Please Remove Your Motels and Lock Your Restaurants - Former Howard Johnsons - Titusville, FL

Brevard County is a sad place if you're looking for Howard Johnsons remnants. Melbourne is, while technically still standing, lacking a gate lodge or restaurant, and also a site with a ...disturbing (warning: rather involved discussion of murder) history. Cocoa Beach lost it's interesting sections many years ago, and while the "Plaza Hotel" section remains as a Double Tree, it's a later built high-rise with none of the charm. Cocoa had very well kept specimen, operating as a sketchy motel, until it's demolition was ordered and it was reduced to rubble in 2005. That leaves only one location on our roster...

Titusville. Ah, Titusville. The "Miracle City" gone bust. Titusville's Howard Johnson's initially seems a gold mine, if you read the Under The Orange Roof article on it. A beautiful, orange-roofed gate lodge. An amazingly preserved exterior.

So of course, they knocked it down in 2014, with nebulous plans for it to become condominiums.

RIP AND TEAR! - Photo courtesy Florida Today

However, one thing remains from Howard Johnson's once vast presence on the Space Coast, and that is the restaurant of the now gone Titusville Howard Johnson's.

Okay, well, the sign isn't very interesting. And I doubt it has any origins in the HoJo days. But, I don't have a good overview shot of the building itself, so we'll start here.

The building, despite a revolving door of tenants (like many former HoJo restaurants) retains many hallmarks of it's original tenant. There's no more weather vane, but we still have the slotted piece on the roof. I also really like the large glass panel windows towards the entrance.

A nice close-up of the glass windows.

The entrance is seperated from the glass windows by some small walls; I'm unsure if the big board was once a window, but it'd fit. The "Q" is for "Quam's Kitchen", the most recent tenant here, which closed in August 2018, claiming they had been released from the lease due to repairs needed to the building.

Quam's converted some of the excess exterior space to an outdoor seating area, with a lot of big wooden fencing. Not sure how long that wheelbarrow had been there, or whether or not it was part of the landscaping.

I believe this boxy bit at the back here is just the dining room, but it seems awkwardly built. I don't believe it's an addition though, as it matches the rest of the building.

Looking out towards the Indian River, this is where we would have once seen the motel building in all it's glory. Now, it's just an empty lot, behind chain link. The news article from 2014 said that the owner had been given "a few years" to do something with the property. So far? Nothing. Not that we need more condominiums.

I only managed to pictures of the interior, however I don't think I missed much. The interior appears to be from Quam's or previous independents- none of it' exactly screams HoJo's. I do enjoy the little bird on the chalkboard back there.

The carpet's pretty funky, as is the lampshade, so maybe they're original. But I'm still not too sure. As you can see, Quam's was well closed up by this point, with all the chairs stacked up and away and the interior increasingly stripped bare.

Here's a better shot of the former motel property. Not much to see, except the lone palm tree, and a small sign. Wonder what that says?

A battered, peeling wooden sign- that is almost certainly from the HoJo days! While moldy and losing letters, the message is clear.

Please Remove Your Motels And Lock Your Restaurants.

