A Little Birdie Told Me... - Pier 1 Imports Liquidation - West Melbourne, FL

Pier 1 Imports has been a retailer out of time for a long time. A remnant of a kitschier and more prosperous time, their continued survival an enigma. Well, continued survival up until this point anyway.

From what I read, by some miracle, not all Pier 1s are closing yet, but the West Melbourne store didn't escape the list, and so the familiar banners were unfurled.

This feels like a common photo - the banners centrally placed in the store. Discounts were still fairly slim at this point, the maximum was 75%, for Easter items that were likely already heavily discounted before liquidation began. The max for normal goods was 40%, seen on "Americana" here, while most goods were marked lower.

The smaller discounts, shown here, are well reflected in the amount of stock still left. This isn't just due to a lack of customers either, the store seemed fairly busy with a lot of cars coming and going, at least for a store as normally low volume as Pier 1.

These shelves were the closest this store had to proper "aisles". Otherwise, the store was so open I got myself turned around a little bit.

Looking out the large windows that face the road, we can see that even fairly early in the liquidation, the leasing signs have already been dragged out, even before the store's closure. This stretch of West Melbourne isn't very dead, and I won't be surprised if this space gets re-tenanted fairly quickly.

Appearing near the windows in a few places were these oddly off-color tiles; the only explanation I can think of is maybe these tiles were either in shadow, or tiles that had been replaced after leaks from a bad window seal damaged them. With some of the rain we get in Florida I would not be surprised.

Did you know that Pier 1 sold individual pieces of cutlery? I didn't. This was in the clearance section though, so maybe it was once a full set that was split open in the truck or something.

Items on clearance received the smallest discount. This store had a fairly good clearance section, it seemed, more than I'd typically expect at a store like Pier 1.

This shot is taken from the back of the store, I believ- is... is that faceless mannequin staring at me?

"What should we call these, Jeff? "Bulbs"?
"    Nah, hell with it. Spheres works."

I really found this sign quite humorous- with a store that portrays itself as upmarket as Pier 1, you'd think they'd have a better name than just "Spheres". I almost wish I had bought one of these, just for the joke.

The rugs! The rugs have invaded!- but calm down, these aren't the late liquidation omens they are when they show up at a Macy's or a Sears. I'm pretty sure Pier 1 regularly sold these kinds of rugs, which explains where they went when it wasn't to dubious local liquidators.

At least they've kept the calendar here updated, even if I think the kiosk itself has seen little use recently.

Time has stopped on these clocks, though. Even at 20% off, I've seen similar goods at Ollie's Bargain Outlet, and probably for an nth the price it was here.

Not all the calendars in the store were kept up though- this 2019 Puppies calendar is still sealed in it's plastic! There was also a second, so someone made the confusing decision to keep these things twice.

Some more general overviews of the store, including the industry standard "large clocks and comfy chairs" section.

Why search out a nice, actual piece of artwork from an artist when you can pay almost as much at Pier 1 for something that arrived in a crate of 50 from overseas?

I may be biased, because I don't buy much furniture and most of it comes from secondhand stores when I do, but both of these prices seem high.

Two eras of Employee Only sign collide, both of them quite damaged.

Wire baskets are rare, at least stateside, but Pier 1 had an entire stack of them here for customers, in addition to their more modern rolling plastic baskets.

The store is a little chaotic in places. I dread to think how it'll look once we reach the end of the liquidation and employees let organization slip.

One of the larger rolling baskets (at least I think they have wheels? They must do) I mentioned earlier.

Look at how fast nature reclaims the abandoned, the wild flamingos have already come to roost...

The checkout was a two-sided affair, though they only had one employee at the register. In fact, I think she may have been the only employee in the store. I guess they cut it to a skeleton crew once liquidation began.

And here's this post's name sake- a (slightly damaged, the beak is chipped on the other side) decorative bird I bought from the Easter section for $2.50. I also bought a pair of Pier 1 branded "wine glass markers" for not much more, and that was my entire purchase from the store.

I named him Pierre, by the way.

Anyways, until next time, this was Cape Kennedy Retail. Signing off in 3... 2... 1...

In Between The Lines There's A Lot Of Obscurity -- Kroger "Welcome" Stores

"Welcome" to my long-overdue second feature post here on the My Florida Retail Blog!

