lunch Meats" is the only department in the store to have received the barn door accent which was also used with "Quality Meats" in Camilla.
Aisle 2 offers more frozen vegetables, along with plenty of "salad sauce". Does anybody else think that display of ranch dressing looks to be stacked a bit precariously?
This week's salad dressing feature is Kraft Catalina. I'm not exactly sure why I took this picture, but I may have been intending to show the three different types of "sale" tags in this store. The part that really trips me up is how the Kraft dressing is on sale for $1 off, but the sale doesn't end until December 31st. Meanwhile, the "Low Low" and "BOGO" prices both expired at the end of the week of my visit. Part of me is really convinced that SEG's pricing structure is just a big sham, but feel free to provide evidence to the contrary!
Let's pause for a minute and relish at how nice this advertisement for Harveys' online shopping service is. Probably the best part is how this ad doesn't feature an inch of the hideous Harveys yellow!
Meanwhile, canned goods can be found on what was presumably aisle 3. For just being the house brand of chains like Winn-Dixie and Harveys, I think the packaging designers did a good job with the look for the cans we see here. It's a shame that these will likely be phased out over the coming months.
One thing I wouldn't be sad to see quietly disappear is this BOGO bin design. If you don't think these displays are insecure about the amount of attention you grant them (or either the designers are insecure about their popularity in high school), then I don't know what you are smoking.
Aisle four features an assortment of pasta and other exotic international foods.
While this display back up front only wishes it was so lucky. It was only blessed with a few meager jumbo cookies, a lonely slice of cake, and a rejected pack of gum. At least the blueberry pies have some companions.
Isn't it a shame that baby formula has to be locked up in a case next to the customer service counter?
Save money more, live better Feel healthy. That's the power of Harveys.
It's particularly interesting how this store still has the original category markers in select places, which we can see on full display on aisle seven.
Back in the meat department, a giant graphic of a butcher knife and red cooler bearing the word "sale" welcomes us into this part of the store: how comforting.
I also just realized this, but Harveys will potentially celebrate its centennial before Winn-Dixie will—that is, if the company isn't killed off before then. I wonder if anybody at corporate has a celebration in mind for a few months from now. The company has been "Trading since 1924", after all.
L-ate-r on, I took some photos of the hot and dry cereal aisle, while continuing to zig-zag my way through this former Food Lion.
Tell me why somebody would be so lazy as to leave a case of water just sitting on the floor here! This also makes me wonder: are there any Down Down Harveys stores out there which still feature the Southern Farmstand flooring? I know some stores (like the Old Dawson Rd location in Albany) had both packages, but then again, SEG never bothered to take out the original Rose & Teal Marketplace tiles there!
Back up front, we see the deli and bakery come into view. Remind you of Food Lion much?
Regardless, the biggest complaint I have about this department is how the ceiling overhang totally blocks your view of the signage if you are within 15 feet; then, if you are any further, a dadgum shelf gets in the way! I can't win for losing!
At least I was able to get a (mostly) unobstructed shot of the "Quality Meats" sign from the peanut gallery.
I also got a nice angle of this package's "Restrooms" sign. Why do I have a feeling that the paneling lining that hallway may date back to 1993?
I honestly don't know the answer to that question, but I do know this is exactly where Food Lion originally placed its bathrooms. I also know this is where Delhaize decided to transition its flooring pattern to that of the dairy department.
Over on aisle 12, we find all of the supplies needed for a backyard barbecue including cold beer, chardonnay mixers, charcoal, and . . .
. . . the wood chunks that we all Know & Love. AFB first spotted these guys in his local Winn-Dixie several weeks ago, but since then, the retail community has been totally confused as to why SEG would launch its new house brand with wood chips and why we have yet to see any other products with the new packaging. Needless to say, every SEG store I've been to since then has proudly displayed an assortment of combustible lovable trees just above the charcoal briquettes. "Know that they burn, love that they're natural."
Hey look, they're even on sale!
What's fresher than some dead trees? Some prepackaged bakery products, of course! Harveys has never in my memory boasted an extensive selection of bakery goods, but I do always remember them doing a decent amount of hot food business. Unfortunately, neither niche seemed to be thriving here in Gray.
Finally, aisle 13 hosts an assortment of ice cream and other dairy items. As to why somebody thought it was best to place the ice cream department signage over lemonade, tea, and eggs beats me.
I'm also stumped as to why frozen desserts are on this side of the store rather than with the balance of frozen foods on aisles one & two. Have any of you ever seen a setup like this? I guess Food Lion wanted all of the "indulgences" to be on one side of the store?
