Publix #341
10301 Royal Palm Boulevard, Coral Springs, FL - The Plaza at Royal Palm
In addition to today's AFB coverage of former Albertsons #4332 (now home to Publix #1311), we'll take this quick look at Publix's original home approximately a mile to the west of the current Publixsons. Before it gets thrown into my infinite abyss of a backlog, I figured the best time to write about the original Publix would be now, while we have the current store fresh on our minds. That being said, let's see what the original store is all about:
Publix #341 opened on February 25, 1988 as the anchor to The Plaza at Royal Palm, a shopping center built at the northeastern corner of Royal Palm Boulevard and Coral Springs Drive. Unlike the much busier location of the current Publix store on the main retail strip, The Plaza at Royal Palm was built in a quieter, mostly residential area. By the time the Albertsons became available down the road, Publix was probably drawn to the building's larger size and more prominent location, especially with this store hitting the 20-year-old mark at the time. Publix left The Plaza at Royal Palm in mid-2009, leaving this building vacant.
By the mid-2010's, the old Publix had been subdivided between a Bravo Supermarket and Monkey Joe's indoor inflatable playground. That's how it remains today - well, kind of, as the current ownership of the Bravo store is a bit murky (which I'll explain in a little bit).
Bravo took up shop in the right half of the former Publix building, with Monkey Joe's taking the left side. Here we're looking at Publix's original right side entrance, which still uses the original doors from Publix. Bravo also carved out a secondary entrance further down along the front of the building.
Unfortunately, Bravo gutted the entire interior of the former Publix, so everything we see here was installed new by Bravo. The only Publix remnant left in here are the floors, as Bravo retained and left exposed Publix's old terrazzo. It also appears that Bravo retained (but modified) a portion of Publix's upper level offices above the front end, a common feature in these late 1980's built Publix stores.
Bravo carved their produce department out of the front right corner of the building, creating an alcove in the area that once housed Publix's "all purpose nook" (as the Sing Oil Blogger calls it). Bravo's stores are all owned independently, so the decor and quality of their stores can vary widely from location to location (as I've been in some very nice Bravo stores, yet I've also been in some really dumpy ones - this particular location was on the better end of the spectrum though). The decor in here is a package that Bravo must have created, although it's one I've never seen before (as Bravo has some standardized decor packages, but some owners will also do their own thing).
From produce, we're looking down the right side of the building toward the seafood and meat counters. When Publix was here, this would have been home to the dairy wall.
The meat and seafood counters come into view here, occupying the back right corner of the building.
The meat coolers occupy the area where Publix's deli counter would have been located, although all traces of that have been removed. Some of the decor signs remind me a lot of Winn-Dixie's Post-Bankruptcy decor, although none of these signs were recycled from an old Winn-Dixie (although some Bravo stores do use recycled decor, but not this one).
Spinning around 180 degrees, here's the remainder of Bravo's back wall, which ends approximately where Publix's own meat department would have begun.
So one thing that was confusing me about this store (and still confuses me to this day) is that when I visited here, the sign on the outside of the building read "Key Foods". Key Foods is a New York-based supermarket cooperative (similar to Bravo), who recently entered Florida by getting existing Bravo owners to switch over to their brand. I thought this store was one that converted, but besides the exterior sign, everything else in the store still read Bravo. This location still comes up on Bravo's store locator too, but I still get results that Key Foods is here also (but Key Foods doesn't have much of a website, so I can confirm anything there either). What I'm trying to say is I have no idea what this store is currently branded as, but I'm just going to refer to it as Bravo since that's what the majority of the signs in the store still reference.
Looking across the front end, we can see the windows for the upstairs offices much better here. Straight ahead is the "Deli Bakery", which we'll see a better shot of in a moment.
While Bravo is officially a Hispanic-oriented supermarket (and carries a lot of specialty items to cater to that market), they still carry a decent amount of regular groceries as well. This aisle contained a lot of standard grocery products, like Ocean Spray juice and Cheerios.
The wall straight ahead is the partition between Bravo and Monkey Joe's, with Monkey Joe's occupying the half of the building where Publix's service seafood counter, produce department, bakery, and frozen foods were located.
Moving along to aisle 5, we find more of the specialty Hispanic products that Bravo is known for.
The store's second to last aisle (which was unnumbered) was home to frozen foods.
The very last aisle (which was shoved into an alcove in the back left corner due to the placement of the bakery/deli counter) was home to dairy. I've seen something similar to this in a few Albertsons stores before, but it always seems odd seeing dairy in a double-sided aisle of its own, rather than wrapping around the perimeter walls.
While there was a small bakery and deli counter over here, like most Hispanic-oriented grocery stores in Florida, the bakery/deli skewed more toward being a lunch counter with prepared Hispanic foods you could order. I was actually here during breakfast time, and the breakfast offerings here were quite popular, as this was the only part of the store with any customers so early in the morning (and with a line too!).
I also feel that 'deli bakery' sign has the strongest Winn-Dixie Post-Bankruptcy vibe to it as well.
Our last interior photo looks across Bravo's front end, back toward the produce department. Lots of old Publix terrazzo visible here again, and in pretty decent shape too considering how chopped up this building became after Publix left.
Back outside, here's a look across the front of the old Publix building, looking from Bravo toward Monkey Joe's. The windows to my right were the original Publix entry vestibule windows, out of which Bravo carved that secondary door (located straight ahead near that garbage can).
Like Bravo, the Monkey Joe's side of the building was gutted to the bare walls too. Monkey Joe's also moved their main entrance to the front of the building as well, sealing off Publix's original left side entrance with some windows.
And there you have it, former Publix #341! The exterior of this building is still very well preserved from Publix, to the point where I can picture Publix's logo up there were Monkey Joe's and Bravo's are now.
Anyway, I hope everyone liked this little bonus to today's AFB post, getting to explore Publix's origins in this part of town. I don't know when (or what) my next MFR installment will entail, but be sure to keep an eye out for anything new from myself or the other contributors in the meantime, and I still have my regularly scheduled posts over on AFB as well for your bi-weekly entertainment.
So until the next post,
AFB