That pun will become way funnier as we get deeper into this post. But before we can get there, there's a little bit of history we need to go through first. Longtime readers of the Albertsons Florida Blog may already be familiar with some or all of what I'm about to say, but a refresher never hurts.

While its supermarket scene is almost wholly dominated by Publix (and Winn-Dixie is also a chain that exists), the state of Florida has been home to numerous infiltration attempts by other grocery store chains. Kroger, the world's largest supermarket chain, of course is just one of the many suitors that has attempted to get a piece of the Floridian pie over the years. According to the Orlando Sentinel, "Kroger opened its first Florida supermarket in 1980 in the south Brevard city of Indian Harbor Beach," and expanded from there. The stores were named SupeRx Food & Drug, after Kroger's subsidiary pharmacy chain at the time, SupeRx. (SupeRx had actually begun as a drugstore operation way back in 1960. You can read more about SupeRx's history at this post from Pleasant Family Shopping.)

In July 1986, Kroger began a major restructuring effort, announcing that it was "entertaining bids for the SupeRx and Hook chains," its pharmacy operations. "We wanted to sell off the retail drug business to concentrate our resources on the retail food business, which we think can be a better performer on its own," a spokesman said. As reported at the time, "The sale of Kroger's over 830 stand-alone drugstores was accomplished in four separate deals." One of these deals took place just days before Christmas 1986, when Rite Aid agreed to acquire all 106 SupeRx drugstores in Florida, in addition to a few others in separate states.

However, "not included in the sale are Kroger's 28 food and drug stores in Florida," the December 1986 article reported (emphasis mine). These stores were to remain open, and change their names from SupeRx Food & Drug to a newly created banner, Florida Choice. Florida Choice would go on to expand further, in particular thanks to the acquisition of A&P-owned Family Mart stores throughout the state.

Florida Choice magazine ad from early 1988. Courtesy William S. via Albertsons Florida Blog

We'll come back to Florida Choice a little later; right now is where the new stuff comes in. That four-part sale of Kroger's SupeRx and Hook drugstore chains was "expected to bring Kroger $450 million to $500 million," according to The Cincinnati Post. A portion of those proceeds, it was decided, would be used to fund a new Kroger venture: Welcome. As The Washington Post reported in January 1987:

Kroger Co., a national supermarket chain that is based in Ohio, has been preparing quietly to build its biggest stores ever and plans to put two of the "superwarehouse" facilities in Richmond. 

But the first step in its effort to build the stores will come in Greenville, SC, where Kroger is constructing a pilot "Welcome" store that will dwarf the size of a typical Kroger supermarket. 

The first Welcome store will have an area of 90,000 square feet. Most Kroger superstores are about 60,000 square feet with combined food and drug stores. 

"This will be our hybrid superwarehouse," said Paul Bernish, Kroger spokesman. "It will be independent of the Kroger food store operations." 

Welcome Inc., a Kroger subsidiary, will operate the new stores. The no-frills operation involves stores where customers buy basic food products, such as canned goods, at steep discounts. 

In recent years, warehouse stores were upgraded with huge produce sections and large service areas, such as seafood bars and delicatessens. 

"The superwarehouse store has gone full circle in that they started out with no frills and few employees," said Ryan Mathews, senior editor of Grocery Marketing in Detroit, a trade publication. "Now, because of their expanded service departments, they are often labor intensive," he said. 

Superwarehouses are different from membership warehouses, which have been described as looking like airplane hangars loaded with wholesale food products, tires, and other products.

Retailers were experimenting with many new store concepts in the late 1980s and early 1990s; just this week I shared the story of American Fare, Kmart's ill-fated hypermarket attempt, over on my site, The Mid-South Retail Blog. Kroger, it would seem, was no exception. All in all, Welcome would go on to be a six-store chain, beginning, as the above article noted, with its first location in Greenville, SC, in 1987.

Welcome store exterior, Greenville, SC. Courtesy The Dead Mall Files

Welcome store interior, Greenville, SC. The floral department is pictured. Courtesy The Dead Mall Files

Welcome store interior, Greenville, SC. The front end is pictured. Courtesy The Dead Mall Files

The Dead Mall Files, a Greenville-area resident, was the first to bring this short-lived Kroger concept to my attention; she also shared the above, very rare colorized photos of the Greenville Welcome store to "The Retail Union" chat room on Discord, so we can all get an idea of what the concept looked like (thanks again!). As you can see, the stores were quite large, and had somewhat of a minimalist design, between the large, simple department name signs on the walls, and the exterior entry and exit points marked not by words but rather by symbols. The stores also were clearly quite large; bigger was better in this time of store format experimentation.