I suppose other than the fact that milk and ice cream have to be stored at two different temperatures, it makes sense for both to be in the "dairy" department.
What in the world are "custom desserts"?
Why is the cheese shelf crooked?
I guess even though this is one of the nicest looking Harveys I've seen, it still has to be a bit rachet.
Looking back over the front end of this store, I have to applaud Delhaize for the amount of work it put into these later Harveys stores. The fact that it looks like the company completely replaced the dropped ceiling, and installed new flooring, wall finishes, & fixtures, it is a shame to see what BI-LO Holdings / SEG ended up doing with the chain.
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| Thnk you for shopping Harveys |
We can see here the checkout lights that I typically associate with this package, but it seems like BI-LO Holdings may have cooked up its own design for the rare occasion when the company installed Southern Farmstand. Since the same cubes I linked to above were also present in Americus, I'm inclined to say that store in fact remodeled from Winn-Dixie's Post Bankruptcy package to Southern Farmstand before finally settling on Yellow Down Down. Part of the fun of me writing this blog is how I can even make connections I've never realized before (while also reminiscing on how bizarre it is for Americus to have received the first ever Transformational Winn-Dixie prototype—solely because a tornado devastated the town).
If you couldn't tell before, this is hands down my favorite Harveys package. I'm especially glad that I've had the chance to experience and photograph it before it was entirely extinct under its original banner. Regardless, I'd imagine that Southern Farmstand still has plenty of life left in it with the various South Georgia independents . . .
That's all I have for the Harveys, but I managed to also stop by the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historic Park while I was in the Macon area. Standing atop the Great Temple Mound Complex, we have this nice view of the expansive Macon skyline.
You may remember me mentioning earlier how Retail Retell wanted to catch up, well, I had plenty of time to do just that as I meandered through the park and took in the sights. Despite giving me a hard time as if I were still asleep, he was the one who was just then eating breakfast!
I was especially impressed by the Earth Lodge once I stepped inside, as I wasn't expecting such a vast interior space based on what I saw outside.
It's amazing what can be housed inside of a hill, and how much relief one can find from the Middle Georgia heat once underground! If you want to learn more about this 1,000+ year old Native American site, make sure to check out the Wikipedia page, or better yet, visit it for yourself! It's right off I-16 (across the Ocmulgee River from downtown Macon) and admission is free!
Another interesting tidbit is how there is now an effort underway to transition the area surrounding the Ocmulgee Mounds into Georgia's first National Park.
Our parting shot from the Macon Metro is one of the new electric vehicle charging station Circle K installed at the former Flash Foods on Bass Road / I-75. This caught my attention because I've never seen a convenience store branded EV charger like this, and especially didn't expect to find one in Macon (even seeing one in Macon, I would have expected it to be built along the much busier I-475 to the West). The Sing Oil Sidekick mentioned that he heard Circle K has plans to install these in California but was also surprised that I managed to come across one in The Peach State. Who knows, The Sing Oil Blog may have to transition to The Sing Electric Blog before long!
That's it for today's coverage, but make sure to check back in a couple of weeks to see what new adventures I've gotten myself into.
Until then,
- The Sing Oil Blogger
LOL, I can't say anybody's ever told me to hold on while texting so they could take pictures of a Harveys, but if they did, I would definitely understand!
ReplyDeleteThis does seem to be a pretty nice store, though, and I do really like the decor. I definitely agree that it's better than the Yellow Down Down. Even the green Bi-Lo version would've been better (and also probably made more sense, considering the Harveys logo is more green than yellow). For some reason, I really like the flooring specifically.
Thnk you for this tour!
I can't say I've ever used that line with anybody else either!
DeleteIt is hard for something to be worse than Yellow Down Down, but it is especially shocking that SEG chose to remove this décor from stores in order to "upgrade" to the aforementioned atrocity! For what it is, I like the look of this store too and wish that SEG had not seemingly lost its way with the Harveys chain. Also, Green Down Down is by far my favorite variant of the package, and of course it is the one that has to be extinct now; at least I got to document it before it disappeared!
As always, you're welcome!
It's a shame this decor had to be replaced by Yellow Down Down, especially if SEG was using a version of it in stores prior to the rollout of that decor. I have a feeling BI-LO Holdings/SEG really didn't want to buy Harvey's from Delhaize initially - I think they only wanted the Sweetbay stores, but Delhaize cooked up some kind of a deal with SEG to get rid of Harvey's too as a condition of buying the Sweetbay stores. It seems like SEG never really knew what to do with Harvey's, hence the weird "discount rebranding" and selling off a decent chunk of the remaining Harvey's stores back to Delhaize/Food Lion. From the looks of it, this store (and presumably the other 24 Harvey's stores left), are a running as a Winn-Dixie in all but name.
