Food Lion #2829 / Former Super BI-LO #5704
Verdae Village
Greenville, SC 29607
While it is not unusual to read about a former Floridian Food Lion on this blog, today we are going to change it up and look at a current Food Lion with a twist of Floridian lime. While I was visiting South Carolina a few months back, I was interested to see what sort of unusual (for me) retail finds I could experience. I then recalled how Southeastern Grocers had recently divested of BI-LO to Food Lion and was curious to see if I could find any soon-to-be extinct interiors. I managed to come across a few but settled on this particular store because of its relations back to Florida: it featured the green version of Down Down. Many of you have {red} about the infamous package, which actually originated from the Land Down Down Under (more pictures); however, you may not have realized that the red edition of the package had green and yellow siblings. The red package was reserved for Winn-Dixie stores, while green was used in BI-LO, and yellow was used in Harvey's & Fresco y Más locations. AFB toured a Harvey's a while back which featured the hideous yellow version, but today we will get to see my definite favorite amongst the three siblings: Green Down Down.
I personally think it is sad how the best of the three packages will likely be the first to go extinct. The fact that Winn-Dixie hasn't begun to remodel any of its stores featuring the red package, SEG has seemingly forgotten about the few remaining Harvey's stores, and all of the BI-LO stores were sold off means that Food Lion will likely eradicate the package in the near future. I have already seen where the chain has begun to remodel many of the new acquisitions to a blue and white interior, so I wouldn't be surprised if they continue this trend.
In my opinion, Food Lion's blue and white "Easy Fresh & Affordable 3.0" package is far better than some it has replaces (ehm, Yellow Down Down), but far inferior to others, such as Rutherfordton. At some point, I'll share a tour I had of a Harvey's-turned-EFA 3.0 Food Lion, but in the meantime, let's take a look at Green Down Down!
Some History
I typically don't perform extensive research for my MFR posts, contrary to posts on my main blog (take a look at my recent post on Former Publix #476 for an example); however, I decided to learn a bit more about this location since I'm not as familiar with the BI-LO brand.
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| Courtesy Newspapers.com (Page 2) - The Greenville News - June 21, 2007 |
It looks like this store opened on June 20, 2007, to all sorts of fanfare and in the midst of all sorts of change for the company. After reading through several articles discussing the new store and concept, it seems that the chain was looking for a potential buyer at the time. Looking back, this decision was seemingly part of a larger downward death spiral, involving everybody from Bruno's, to Delhaize, to C&S Wholesale Grocers, and ultimately, Southeastern Grocers. Just reading the Wikipedia page makes my head spin with all of the corporate drama! In the end, it looks like the new concept wasn't a clear winner for the Mauldin, SC grocer.
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| Courtesy Newspapers.com - The Greenville News - June 17, 2007 |
The "super" moniker for this store signified the expanded offerings of the location, including: a coffee shop, a Wi-Fi café, a medical clinic, and an expanded product selection. This particular store is approximately 57,000 sq. ft., making it roughly 10,000 sq. ft. larger than BI-LO's standard stores from the era. The new concept made its debut in Columbia, SC in 2005, but this location was the first of its kind in Upstate South Carolina. The new store also brought a $17 million dollar investment to the former Verdae Marketfair shopping center, which originally hosted Stein Mart, Service Merchandise, Marshall's, Office Depot, and Michael's as tenants. Update (June 10, 2022) - thanks to a comment I received below from "P", here is some additional information on what happened to the other stores in this center:
"Verdae MarketFair lost pretty much every major big box besides Stein Mart and Office Depot by the 2000s.
Marshalls moved out in 2005, taking a spot at a new lifestyle center elsewhere in town. Their space is now K&G Fashion Superstore.
Michaels left by 2000, taking over a former Circuit City nearby. Their space was later home to a factory outlet of some kind before becoming a Planet Fitness.
Service Merchandise made it until 2002, and sat vacant until 2006, when it was torn down for the Super BI-LO. BI-LO closed their location in a former Harris Teeter around 10 minutes away to build the new one, though this was not BI-LO's first time in the general area.
Stein Mart closed with the chain in 2020, and became an Overstock Furniture.
The only other tenant I've identified thus far is Old Country Buffet, which became a used book store."
It is always nice to receive more information on stores from people familiar with the area!
The Store
I managed to take this picture as I was leaving the shopping center, and
only realized there was still a sign for Stein Mart as I was writing up
this post (Stein Mart had been gone for at least a year by the time I
took these photos). I wish I had paid more attention to the vacant
space to see if the building signage was still up!
This was the first BI-LO visit of any kind for me, so I didn't exactly know what to expect. The façade of the building seems to be original to BI-LO because I know they liked to use an arched front like this. We also see some green paint reminiscent of this edifice's past. Interestingly, SEG used this same shade of green for both Harvey's and BI-LO (unfortunately I only took one picture in front of the store, so you can scroll up a bit to see what I'm talking about).
I guess I am used to Publix's normal assortment of indoor plants, but
this store seemed to carry a nice variety of outdoor plants as well. What an appealing way to greet customers! It matches the green decor scheme, too!
Taking a look at the door to the left of the flowers, I don't notice any obvious remnants from BI-LO.