When Retail Comes Full Circle: An MFR Posting Series

     As you guys already know, Lucky's Market announced in late January 2020 that the company would be closing 32 of its 39 stores across the country, all part of an aftershock from Kroger pulling out on its investment in the company in December 2019. Of those 32 stores Lucky's earmarked for closure, 20 of the effected locations were in Florida (and that's not counting the cancellation of 14 other planned Floridian locations, most of which were in some phase of construction). In the wake of all this, Lucky's still wanted to cling onto one small piece of their once mighty climb to be Florida's largest organic grocery chain: a lone store in West Melbourne. While West Melbourne seems like one of the most random places Lucky's could have kept a lone Floridian outpost, I wasn't going to complain, as that "lucky" Lucky's happened to be my local store. This was always a busy location for Lucky's, and going here on a Saturday afternoon you'd be hard pressed to find a place to park. While West Melbourne may just be a lowly little town on Florida's Space Coast, an hour out from the next largest metropolitan area, the people in the area loved their Lucky's. While things looked a bit shaky in the days after Lucky's announced they would be closing most of their stores, West Melbourne was going to press on through it all. Even after a bankruptcy filing and wild rumors going around that the store was going to close anyway, it seemed like Lucky's was going to be here to stay. The longevity of the West Melbourne store began to shine brighter when Lucky's Market founders Bo and Trish Sharon agreed to buy the company out of bankruptcy, a buyout package that included the seven stores to remain open. Great news, right?! WRONG! Only one day after Bo and Trish agreed to keep seven Lucky's stores afloat, news broke that the cash-strapped, bankrupt company sold 5 more stores to Southeastern Grocers, parent company of Winn-Dixie. This sale came in the wake of Lucky's selling 11 stores to Aldi and Publix, as well as a location each to Seabra Foods and Hitchcock's Market. Included in the sale of stores to SEG was none other than the West Melbourne Lucky's, the lone Florida location that was to remain open. With news of the sale announced, Bo and Trish amended their purchase agreement for Lucky's remaining assets, which was to include only 6 stores now, none of which are in Florida. With the West Melbourne Lucky's now sold to SEG for conversion to a Winn-Dixie, Lucky's once triumphant climb in Florida has come to a sad and dismal end. However, the purpose of this post isn't to go into the details of Lucky's recent problems as a whole (that will come in my next AFB post), but to look into the sad and dismal, yet fascinating and ironic future for this location. Yes, it was sold to Winn-Dixie. Yes, Winn-Dixie doesn't open very many new stores these days. That alone is enough to make this store's future interesting. However, for what really makes this store interesting, we have to look at what was in this building prior to Lucky's arrival in 2017: it was none other than Winn-Dixie! Before I go any further with this, here's a brief recap:

Winn-Dixie #2268

3170 West New Haven Avenue, West Melbourne, FL - Plaza West

     Winn-Dixie originally opened its West Melbourne store in 1980, and as you can tell by the exterior of the place, they didn't do too much since then. Besides a remodel to the Purple/Maroon interior in the early 2000's, this place looked rather old and tired all the way to the very end. While old and dumpy, this store must have had a following, as Winn-Dixie was extremely unhappy when their landlord decided to not renew the store's lease in late 2015. Even though Winn-Dixie tried to negotiate a renewal, the landlord wouldn't budge - he already got Lucky's Market to sign on as the new tenant for the building. Essentially, Winn-Dixie got kicked out of their home of 35 years in West Melbourne, with the landlord signing on a tenant he felt would be better (and pay more rent than) Winn-Dixie. With all that happening, Winn-Dixie was forced to close this location, with Winn-Dixie's last day in operation occurring on November 24, 2015.

     When the news first broke of the Winn-Dixie's closure, I was right on the scene! (Quite literally, actually, as someone sent me an e-mail informing me of the news that very day. As soon as I saw the e-mail, out the door I was to investigate!). I covered this store's closure quite extensively, visiting the place at least twice during the liquidation (in addition to a previous visit prior to the liquidation beginning). If you want a refresher on the closing of this store, or you're new to MFR and have never seen these photos before, I still have the entire documentation of this store's closure on my old flickr page, viewable here). It's an interesting set, as this was a very dated Winn-Dixie store.

     After a complete gut-and-rebuild of the interior, Lucky's Market opened its West Melbourne location on January 11, 2017. The grand opening of this store attracted nearly 2,000 people, one of the largest turnouts for the opening of any store in Brevard County! Lucky's West Melbourne store was a hit from the start, and I couldn't even find a place to park here during this store's first two months in operation. It wasn't until late March 2017 that I made my first official visit to Lucky's, photos of which can be seen at the end of my Winn-Dixie closure album on flickr. While we've seen this store once before in full over on flickr, I'll be covering the closure of this store for you guys on MFR (in some way over a not-yet-determined span of time). In addition to today's post (which features some semi-normal operation photos of Lucky's), I'll try to get back here for photos once or twice before the end, and for sure after it reopens as a Winn-Dixie (as I'm sure you guys are very curious as to how that conversion will turn out). For now though, let's jump back to the present for a quick look around the West Melbourne Lucky's Market:

     Much like this store's first few months of operation, the first day of its closure sale (February 5, 2020) was also hectic. I almost didn't go in for photos because I couldn't find a place to park, even on a weekday afternoon! However, as I was about to give up, a parking space freed up, so I guess I "lucked" out! (Oh no, the reader of this post is thinking, the name of this store is going to give AFB too many ideas for cheesy puns...)