The Dead Mall Files also shared several resources with me that helped in compiling information for this post, including the two newspaper excerpts you'll see reprinted below. I encourage you to enlarge the screenshots and read each article in full to get the whole story. (Additionally, The Dead Mall Files just started her own blog, so be sure to follow her there for more content!)

April 1987 article from a Greenville, SC, newspaper. Courtesy newspapers.com

April 1988 article from a Cincinnati, OH, newspaper. Courtesy newspapers.com

The first article above, printed in early April 1987, shares details of Welcome's arrival a couple of weeks prior in Greenville, SC. Below that, the second article, from April 1988, has a bit more detail on Kroger's warehouse store operations, sharing that the chain had actually been experimenting with the format for over a decade, beginning with a handful of Barney's Food & Drug Warehouse stores in its native state of Ohio, as well as Bi-Lo stores in the same area (not to be confused with the BI-LO chain of the Carolinas). Those stores closed in 1985, but now, three years later, "Kroger is trying its hand at warehousing again," The Cincinnati Enquirer reported. "It introduced the Welcome concept in Greenville, SC, just 13 months ago with a 92,000-square-foot store. Three months later, in June of last year [1987], it bought four former Pak-N-Save stores from Safeway Stores Inc. and began opening those. Those stores, three of which are in Jacksonville, Fla., and one of which is in Mobile, Ala., range in size from 80,000 to 90,000 square feet."

While the name is a bit of a fuzzy matter -- the newspaper called them Pak-N-Save, while he called them Save and Pack -- Albertsons Florida Blog previously covered this chain of warehouse stores, Safeway's first foray into Florida long before their short-lived 2016 conversion of the state's final three Albertsons stores, in this post. And indeed, the aforementioned locations' brief stints as Kroger "Welcome" stores were duly noted in AFB's table. (This, of course, would be the Florida connection allowing me to share this story with you on this blog today!)

Site plan for Regency Park in Jacksonville, FL. Note the large store on the left is marked as "Kroger Welcome Store." (Also, that looks a lot like the Facebook logo at the bottom left!) Courtesy AFB

The April 1988 Enquirer article continued, "Next month, Kroger will open its sixth Welcome, this one in Richmond, VA. A seventh store, also in Richmond, will follow early next year." The pop-out article goes on to share better details of what the stores themselves were like: "Floors are tiled, not cement. Most merchandise is stocked on regular grocery shelving instead of warehouse-style racking. Lights are bright, signs are dominant, aisles are wide. And the stores include all of the specialty departments that Kroger has made regulars in its combination food and drug stores.

"The stores even include Pineapple Parks -- named for the pineapple logo in the Welcome logo -- where shoppers can sit on benches, drink free coffee, and wait for prescriptions or photos. And what of the pineapple? [A Kroger spokesperson] says the fruit, once considered an exotic delicacy, is an early American symbol of hospitality -- welcome."

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Later in 1988, Kroger successfully warded off multiple buyout proposals from both the Haft family and KKR, hostile takeover attempts which would have involved taking the company private. But it became clear to Kroger that another major restructuring effort would be needed if it was to get its affairs in order. Thus, just two years after it began soliciting buyers for its SupeRx business, Kroger again put one of its divisions up for sale. This is where the tale of Florida Choice comes back into the picture. Referring back to the July 1988 Orlando Sentinel article mentioned at the top of this post:

All 43 Florida Choice supermarkets in the state have been put up for sale, the chain's parent said Wednesday, because it cannot afford to invest the money needed to compete in the rapidly growing market. 

Florida Choice, with 5,000 employees in the state, will continue to operate all its stores until they are sold, [Kroger Co.] said. In addition to the supermarkets, the company will sell 39 liquor stores and three supermarkets now under construction. 

[Two of those] -- one in the Wekiva section of south Seminole County and one in Melbourne -- will open soon as Florida Choice outlets and operate until they are sold, [VP for Florida operations Bill] Parker said. He said the fate of a store under construction in Rockledge has not been decided. 

"Our Florida Choice operations have been unprofitable for some time, and our own projections indicate that too much time and additional investment would be required to make them profitable," Kroger president Joseph Pichler said in a statement.