But inside I do! I'd imagine that the green and cream tiles predate SEG's acquisition of the chain, but the wood paneling and black tile in the BAKERY are all courtesy of the Jacksonville, FL company. The wood also tells us that this was a later installation of Down Down.
Although I didn't photograph it, I believe the section to my right could have been home to BI-LO's café space. It seems like somebody was standing over there when I walked by, but I didn't think a few refrigeration cases of pre-packaged sandwich products were that interesting.
When you walk in the store, you are immediately greeted by a few dump bins of sale product, followed by the FRUIT & VEGETABLES department, BAKERY, DELI, and SEAFOOD rounding out the grand aisle, which runs along the right wall of the store.
Since I managed to only take one picture of the FRUIT & VEGETABLES department, I decided to at least throw in a more zoomed-in perspective too!
We'll first take a look at the BAKERY, which seems to look pretty upscale in comparison to ones I've seen in cheap Marketplace to Down Down remodels. Maybe it is the faux wood flooring!
Taking a look back toward the door we passed through, we see the
CUSTOMER SERVICE counter and Down Down's outrageously large font. I do
wonder if Food Lion had already painted part of this wall white or if
SEG was too cheap and didn't want to buy any more green paint. I vote for the latter option.
Just past the BAKERY is the KITCHEN, or hot food, section of the DELI. Each of the stations along this side of the store featured a curved soffit extending toward the sales floor.
Likewise, the service meats section of the DELI was to the left of the KITCHEN, in the back right corner of the store.
I'd like to note how the same black tile backsplash seems to be used in the red version of Down Down.
Finally, the SEAFOOD counter is located on the wall opposite the front door, at the other end of the grand aisle.
We'll take one last look down the grand aisle and see how the green checkered floor meanders its way through this side of the store.
I'm disappointed that I didn't take more pictures of the FRUIT & VEGETABLES department in this store, but I guess I was more distracted by the grand aisle's service departments!
Here we see the rear actionway of the store, which features the MEAT and BUTCHER departments. Oddly enough, this store seems to have a very similar layout to a number of Publixes out there. We can also see how the wood paneling continues throughout this store's service departments.
I'm not sure if Food Lion typically staffs a BUTCHER station, because nobody seemed to be back there on this day; furthermore, most of the meats were in the cooler along the wall next to the BUTCHER window, not in front of it. The signage was obviously a holdout from "The Beef People"; likewise, Food Lion probably wants people to forget they even sell beef! Similar to Winn-Dixie's often convenient placement of champagne and orange juice, I feel like it would have been nice had the mustard and BBQ sauce shelf instead displayed bleach.
Although it may not have been located next to the meat counter, the cleaning supplies aisle was located across the actionway. It must've either looked picturesque to me, or there may have just not been any people on it to get in my way!
Popping out of one of the aisles, we see some hot dogs and Lunchables down down below the sign for BACON. Very appropriate, if you ask me.
Just for reference, this BACON sign was partially obscured by the soffit for the BUTCHER sign we saw above.
Wow, I'm also surprised at how few pictures I took of the grocery aisles! At least I had time to snap a photo by the time I made it to aisle 11! This double-wide aisle is where customers can get their alcohol fix for the week, because it is home to wine and refrigerated beer (which is mostly obscured by the massive Bud Light shrine in front of me).
MILK & DIARY round out the back left corner of the store; although, Food Lion seems to have discovered a process of creating orange juice from cheese!
Aisle 12 looks to be where the flooring conditions took a down down turn, as it looks like this section of the store experienced water damage at some point. I do applaud BI-LO's creativity with their flooring materials though.
Regardless, we see that a variety of frozen foods can be found on this aisle.
On the other side of frozen foods (aisle 13) is where the remaining dairy products are found. I assume this aisle was busy during my visit because I'll typically photograph it.
Rounding
out the front left corner is BEAUTY, which looks like it is where the
pharmacy and health clinic used to be. We can also see a hanging BEAUTY sign which is
another relic from SEG. I guess Food Lion thinks basketball players could use more beauty (and chips) in their lives.
We'll take one last look at the old pharmacy section before we move on. SEG seemed to close a number of their in-store pharmacies between 2016 and 2018, so I'd imagine this location closed sometime around then.
Ahh, I finally took a picture of some more grocery aisles! Here we
can see how the wine aisle also received some laminate wood flooring,
and how the dropped ceiling ends and warehouse ceiling begins over the
grocery aisles. We also see some of the aisle signs which were added by
Food Lion; the SEG original ones which matched this package would have looked like this.
Taking a look at the register lines, I believe those lights are original to BI-LO as well (judging by the fact that they are green). At least Food Lion went through the effort to print out a card to paste over BI-LO's logo on the wall!
As we leave the store, we'll pass by a few rows of extra Food Lion buggies in the exit vestibule of the store. Anyway, that was our tour of one of the many stores Food Lion acquired from SEG last year. I hope y'all enjoyed it!
In all seriousness, I'd imagine this store will look much more cohesive once Food Lion remodels it to their "Easy Fresh & Affordable 3.0" package. It will be interesting to see how extensive the remodel is, because I have seen a number of other stores only receive new paint and signage. At least all of the departments will soon be aligned once again!
As usual, I'm planning to release another full-featured post over on The Sing Oil Blog this Saturday, so be sure to check it out!
Until next time,
- The Sing Oil Blogger