     Even with all the modifications Lucky's made, the shape of the building's exterior still looks very much like it did as a Winn-Dixie. On the inside though, Lucky's stripped out just about everything they could. That was a good move on their part, as the Winn-Dixie was really run-down.

     Like I said at the beginning of the post, this MFR series is only going to focus on the story of this particular Lucky's location and its conversion back to a Winn-Dixie. With that being said, I won't ramble on and on in this post about Kroger or Lucky's expansion efforts or anything like that. All that will be a story for another day.

     Anyway, stepping into the store, we find ourselves in the produce department. Depending on the weather, Lucky's main entrance usually consisted of two large garage doors that opened up into the produce department, creating a farmer's market like effect. When those doors aren't open, customers have to enter through the door by the cafe or through the side door located off to the side of the produce department. Featured predominantly over the produce department is Lucky's "Food Glorious Food" sign, promoting the company's focus on local and organic products.

     Produce is located in the front left corner of the building, where Winn-Dixie's deli and bakery counters once were. The produce department here is rather large, which is typical of a store like this. Even though this was only the first day of the closing sale, the produce department was looking a bit spotty in places, some displays (like the one immediately to my right) being completely empty. Besides a few other random parts in the store, it was still mostly stocked in here. However, that is going to change dramatically as every day goes by...

     Seen behind the display of pasta are the two garage doors that serve as the building's main entrance. Only one door was open during my visit, which was common for this store throughout its three year run.

     Between produce and the bulk foods was a ramen bar. The ramen bar was one of Lucky's newer features, added when "gourmet ramen" (could that be considered an oxymoron?) began to grow in popularity. When this store opened, it didn't have one of these, but instead a fresh-squeezed juice counter located here. About six months ago the juice counter was converted into this, with the fresh-squeezed juices being relocated to a cooler nearby. The ramen bar was really popular from what I'd seen during my shopping trips here. That being said, I never tried the "gourmet ramen" myself, as I find it a bit crazy to pay $9.99 for a single portion of ramen (compared to the 39 cents Target charges for a classic broke-college-student cup of the stuff). Maybe I'm really cheap, or maybe college students have much fancier taste than they used to have!

     Behind the pallets of Kroger brand water shoved off to the side of produce, we can see the mob of people waiting in line to checkout. Like I said, this place was nuts when I was here, and these lines formed with 7 of the store's 8 registers open! We'll see more of the crowd toward the end of this post too...

     Instead of me trying to push through that mob, let's cut through produce and head toward the still-chaotic-but-not-quite-as-bad grocery aisles in the back of the store...

     Frozen foods line the store's left side wall, with plenty of shoppers (or vultures, choose whatever term you want here 😁) skimming over the deals to be had in the coolers. Like the other 32 Lucky's stores closing right now, West Melbourne also began its liquidation sale with a flat 25% off discount throughout the store. That discount will eventually increase to 75% off as the sale nears the end. Besides two or three signs like the one seen at the very beginning of this post, those were all the closing signs Lucky's had here. No banners, no gaudy Kmart-esque red and yellow liquidations signs or any of that - just a few gentile reminders near the front of the store of the impending closure. Lucky's appears to be handling these closings internally, at least from what I can tell.

     The back left corner of the store is home to dairy, with the meat and seafood counter located under that white wall jutting out from the back.

     Like I said before, the selection was still decent here. The Orlando area Lucky's liquidations I went to (which were two days in at the time of my visits), looked mostly wiped out in the dry grocery aisles (even that soon after the closing process began).

     Aisle 1 is located in the middle of the store (a bit of an odd place to find an aisle 1). Aisle 1 is only a half aisle, consisting of the oils and condiments to my right. To my left were some meat coolers.

     After the dry grocery aisles, the center store becomes home to the wine department as well as bulk foods.