Interestingly, the article ends with this key bit of information: "The decision does not affect three Kroger-owned warehouse stores, known as Welcome Stores, in Jacksonville." So, technically speaking, Welcome outlasted Florida Choice. But not for long.

I suspect that, like several other Kroger ventures in 1988, Welcome was prematurely killed as a result of the restructuring efforts and Kroger's response to the takeover attempts. For example, in April 1988, BI-LO (the Carolinas one, the one not operated by Kroger) announced it was exiting the Charlotte, NC, market, and sold its stores to Kroger. Kroger converted and operated the stores... until a mere six months later, October 1988, when Kroger announced it, too, would be exiting the Charlotte market -- and selling those stores straight back to BI-LO. (BI-LO, by the way, summarily closed most of those locations, as I understand it.)

The two newspaper article screenshots below go into a little more detail concerning the sale. In addition to Charlotte, Kroger exited the Charleston, SC, market; those stores were also included in the sale to BI-LO, as was the Greenville, SC, Welcome store, making for a total of 21 locations sold. "Other holdings Kroger has put up for sale include four Kroger stores in Fayetteville and Southern Pines, NC; five other Welcome stores in Virginia, Alabama, and Florida; 26 Fry's supermarkets in California; and 16 Price Savers Wholesale Warehouse units [in the Cincinnati area].

"Kroger spokesman Paul Bernish said the sale of the 21 stores was not a particular priority for the chain, nor was it necessary to meet a $40 per share dividend the company is scheduled to pay its shareholders Friday. 'We will be paying that from bank borrowings,' Bernish said. 'The proceeds, as we get them from the sale of these assets, will be used to helped [sic] draw down the debt.'"

In other words, the fate of the six Welcome stores seems to have been sealed mostly because they were simply expendable.

October 1988 article from a Greenville, SC, newspaper. Courtesy newspapers.com

December 1988 article from a Greenville, SC, newspaper. Courtesy newspapers.com

The second of the two articles above, from December 1988, mentions that the Greenville Welcome store would close permanently on Saturday night, the 31st, the very last day of the year. BI-LO optimistically wanted to open a new store in at least a portion of the 92,000 square foot space, but wound up never doing so. (Likewise, that proposed second Richmond Welcome store? Never built or opened.) This article also confirms that the Welcome stores "were part of a package of stores Kroger put up for sale as part of a $4.6 billion restructuring plan it began in September to fend off two takeover attempts," and states that "Kroger has since sold two other Welcome stores in Jacksonville, Fla.," leaving the remaining two Welcome stores -- one in Jacksonville, and the other in Mobile, AL -- still available for purchase headed into 1989.

(The Richmond, VA, Welcome store reportedly closed in September 1988, according to a topic on Groceteria. Also of note from that forum, people who remember Welcome share that "The connection with Kroger was played down -- some Kroger merchandise, but the idea was that you weren't supposed to notice any Kroger connection (though the connection was well publicized in the newspaper)." Additionally, all six stores "seemed to be in markets on the periphery of established Kroger markets," but never in markets where Kroger operated one of their namesake stores.)

The Wikipedia article for Mobile Festival Centre, the shopping center in which the Mobile, AL, Welcome store was located, suggests that that store closed in the mid-1990s, which is possible... but I think it's much more likely that the chain was gone entirely by some point in early 1989. (EDIT: Per an anonymous comment below from July 2021, the Mobile Welcome store actually outlasted the rest, with Kroger retaining ownership until 1994 -- at which time the store was sold to Delchamps and continued to operate under the Welcome banner for another eight months! Check out this article for more.) As I said, AFB has previously shared the fates of the four Welcome locations that started their lives as Safeway-owned Save and Pack stores, but for the sake of completeness I've compiled the addresses and current statuses of all six Welcome stores in the table below.