ReplyDeleteProbably comprising some of SEG's weaker stores (especially the converted WDs in the Florida Panhandle), the remaining Harvey's stores are probably some of the better candidates for being converted to Aldi, as I've heard in the rumor mills that Aldi will be targeting SEG's weaker stores for conversion. The employees at the Winn-Dixie I frequent the most are adamant that the store will be remaining a Winn-Dixie for the foreseeable future, so we'll have to see what happens there. I feel the Winn-Dixie Liquor stores have a decent shot at remining following the sale. Aldi already sells wine and beer, so selling the hard stuff isn't too much of a stretch (unlike dealing with pharmacies, which Aldi has never done, and involves trying to acquire special licenses and hire trained pharmacy staff). At least in Florida, the retail liquor licenses are the same regardless of if you sell the hard stuff or not, it's just our weird "liquor wall" law that makes things look more difficult with that than it really is.
The rollout of the Know & Love brand is a bit strange, especially with wood chips being the only product to appear under the new name so far, and other SE Grocers packaging getting redesigned at the same time. The rollout of Know & Love is being downplayed more than I would have been expected, but I guess it's kind of hard to get people super excited about wood chips!
It really is a shame! I'd be curious to see if SEG's version of the package differed much from Delhaize's version, but unfortunately, not many pictures exist online. That is an interesting theory about BI-LO primarily being interested in the Sweetbay stores because, after all, many Harveys stores were still outdated and in very small markets. Ahold-Delhaize was likely looking for any way to raise cash following all of the issues it had in 2012 and was happy to find a way to offload the Harveys stores. The piece that is interesting, though, is how the Harveys name is the only one to have survived that deal since Reid's and Sweetbay were both killed off. Yes, I think all of the Harveys stores are now essentially Winn-Dixies in all but name, and they also seem to follow the strategy where the stores mostly seem to be in places that lack competition from other full-line grocery players.
DeleteWhile some of the remaining Georgia stores may do alright since they are in towns that would otherwise be a Walmart food desert, I'd agree that the converted WDs were likely weak to start with and the Harveys name probably didn't help much. At least that makes economical sense to convert the lower-performing stores into Aldis and see how things pan out. I'm still very curious to see what we all think of this experiment five years from now . . .
Ha, a decent shot!! I didn't realize that the same liquor license in Florida is required whether you are just selling beer and wine or if you also sell spirits—that's interesting. Georgia most definitely has different tiers of licenses since one owner can only run a maximum of two liquor stores in the state. That's a good point about liquor stores not requiring many more resources, and I'll be especially curious to see if Aldi keeps the liquor stores open that are adjacent to any potential conversions.
Part of me thinks that the Know & Love rollout was formulated adjacent to the Aldi deal, but the other part of me thinks that the news botched all of the plans and SEG has essentially given up on the effort. The current packaging on the wood chips will still need to be changed once the Aldi deal goes through since it says "distributed by Southeastern Grocers", so I wonder if SEG is just kicking the can down the road on the whole thing. Regardless, wood chips are still a bizarre first step.
I was going to file this Harveys under the 'I Can't Believe It Isn't a Food Lion!' folder, but it turns out that this was a Food Lion! Not just any Food Lion, but one from the era when they were building stores in Houston! No wonder it looks so familiar on the outside. Granted, I don't think we had shopping center Food Lions like this. The inside of the store has a layout that is completely Food Lion-like, but a look that is not Food Lion-like at all!
ReplyDeleteOf course, I say that on the basis of what I'm used to with our Houston Food Lions and Food Lion Food Towns (and other Food Lion re-uses). I've seen modern Food Lions in similar type buildings and I must say that I'm quite impressed with what Ahold-Delhaize has done with these stores. Whether we're talking about this Harveys or newer Food Lion decor packages, Ahold has found a way to make these discount grocery stores look very upscale!
I don't know if Northwest Retail would agree with me (and asking him if he's awake would make sense given the time zone difference!), but this decor package reminds me a lot of Safeway's Proto-Lifestyle decor package which still exists in a few Portland, OR Safeways. We had it in Houston at Randall's, but all the Randall's which had that decor package have been remodeled or have closed long ago. Here's a currently existing Proto-Lifestyle Safeway: https://maps.app.goo.gl/sf7kCC8toqjBsRN79
As for the front-lit signs at old Food Lions, Food Town has kept this tradition going as well. Here's an example of it. Go back in time a few years and I'm sure you'll agree that Food Town's new paint-on signage on the outside is a lot nicer than what they had before! I'm specifically picking this view so you can see one of our Circle Ks, lol: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZfijexBD6ot7Chqo8
You mentioned the iceolated location of frozen foods relative to ice cream. I thought to myself that "Gee, don't we have something like that here?"