     Like most of these organic specialty stores, alcohol takes up a significant portion of the sales floor space. Wine took up two aisles in this part of the store, featuring some common brands of "the cheap stuff" (like the boxes of Franzia to my left), in addition to a variety of local wines and some other, fancier stuff. As part of Lucky's goal to make organic foods more accessible to the masses and less snooty feeling, one thing they did was carry some popular major brands in addition to all the organics (hence the boxes of Franzia here - I'm pretty sure Whole Foods doesn't sell that stuff!). It was one of Lucky's ways to broaden their appeal to people who would never consider shopping at a place that was strictly organic-focused, letting shoppers know that some of their favorite brands could still be found here too.

     The service meat and seafood counter is located along the back wall, where customers were stockpiling 2-year supplies of Lucky's famous smoked bacon strips. OK, I don't think that lady purchasing meat was bringing home that much bacon (or any bacon at all), but Lucky's bacon was really popular. It was one of their signature items, to the point that when Lucky's opened a new store, they'd have a bacon-cutting ceremony instead of a ribbon cutting! I've had Lucky's bacon twice - once on a sandwich, and once as a pizza topping. It was tasty, but unfortunately, I'm not much of a bacon eater (gasp!), so I can't say much more than that on how it compares to other bacon in this world.

     While Lucky's had a streamlined layout for their stores (for the most part, as some older, pre-Kroger locations had a few quirks), West Melbourne followed the typical layout almost exactly. The one exception to the layout was this alcove in the back right corner, home to the store's beer department. Typically, Lucky's groups the beer with the wine on the main sales floor, but for some reason West Melbourne got this.

     Turning around from the beer alcove, we find Lucky's deli counter, referred to as "The Kitchen" (the same title Winn-Dixie gives to this department these days - how appropriate!) In the kitchen you could find the deli counter and the prepared foods items, as well as a small bakery department. In this photo the deli counter is located immediately to my left, with the prepared foods located further up the counter.

     The kitchen is the department I will miss the most about Lucky's. From Lucky's kitchen came some of the best pizza I've ever had, and have had many times over these last three years. There's something about the sauce and cheese blend Lucky's used that was absolute perfection, and I'm really going to miss it. I should probably stop writing about Lucky's pizza now before I begin to have a craving for it, however, I think it's a bit too late on that end...

     Pizza cravings aside, I'll have to suppress that as we turn our attention to the hot food bars in front of The Kitchen. These hot food bars were another recent addition to the store from the last year or so, complimenting the already existing salad bar. Every day the hot bars had a different theme (such as Asian, Italian, comfort foods, etc.), and it always looked pretty good.

     Leaving The Kitchen, the next department we find is the "Apothecary", which is just a fancy name for a place that sells pharmaceuticals. Lots of vitamins, natural remedies, soaps, and smelly things in here.

     Here's a quick look across the width of the store, as seen from the kitchen. After Lucky's took over this building from Winn-Dixie, they cut off the rightmost 5,000 square feet of the space. Essentially, Lucky's is only using 80% of the space Winn-Dixie once occupied. It's going to take some remodeling to get this place to be in-line with what a normal Winn-Dixie would offer, so it's going to be interesting to see just how much effort Winn-Dixie puts into these conversions. I wonder if Winn-Dixie will recapture that 5,000 square feet they originally had, or leave the place as is. I'm leaning more toward leaving the place as-is, as Winn-Dixie is essentially inheriting a free gut-and-rebuild remodel of their old store from Lucky's. I don't know how much more money Winn-Dixie is willing to put into this place outside of some minor modifications (and, of course, the cost of a few hundred gallons of red paint 😁). That's what will make the new Winn-Dixie so interesting, seeing what Winn-Dixie does and doesn't do with this place upon reopening.

     The last grocery department we've yet to see in this return visit to the West Melbourne Lucky's is the bulk department. Since the bulk department is located behind the check lanes, this department was serving as overflow standing room for the long lines that were building at the registers. All the people you see here weren't perusing the bins of granola and gummy worms, they were waiting in line!

     The long lines are more apparent in this photo, showing all the people stocking up on the deals throughout the store.