Store Address	City, State	Longevity	Building History	Current Status
20 Haywood Rd	Greenville, SC	March 1987 -- December 1988	built as Welcome	subdivided between Burlington and Surplus Warehouse
9400 Atlantic Blvd	Jacksonville, FL	June 1987 -- December 1988*	purchased from Safeway	subdivided between Celebration Church (former Hobby Lobby) and a vacant space (which was most recently home to Books-A-Million). The entire building was home to a Publix for a short period after Welcome closed.
8102 Blanding Blvd	Jacksonville, FL	June 1987 -- December 1988*	purchased from Safeway	operating as Floor and Décor
5201 Norwood Ave	Jacksonville, FL	June 1987 -- December 1988*	purchased from Safeway	operating as Norwood Flea Market
3725 Airport Blvd	Mobile, AL	June 1987 -- November 1994 (under Kroger); November 1994 -- August 1995 (under Delchamps)	purchased from Safeway	Outlasted all other Welcome stores, operating under Kroger's ownership until November 1994. That month, Delchamps purchased from Kroger seven stores: two in Tuscaloosa, four in the Gulfport/Biloxi area, and the Mobile Welcome store. As part of the deal, Delchamps also traded to Kroger two of its stores in Mississippi (Columbus and Greenville). Delchamps continued to operate the Mobile Welcome for eight months, closing it on August 5, 1995. The building is currently operating as Academy Sports.
10400 Midlothian Turnpike	Richmond, VA	June 1988 -- September 1988	built as Welcome	operating as Burlington
SW corner of Pemberton Rd and W Broad St	Richmond, VA	N/A -- land was purchased, but a store was never constructed	N/A (never opened)	opened 1989 as Ukrop's; later became Martin's; currently being rebuilt as Publix
		* -- one of the Jacksonville stores closed later than the others, but it's not clear which

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Exterior of the Greenville, SC, Welcome store, pictured shortly before its closure in December 1988. Courtesy newspapers.com via The Dead Mall Files

I'll conclude this post with the above black-and-white image of the Greenville, SC, Welcome store, a close-up of the same photo shared in one of the newspaper excerpts earlier. So now we know that Kroger had at least one more venture in Florida besides its SupeRx/Florida Choice chain, although in the end, the Welcome experiment was no less short-lived. In modern times, Kroger has once again executed -- in a roundabout way -- yet another entrance and retreat from Florida, given their involvement with the expansion and demise of the Lucky's Market chain.

Now, it sounds like they're plotting something else, based on the news that Kroger will soon be constructing one of its new, large e-commerce fulfillment centers, a joint venture with Ocado, in Groveland, FL. Will this warehouse lead to a future store expansion attempt? Or, perhaps, could Kroger instead sneak into Florida via its current, growing store-within-a-store partnership with Walgreens? All good questions for which the answers remain to be seen... but the most important thing Kroger should monitor is whether, in the eyes of Florida residents, they will be welcome.

That's all for now. If you have any questions, comments, or -- best of all -- information or photos of Welcome to share, please drop us a line below and/or email me at midsouthretailblog [at] gmail [dot] com. Until next time, then, and as always... have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are!

Retail Retell

From Boot Ranch in Pinellas to Food Ranch in little ole Inglis, FL

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZyaTvWMyBdBVK3oy6

While I was driving back from St. Pete 2weekends ago, my GPS took me through the sleepy little community of Inglis, FL on US 19/98 in Levy County.

This town is easily missed as all they have here is a flashing light.

What photos you see in my link above show a little independent grocery store called Food Ranch.

This store donnes a decor from what I'd say is either late 70's or maybe even mid-late 80's.

But Yon Woo, why would you say 80's? Well, with my semi-obsession with researching old Albertsons store photos I've come across a decor package the Idaho-based chain used back in the mid-late 80's which I named Colorful Transition Market. I called it that because several panels on the walls were placed above the various departments, and within those panels were various shades of a particular color that transitioned from lighter to darker or visa versa.
In additional to that transition, a new color shade was used above a different department. In Albertsons' case, dark brown to light brown shading was placed above the Bakery, while dark red to lighter red was above meat and Seafood. Dark Green to lighter green was placed above "Garden Fresh Produce".

While I didn't take a ton of photos in this old store, hopefully my photos give an idea of what a small town Florida grocery store feels on the inside. The decor seen in here is certainly older than in the Carabelle IGA store in the Panhandle that I just shared photos of on flickr.

For such a tiny little town, this was a fairly decent sized grocery store, probably about 15000 sq feet.

The aisles contained a decent variety of dry grocery goods, a good sized Produce department on the right side. Also, the back wall was entirely used for fresh packaged meats in cooler cases. Plenty of meat to choose from here!

One really funny and interesting detail we see at this store was a display of post cards (which I really should have photographed).