Of course, we do, but I realized I was thinking of our Food Lion Food Towns. Oops, oh well, lol.
I am satisfied that you took a picture of the price of bananas at this Harveys, but I'm not satisfied with the pricing! Bananas here are 49 cents/lb.! Of course, that overpricing is nothing compared to the Kraft salad dressing, that same thing is $3.49 regular price at a Houston Kroger and is a dollar more on sale at Harveys! SEG's pricing is atrocious!
Oddly enough, I've never seen a gas station here with an EV charger if you don't count retailers which have both a gas station and EV chargers like Walmart. You might think that is logical in the oil & gas capital of the US, but actually EVs are pretty popular here.
You can't believe it isn't a Food Lion because it is! I hope it didn't take you very long to figure out this was a former Food Lion because I didn't particularly try to hide that! I'm basically in the same boat as you with regards to Food Lion layouts I can easily identify: this one (that seems to be used in every early-1990's Food Lion store across the Southeast), and the Rutehrfordton-era stores that started popping up across the region in the late-00's. It is always strange to see this layout in an "alternate reality" like this Harveys has. I have another former Food Lion in my archives which will continue to prove that concept as well.
DeleteI'll agree with you to some extent, but I feel like Ahold-Delhaize really cheapened out with its "Easy Fresh Affordable 3.0" package like we saw in the Thomasville store. I wish the company had kept up the momentum it had in the late-00's, because Rutherfordton is on the list as one of my favorite packages out there.
I'd be interested to see what Northwest Retail thinks about this design. I can see the similarities in the major department signs, but the overall design of the Safeway package reminds me much more of Kroger's Flagship Script. At least that Oregon store still has some nice floors as well!
That is nice how Food Town has kept the front-lit sign tradition alive, and there is no question that the current signage looks much better than what was there previously! I also have to admit that I would be totally fine if I never saw another Circle K considering how everywhere seems to be crawling with them now!
Yep! The Frozen Foods iceolation is a 1990's Food Lion staple! I also appreciate how so many of y'all picked up on the pun rather than thinking I just can't spell!
I've discussed this in the past with others, but SEG's pricing does seem like highway robbery. I know I've found several cases where the "sale" price is 50¢ to $1 more than Publix! I'm sure you can win some of that money back if you play the rewards game, but it is hard to not get sticker shock just walking in the store for me. It probably doesn't help that all of SEG's distribution is run by a third party.
I see a fair number of EVs in Georgia as well, but most of the chargers I had seen previously are located at large shopping centers / malls / Walmarts, etc.
Well, I can't say I was expecting my private text messages to end up in the post... for full disclosure to those invested in this riveting saga, your exact words were "I'll probably want to try and sleep in," so I did not reach out until after I saw you commented, lol.
ReplyDeleteIt's great to see this décor package in full! I agree, from what I've seen in images this would have to be my favorite Harveys look. So much better than what SEG did to them.
I can't believe you made me read the word "iceolated." To your questions about the ice cream department being separate from the rest of frozen, though, I feel like I've seen that before in other stores. Kroger's greenhouses typically had frozen in the middle but "Dairy & Ice Cream" on the far wall. Maybe it was just more common back then to have ice cream with dairy as opposed to the rest of frozen. The Horn Lake neon store had them together, but still with a separate sign for ice cream. And I've also seen later stores where the signage for frozen is along the perimeter wall but frozen is actually only on the inner portion of the aisle, with continued dairy on the outer (perimeter) edge, so that sort of setup with the signage on the wall not exactly matching the product underneath is not totally unusual to me, either.
I knew the song link would be to Second Chance! I love Shinedown. They are very good live.
Ah, yes, you're correct, Kroger did (and does at some remaining Greenhouse stores) have their ice cream iceolated on the side of the store when frozen food was in the middle. Milk was on the back wall on the side of the store towards ice cream so I suppose you could count that as a continuous area.
DeleteI should have remembered this given that we have a Greenhouse store in this area which still has that setup! I should have remembered going to Kroger back in the 1980s for Texas Gold ice cream (Kroger's house brand for ice cream at least here, I don't know if Texas Gold was sold elsewhere), but admittedly, it seems like we usually bought ice cream from Randall's or Safeway and they had their ice cream in the frozen food coffin coolers.