     Before heading out, we have to read the (really big) fine print, as well as take a quick look at the cafe:

     There were a lot of people hanging out at the Lucky's cafe on the afternoon of my visit, enjoying a final cup of coffee or a final slice of the best pizza in Brevard (even though that's just the opinion of some random guy who writes about grocery stores on the internet).

     Be sure to keep checking back on MFR for more updates and coverage of the closure and conversion of the West Melbourne Lucky's Market! Again, there will be no set schedule, but I'm going to try to be more on top of this closure than the other stores closure series I have collecting virtual dust in my photo archives. Anyway, leave it to Florida retail for a situation like this one: a grocery store gets kicked out of its building for an up-and-coming trendy organic grocery, which out of nowhere decides to close most of its stores three years later, just to have its final random location in Florida bought back by the grocery chain that was originally kicked out for it in the very beginning. I couldn't make this stuff up even if I tried, and just goes to prove how crazy Floridian retail is when everything goes full circle!

     While it's sad to see Lucky's leave Florida, especially in the way all of this played out, it's going to be interesting watching this store as it begins is new life (new old life?) as a Winn-Dixie. According to one article I read, Winn-Dixie wants to reopen these stores later in 2020, so hopefully we'll see some results sooner rather than later!

So until the next post,

AFB

The Day the Closeouts Died

Big Lots #5387

131 E. International Speedway Boulevard, DeLand, FL - Northgate Shopping Center

     Happy New Year everyone! As we jump into the future with a new decade, why not start off the year with a "Store of the Future"? As I mentioned in my last MFR post, today we'll be taking a look at Big Lots' new "Store of the Future" concept, which began to roll out in late 2017. Even though I'm about 2 1/2 years late to bringing you guys the future, at least I'm getting to cover it before Big Lots moves onto something different! Anyway, the purpose of the Store of the Future is to re-imagine Big Lots as a "community focused discount store", which is quite the change from the chain's roots as "The Closeout Store". But before we get into all that, I'd like to do a little bit of time travel into the past. While Big Lots is in the building now, I'd like to begin today's post by talking about what used to be here: Kmart.

Kmart #4869 / Sears Essentials #25XX

101 E. International Speedway Boulevard, DeLand, FL - Northgate Shopping Center

     In 1993, Kmart opened this store on the northern side of DeLand to replace the town's much smaller store on South Woodland Boulevard, placing Kmart in a larger, more modern building at the same corner as the town's original Walmart. Kmart lasted in this building until 2005, when this store was chosen to be one of about 50 Kmart stores throughout the country to be converted to the new Sears Essentials format. With inland Volusia County lacking a full-line Sears store of its own, putting a Sears Essentials here made sense. However, Sears Essentials as a whole was a bit of a flop. Even though the concept was formally shelved in 2006, this store continued to operate under the Sears Essentials name until 2012, when Sears Holdings finally shut down all remains from the failed Sears Essentials concept, including the handful of other Sears Essentials stores remaining in Florida at the time.

     From early 2012 until early 2019, DeLand's old Kmart looked like this: empty. These pre-conversion photos are some (virtually) dusty old ones of mine from 2015, showing a lifeless building sealed up with hurricane shutters.

     The building was all sealed up, so I did a quick spin around the parking lot for some exterior photos. The faded red stripes on each side of the facade are a 90's Kmart relic, flanking both sides of the big red 'K' logo upon this store's opening in 1993. The stripes are still there to this day, now painted white with a Big Lots logo placed between them.

     On the far left side of the building was the garden center, which like the rest of the store, was all sealed up.

     Upon this building's revival in 2019, the garden center side became home to a Tractor Supply store, which relocated from an oddly placed, quite hidden freestanding building further north on Woodland Boulevard. Tractor Supply uses the old garden center for their outdoor supplies and equipment, but I forgot to walk over to this side of the building for pictures during my revisit in late 2019.

     Here's one last look at Kmart's former DeLand store from its abandonment days, before we jump back into the time machine to late 2019 for a look at this store's eventual fate (which is a common fate for former Kmart stores these days): becoming a Big Lots.