The post cards were showing things special about the town of Inglis. One might expect visiting Panama City Beach to see a post card of white sandy beaches and a pier or maybe a flock of seagulls flying off in the sunset. Here in Inglis, their special offering to visitors was a photo of a nearby nuclear power plant! Sounds like a lovely vacation destination, doesn't it :)?

I am also including a collage photo comparing the decor seen in this store to Albertsons' 80's Colorful Transition Market decor.

Pretty amazing similarity isn't it!?

Thanks for viewing!

Enjoy the photos.

Osceola County's Forgotten Mall - Mill Creek Mall - Kissimmee, FL

Mill Creek Mall

1312-1392 East Vine Street, Kissimmee, FL

     When the topic of malls in the Orlando area comes up in conversation, the conversation can go many ways. If you're in the mood for some serious shopping, the Florida Mall is always a good choice. Being the largest mall in the state, there's a little something for everyone there. In addition to the Florida Mall, there's also the Mall at Millenia for your shopping needs, that is if stores like Bloomingdale's and Neiman Marcus are within your price range. While those are Orlando's thriving malls, the topic of Orlando's ailing malls also comes up too, especially among the folk who are probably reading this post. West Oaks Mall, Orlando Fashion Square, and Festival Bay Mall/Artegon Marketplace usually steal the show in conversations about Orlando's dead mall scene. A little closer to home for this post is Osceola Square Mall, another popular troubled mall in the Orlando area that gets mentioned from time to time. The only major enclosed shopping center on the Osceola County side of the Orlando metro area, Osceola Square Mall spent a good 20 years anchoring Kissimmee's retail strip along US 192. As the area began to change in the 2000's and newer retail centers (such as The Loop) began to open in Kissimmee's northern fringes, Osceola Square began its downfall into dead malls fame. While Osceola Square gets all of Kissimmee's dead mall glory (not sure if that's something to brag about or not), most people from outside the area don't even realize that Osceola County has a second mall hiding on the eastern edge of town. Opening 5 years prior to Osceola Square, Mill Creek Mall quietly found its place as a community shopping destination serving the eastern neighborhoods of Kissimmee. Mill Creek Mall's unorthodox design is probably what keeps it off the radar of most dead mall seekers, as it looks suspiciously like a normal shopping center from the front (and above). However, behind that facade is a mall - a small but strange one - but it's there, so this place does live up to its name.

     Opening in November 1980, Mill Creek Mall was constructed at the southeastern corner of US 192 and the Oak Street Extension, on the edge of Mill Slough (a.k.a. Mill Creek, hence the mall's name). While designed in more of a neighborhood shopping center style, Mill Creek Mall's three original anchor tenants (Bealls Department Store, Publix, and Eckerd Drugs) were all connected to each other by an enclosed corridor of smaller stores, giving this place the "mall" part of its name. The locations of the three original anchors can be seen in the satellite image above, as well as the sections of enclosed mall corridor connecting the three anchors together. None of the anchors ever opened into the mall corridors themselves, with the corridors serving as enclosed connectors to carry shoppers throughout the complex. In addition to the anchors, some of the smaller tenants that occupied the "mall" portions of the complex included Cato Fashions, Hickory Farms, Kissimmee Optical, Perkins Restaurant, Baskin-Robbins, Magic Wok Chinese Restaurant, Denim Den, a jewelry store, an art gallery, a travel agency, a western wear store, a music store, and a few other local shops. In all, the mall portion of Mill Creek Mall included about 20 smaller tenants, so this was never a very large place.