I'm not sure now what Kroger did with the extra coffin cooler space they had in frozen foods given that they didn't have ice cream there. It would be interesting to know if Kroger had more stuff there or if they just had a smaller coffin cooler setup relative to competing grocers. It is hard to remember now and unlike The Beef People, coffin coolers are long-gone at Kroger stores here!
@Retail Retell: Ha, I guess I just have to spice things up with a surprise every now and then! In my old age, sleeping in now means waking up at 9 AM rather than 8 AM, lol!
DeleteI'm glad you enjoyed the tour! I suppose it isn't too late for you to come on over to Middle Georgia or North Florida to see the package for yourself, but I think pictures do it decent justice . . . it's also not hard to beat out the Harveys Grid design or especially Yellow Down Down. I would really love to meet somebody who likes Yellow Down Down.
I have to admit that as I write a post, I know it probably won't turn out very good if I don't crack myself up with one of my puns—I honestly can't believe I thought up "iceolated" either! That's a good point about the Kroger greenhouse stores; my recollection of that design is a bit distorted since the one I've seen the most was rearranged at some point in its life. Maybe the "healthy" frozen foods being separate from the "treats" was just a trend that died off. Publix always seems to have placed ice cream near the rest of the frozen foods, but the dropped ceiling stores from the 1980's and early-1990's placed ice cream in freezers surrounding the bakery alcove whereas the rest of the frozen items were on the adjacent grocery aisles. Ice cream still never seemed to receive a proper department sign, though.
I hate to admit that I had to scroll through Shinedown's discography for a minute to come up with the pun I ended up using. I had no idea that they sang "Second Chance", but immediately recognized the song once it started playing (oh the memories it brought back). Maybe I can see them live at some point!
@Anonymous in Houston: While the greenhouse that comes to mind for me may have been altered, I can still picture how it used to have this setup. At least it makes a little since that all of the dairy items are grouped together.
DeleteIt's also crazy how the coffin coolers even manage to survive Winn-Dixie's relatively thorough Winn-Win remodels! It's hard to picture a WD without that feature!
Nice post! I don't look over at MFR often enough. These Harvey's stores really are just in name only. I second what AFB says about it being sad that this nice decor package was replaced with the blinding yellow!
ReplyDeleteI predict this location will become an Aldi, or may be sold to another operator (C&S Wholesale Grocers, haha!). I think if that awful merger goes through C&S will be utterly overwhelmed and end up selling most of the Albertsons Co's. stores they would acquire.
Back to this post though, I was also going to say that I actually think these ex-Food Lion stores are the perfect size and I like the decor seen in this store prior to its remodel.
I did not realize Gray, GA had such interesting sites! These off the beaten path towns seem to be that way.
Well then, welcome back and thanks for reading the post! And just because I post stuff about gas stations on my main blog, don't forget that I typically have similar content to this for the second half of my posts (just add "#MTC" to the end of any of my URLs for that portion of the entry). I honestly do wonder why SEG has bothered to keep the Harveys name alive while only operating 25 stores. At least it made a bit more sense a decade ago when the brand was much stronger. I also couldn't agree with y'all more!
DeleteI feel like some of the Harveys stores in towns like Eastman, Cordele, Douglas, and Havana could stick around or be converted to Winn-Dixie since Harveys presumably holds a sizeable majority in grocery market share (because the only other option is Walmart, until Publix moves in), but I could see Aldi converting stores like Gray to the discount format since a different full-line grocer is already present nearby. Fun fact: I believe the Ingles that is across the street from this Harveys is the second southernmost location for the chain, behind Thomaston. I was honestly surprised that Ingles even made it to Gray, but then again, I was also surprised by how far east BI-LO made it before the chain went under.
I hope C&S can manage all of the stores it is about to acquire from Albertsons, but it looks like the next 12 months will be very interesting for the grocery industry.
Now that you mention it, these old Food Lion stores do seem to strike the right balance of size versus selection for smaller towns. If only the chain had not gone through the Primetime Live scandal, they might've had a good thing going. As for what you mean by "prior to its remodel", do you mean the "Futuristic" interior that this store would have opened with or the "Southern Farmstand" Harveys décor? If you are talking about the latter, I photographed this store back in September and I'm pretty sure SEG has no plans of starting another remodel this late in the game . . . The Havana store still has this interior as well as far as I know.
Rural small towns are great! I have a trip planned in the coming weeks to another off the beaten path town, so we'll see how fruitful that adventure is.