     While the exterior of this building remained unchanged during the renovations, the interior was completely gutted so the three new tenants (Big Lots, Planet Fitness, and Tractor Supply) could build out their respective interiors from scratch. Instead of seeing a vast amount of Kmart relics in today's post, we'll be able to focus on the latest out of Big Lots: their "Store of the Future".

     I've mentioned Big Lots' "Stores of the Future" a few times on the blog, including in my last MFR feature post about the store this one replaced. Today we'll actually get to see what all of these changes have brought to the company, and how these new stores are nothing like their predecessors.

     Interestingly, Big Lots left half of Kmart's original entry vestibule in-tact. While the double sliding entry doors are new, the exit door just beyond that is left over from Kmart's standard 90's entryway design, which looked like this. Besides that door, that's where the Kmart relics end, as the interior is 100% modern Big Lots. That's the focus of today's post, so let's head inside and see what changes are in-store...

     Why, hello there! Entering the store, we're cheerfully greeted by this sign, welcoming us to our community Big Lots.

     Turning around, we see a lot of empty space before us, with the furniture department taking up the entire center of the salesfloor. While Big Lots has sold furniture for years, that department is quickly becoming the company's centerpiece, with these new stores dedicating nearly half of the available floor space to nothing but furniture and mattresses. While furniture is becoming a large focus of Big Lots' retail strategy, it's not going to be the focus of our attention right now. I'd like to take us on a spin around the perimeter of the store before jumping into the furniture department at the very end. With that being said, let's turn to the right and see what other merchandise we can find in here...

     Turning the camera to the perimeter of the store, housewares take up the right side of the building. As part of the "Store of the Future" strategy, Big Lots has decided to focus their stores on what's called the company's four "winnable" categories - essentially, the departments Big Lots feels sell the most merchandise in their stores. Those four "winnable" categories are furniture, housewares, seasonal merchandise, and food. As part of the changes, about 80% of what Big Lots now sells falls into one of those categories, with the remaining 20% of Big Lots' merchandise mix coming from toys, health and beauty, pet supplies, household chemicals, small electronics, and hardware. Even with the breakdown into "winnable" categories, Big Lots still places some focus on toys, health and beauty, pet supplies, and household chemicals, running various ad campaigns and special buyout promotions on these products. The small electronics and hardware departments are still there, but take up no more than an aisle a piece, a vast reduction from what Big Lots used to carry in these categories a decade ago.

     Obviously, the "Stores of the Future" were designed to push the emphasis on those four "winnable" categories mentioned before. Furniture is clearly the most important of those four categories, with that department given the prominent front and center placement upon walking into the store (like we saw before). Housewares take up the entire right side of the building, with seasonal taking up the front left corner of the store. Food takes up the back of the building, but gets prominent wall signage that can be seen from the front of the store, with one having to venture through the higher mark-up furniture, housewares, and seasonal stuff to get to the lower mark-up food items. The less "winnable" categories get shoved into the back corners of the store, reflecting the lower emphasis Big Lots now places on these products.

     All that merchandising stuff aside, the photo above looks into the front right corner of the building, home to the checkouts. The seasonal merchandise is just out of frame to the right of the checkouts, but we'll see all of those things in more detail later in this post.

     Shifting our attention away from the front end, we'll begin our walk through the store by looking into the front right corner of the building. While we see area rugs, wall art, and bedspreads here now, there used to be a KCafe in this very spot during the building's previous life. You'd never know that now with how well this building was stripped out, but maybe in your mind you can picture a KCafe here, the smell of Little Caesar's pizza filling the room and the taste of a cherry ICEE on your lips...

     Alright AFB, you didn't write this post to daydream about retail in the 1990s, you wanted to use this time to share with everyone the Big Lots of the 2020s! Moving along now, here's a look down the store's main right side aisle. The aisles of housewares line the right perimeter, with furniture spilling into the main aisle from the large furniture department. Another thing to point out with these "Stores of the Future" is that the aisles are color coded in these stores, with the aisle marker signs color coded with the matching wall decor. For the housewares side of the store, the aisle markers are blue. Food in the back has orange signage, with seasonal on the left using teal. Not-yet-remodeled Big Lots stores use these same aisle markers, but they're white throughout the entire store.