     Mill Creek Mall was a thriving retail destination through the late 1990's, when some shake-ups with the anchor tenants began. Bealls was the first anchor to leave Mill Creek Mall, relocating to Osceola Square in 1997. Publix left Mill Creek Mall in 1998 after a dispute with the landlord, where Publix claimed the landlord was failing to uphold their share of the building maintenance. Due to the dispute, Publix built a new store a few miles east of here at Simpson and Fortune Roads to replace the Mill Creek Mall location. Shortly before Publix relocated, the mall changed ownership. While it was too late to prevent Publix from leaving, the new owners of Mill Creek Mall put in the effort to fix the place up, with repairs that included repaving the mall's parking lot, modernizing the plaza's facade, and adding a few new outparcels to the front of the property. One of those new outparcels was a freestanding Eckerd store, replacing the location within the mall complex itself. The Eckerd was built on the site of a bank, the bank relocating to a new building next to the freestanding Eckerd. In addition to Eckerd and the bank, the last phase of the outparcel additions included a new strip of stores on the property's eastern boundary, an "annex" you can say to the main mall building. As for the mall's empty anchors, the old Publix building found new life shortly after Publix left, the space getting split in half to house a Big Lots and Bealls Outlet. The empty Bealls department store became home to Workforce Central Florida (later CareerSource of Central Florida), and the original in-line Eckerd space became home to a Family Dollar. The "mall" portion of Mill Creek Mall has been able to hold its own through the years too, even if the mall isn't as glorious of a place as it was 30 years ago. The smaller tenants have shifted to mostly locally owned ones, especially locally owned office-type places. All the smaller spaces on the outer part of the mall corridor have exterior entrances, keeping those storefronts rather lively in some way (and creating the illusion this is a normal strip center). The spaces on the inner part of the mall corridor, which are only accessible from within the mall corridor itself, have almost exclusively become home to offices.

     Returning to ground level, here's a look across the entirety of the Mill Creek Mall. From this angle, it's easy to mistake this place as a plain old shopping center, as nothing entirely "mall-like" jumps out at you until getting closer to the place. Upon my first visit to the Mill Creek Mall a few years back, I wasn't even aware a mall was hidden away within this building (as I visited this place only expecting to document the former Publix - I hadn't bothered to dig into the history of the complex as a whole at the time). Like many of my retail road trip destinations, sometimes I find more than I bargained for! Anyway, the low-roof portions of the building sticking out from the rest of the complex comprise the two mall corridors. The mall's anchors and the tenants in the back of the mall are located in the portion of the building with the taller facade. While it looks like the back part of the building is two floors, it's not. That's just a tall facade, probably to make the smaller shops stand out from the rest of the mall.

     As we meander our way through Mill Creek Mall, we'll begin our tour with the former Bealls department store anchor. From here we'll work our way through the rest of the complex, spending most of our time looking at the old mall corridors and the former Publix space (the most interesting parts of the entire place, as those parts of the mall are seeping with relics of retail past).

     The former Bealls department store space is rather nondescript these days. The facade has been dressed up a bit from its original look, and all the years this place spent as offices for the career center would have stripped any remaining relics from the interior.

     CareerSource of Central Florida relocated their offices from this building to a new one across the street on Valencia College's campus in January 2020. I took these photos of the former Bealls store about a month later, showing what the place looked like after CareerSource vacated the premises. The photos we'll be seeing in today's post were taken on two separate occasions - the post blending photos taken in May 2016 and February 2020. The original set of photos I took way back when focused mostly on the former Publix, with the goal of my return visit to capture more (and much better) photos of the rest of the mall. One problem with returning for photos four years after taking the original set is things change, and there was a decent amount of change that happened at Mill Creek Mall between 2016 and 2020. The changes will become quite apparent as we go through the rest of the post.

     With the old Bealls anchor out of the way, it's time we move on to the part of the post you guys all want to see - the mall corridor. Connecting the former Bealls with the former Publix is this corridor, which we'll call the east mall corridor. The mall corridor is accessed via doors located at the side of each anchor, located where the storefronts jut out from the taller facade.

     All the storefronts on the outer portions of each mall corridor have exterior entrances, as you can see here. I believe the exterior entrances were an original design feature. Considering how this place was designed as a shopping center/mall hybrid, I don't think the exterior entrances to these stores were a later addition. From the exterior, the east corridor has quite the decent occupancy rate, with all the exterior storefronts filled.

     Entering the east corridor through these doors to the side of the old Bealls, what do we have in store inside the mall?...

     ...well, we have this. Yes, the funky early 80's architecture is a huge plus here, but from within the mall corridor, you'd think Mill Creek Mall was hanging in by a thread. Hardly any of the stores with exterior entrances use their back doors connecting to the mall corridor these days. With most of the outer storefronts cutting off access to the mall, and the inner storefronts being home to quiet offices, Mill Creek Mall's "mall" portion isn't the most hopping place in the world anymore. The mall's east corridor is the quieter of the two mall corridors, with the east corridor not even open for public access on weekends anymore.

     As quiet as the mall corridor is these days, what really makes this place is that it's received so few updates since the mall first opened in 1980. Brick planters, funky skylights, wood paneling, those rectangular brown tiles - all the features of an 80's shopping mall, still alive and well in the 2020s in Kissimmee.