     The main signage for the Home department hangs in the back of this double-wide aisle. The new department signage uses Big Lots' exclamation point logo in a creative way, tying in the company's classic spokes-punctuation to this new era of store design. The addition of the stock photos is also a new thing for Big Lots, and make the signage seem a little more lively.

     Looking down the store's right side wall we find small appliances, with plastic storage tubs appearing further down the aisle.

     Following housewares, we find cleaning supplies in the back right corner. The last few aisles along the right side wall are home to grocery items, overflow from the back aisles.

     Restrooms are in this little alcove in the back of the store.

     Inside the restroom alcove is this little patch of faux tiling behind the water fountains, a bit of a fancy touch for these new Big Lots stores.

     Looking across the back of the store, the main grocery aisles appear to my right, color-coded in orange.

     Another new feature in these "Stores of the Future" is the addition of the warehouse style shelving for bulk products like cases of water and multi-packs of paper towels. These shelves are usually found along the back wall of the store. This store, interestingly, did not have the small frozen food section that many other Big Lots stores have. If it did, the remodels move the coolers to the back wall, next to the bulk shelving.

     Here's a close-up of the bulk shelving, in addition to a close-up of the grocery department wall signage (designating this department as the "Pantry", to make it sound fancier in these fancy new stores).

     If I remember correctly, health and beauty took up the last few aisles of the grocery section as you reached the back left corner of the store. Turning the corner to look back toward the front, this is what we see. This side of the store, the left side, is predominantly home to seasonal merchandise. The seasonal stuff, however, is located closer to the front of the store. The back left corner, where I was standing to take this picture, is home to a tiny hardware selection, an aisle of electronics, pet supplies, and the toy department.

     The entirety of the hardware department can be see to my right, located against the left side wall. Back in the day, Big Lots used to have about 2-3 aisles of hardware, with things like paint, doorknobs, and all kinds of random tools. With the "Store of the Future" focusing more on froofy home goods, hardware got kicked to the curb, shrinking to just a few feet of shelving shoved into the corner. The hardware selection was rather sad, actually, consisting of only some hand tools, Command hooks, and packing supplies. The packing supplies stuffed into the hardware department are an after effect of Big Lots abandoning the sale of office supplies in mid-2019, with these few rolls of tape, bubble wrap and envelopes being the only products kept from that department.

     As we move closer toward the seasonal department, we find more furniture spilling out into the main aisle.

     The seasonal department wall signage could be seen here, peeking out above the shelving.

     This was my attempt at a less-obstructed view of the Seasonal signage, but the overhead lighting glared most of the sign here.

     Even though I took these photos in September, the seasonal department was all decked out in Christmas fare. While there were still some more trees to be put out, most of the ornaments and other decorations were fully stocked for those wanting put out the Christmas decor in the wake of their Labor Day parties.

     Even though the Christmas trees were becoming the center of attention for the Seasonal department, what remained of the (much more appropriate for September, as this is Florida after all!) patio furniture was pushed into an open area at the end of the main aisle

     Now that we've completed our circuit of the store, we'll take a short plunge into the centerpiece of the store: the furniture department. As I mentioned in the past, Big Lots has become the nation's 8th largest furniture retailer as of the 2017 sales rankings. While 8th place doesn't sound like much, it's the highest ranking for a store that doesn't exclusively sell furniture (like Ashley HomeStore, Rooms To Go, or IKEA). That fact in mind, it also means Big Lots sells more furniture than Walmart or Target does. However, Big Lots' broader selection of furniture (including offering items like couches and mattresses, things Walmart and Target don't sell) probably helps push them ahead of their discount peers in terms of furniture sales. Big Lots sold $1.4 billion worth of furniture in 2016, and I'm sure that number has increased since the broad roll out of these "Stores of the Future".

     As part of the company's new focus on furniture, Big Lots purchased the Broyhill brand at a bankruptcy auction in February 2019. Big Lots bought the rights to the name in order to make Broyhill, a long established brand in the furniture business, their own house brand for furniture. In December 2019, Big Lots launched their new Broyhill collections, creating special Broyhill sections within their furniture departments. Broyhill is intended to be Big Lots' new "premium" brand of furniture, with their other offerings acting as a lower priced alternative. I feel this move goes to show how much of an emphasis Big Lots wants to put on their furniture selection, as well as how they want to become one of the country's leading furniture retailers, specifically in the discount spectrum.

     I took these photos long before the new Broyhill stuff came in, but I'm sure a little corner of this department is now dedicated to the stuff. Big Lots has a few sofas and some tables bearing the Broyhill brand, as well as some patio furniture, as of January 2020. Even though the selection is limited at the moment, a larger roll out of the brand (featuring more furniture pieces and even Broyhill branded housewares and soft goods) is expected come in Spring 2020.

     Couches, recliners, and such can be seen here, with the grocery department peeking out in the background.

     Here's a look into the furniture department as seen from the back of the store. Those hanging wooden fixtures with spotlights designate the location of the furniture department, as furniture itself lacks any kind of signage.

     There were some posters hung throughout the furniture department, like this one, being used to emphasize Big Lots' new approach as a "community focused discount store". Big Lots' new tagline "Serve Big. Save Lots." (featured on the sign), also reinforces this concept.

     Now that we've poked around the furniture department, we return once again to the front end. Like the furniture department, the front check lanes also have the hanging wood fixtures overhead.

     Another nice little touch for the "Stores of the Future" are the custom designed lane lights. For the last decade or so, Big Lots has just been using orange light bulbs on a stick for their lane lights. The custom designed lights give the front end a much cleaner, nicer look, as Big Lots works to improve their image with these newer stores.

     Leaving Big Lots, here's a quick peek at the other new occupants of the former Kmart building: Planet Fitness and Tractor Supply. Tractor Supply took the Kmart building's original street address of 101 E. International Speedway Blvd., with Planet Fitness becoming 111 E. International Speedway. I probably should have walked over to Tractor Supply to see how they reused Kmart's old garden center, but I didn't even think about that during the time I was here.

     Overall, Big Lots' "Store of the Future" looks really nice. The store was clean, well presented, and modern, and certainly a big jump from the feel of the Big Lots stores of the past. While the visual appeal is there, I can't say I'm a huge fan of the merchandise changes Big Lots is making with these new stores. I don't think the focus on furniture is a bad thing, as that move is a good one to let Big Lots stand out from the crowd. However, what I don't like is how Big Lots is becoming, as I've said in the past, essentially Home Goods with a large grocery department. I liked how Big Lots used to sell a little bit of everything, and how they used to make a shopping trip feel like a treasure hunt for unexpected bargains. Considering how deeply Big Lots has ingrained itself into society as a destination for closeout merchandise from a broad spectrum of categories, trying to de-emphasize a shopping category they made famous seems like a bad move, especially in a time when closeout and off-price stores are all the rage. Now Big Lots isn't totally abandoning closeout buying with these changes, but most of their merchandise is now regularly offered products compared to the random deals and buyouts of the past. Grocery is the one section of the store where there are still a decent number of closeout surprises to be found, but certainly not to the extent there once was. It's crazy to think that a company that would buy anything if it was given the right price - up to and including DeLoreans - has become this.

     While the thought of Big Lots and strange old cars is still fresh in our mind, I'll conclude this post with this oddball car I spotted in the Big Lots parking lot. Walking by I thought the car looked a bit different, but what really threw me off was when I noticed the steering wheel was set to right hand drive! Although it looks older, this car is a 1991 Nissan Figaro, which was a special edition, limited production car only made for the 1991 model year. Only 20,000 of these were ever made, all with the intention of being sold in Japan. With that being said, this isn't a car you'll come across often, let alone in the United States. The Figaro gained quite a bit of popularity due to its cutesy retro-throwback look, and a small number have been imported into the United States (like the one here) due to its fun design and cutesy appeal. Here's an article with a nice little write-up about the Figaro if you feel inclined to learn more about it.

     So from the Big Lots of the future to cutesy Japanese convertibles of the past, we cover it all here on MFR! That's all I have for today's post too. If you have any thoughts on the next era of Big Lots, feel free to share them in the comment section of this post.

Until the next post,

AFB