     The east corridor is seeing a little more action in this photo, where a few people were passing through, and someone was sitting on one of the benches built into the brick planters.

     Even though the last few photos depicted the east corridor in 2016, very little has changed within the mall corridor in this photo, where we jump ahead to 2020. Even though the mall owners gave up on tending to the plants, the planters and benches are still in place. Besides the lack of plants, the only major change to the building's design I noticed between 2016 and 2020 was that someone covered over the upper skylights in both mall corridors. I'm sure that's just a piece of painted wood covering the skylight, so it's not like it was removed completely. And we still have the angled skylights too, however without those, this place would be really dark inside!

     To the side of the Publix entrance into the east corridor were these funky shaped windows. I thought they were an unusual sight, and that the odd shape was a good compliment to the funky architecture within the mall itself.

     Anyway, we'll have more mall coming up in just a bit when we hop over to the west corridor, but lying between the two halves of the mall is the former Publix store:

     Located in the center of Mill Creek Mall is this former Publix, store #228. As I mentioned before, after Publix left the mall in 1998, this space was split between a Big Lots and Bealls Outlet. Entering the early 2010's, both Big Lots and Bealls Outlet decided to relocate from Mill Creek Mall to larger spaces nearby. Big Lots left Mill Creek Mall to occupy a long-vacant mid-70's Publix a few miles to the west of here (jumping from half a Publix to occupying the entire thing after the move). Because there's plenty of old Publix to go around, Bealls Outlet also left Mill Creek Mall to relocate to a different former Publix store on the southern side of town, occupying half of that much larger building. With Big Lots and Bealls Outlet gone, the former Publix building sat vacant once again. Fortunately, it didn't take long for the mall's owners to find two new tenants for the space. The Big Lots half of the old Publix became home to a new Goodwill store, Goodwill relocating from a smaller space in the Winn-Dixie plaza across the street. The former Bealls Outlet became home to a Habitat for Humanity Re-Store for a short time in the mid-2010's, but is now home to an independent grocery store called Willer's Supermarket, which opened in December 2017. Due to the span between my two photosets, we'll be seeing both the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store and Willer's Supermarket in today's post - the joys of AFB's inability to post photos in a timely manner time travel! But we'll see those stores in a bit, as first, we're off to Goodwill...

     Stepping onto the front walkway, we can see that very little has changed on the exterior of this building from its days as a Publix - design-wise, that is. Aesthetic-wise, I do have a grievance to air, specifically a fake stone covered grievance...

     Someone apparently thought it would be a great idea to cover both of this store's immaculately preserved tile murals with boring fake stone. For 20 years after Publix left the building, no one thought to bother these murals, so I don't know why someone decided now was the time to cover these over. It's always a tragedy to see these murals get ripped down and covered over, especially when you consider how much time went into creating these murals.

     At least to got to document the Mill Creek Mall tile murals during my first photographic foray to this place in 2016. It was sometime in 2019 when the murals were covered over, based on what I've heard. At the same time the murals were covered over, the building was repainted and the upper skylights in the mall corridors were covered over. While the owners of this place seem to care enough to do some minor upkeep to the building, it's just a shame it came at the expense of the murals.

     Murals aside, we'll next turn our attention toward Goodwill's entrance. Goodwill uses Publix's old concave entryway setup, a design Publix used on nearly all their stores built through the early 1980's. While many Publix stores had these concave entryways ripped out for enclosed vestibules during remodels in the 1990's, this store never received that update. The sliding doors also appear to be original to Publix as well.

     Stepping inside Goodwill, the Publix relics just don't stop! As you can see, the original striped terrazzo floors and raised ceiling from Publix remain to this very day. The raised ceiling even retains its exposed wood transition, something that Publix would have painted over in later remodels. What's neat is all these relics survived through two different tenants, although it helps that both of the tenants to occupy this side of the building (Big Lots and Goodwill) were never known for doing super extensive remodels in the past.

     It's a bit odd seeing the raised ceiling chopped in half like it is, but seeing all the strange ways old supermarket buildings get preserved and repurposed is what makes this hobby so fascinating to me. Supermarket conversions have always been a big interest of mine, even before I thought to take pictures of these places. All these Publix relics, in addition to a strange old mall stuck in the 1980's, made this place a complete package for retail exploration for me. I guess you could call it a win-win! (Or maybe not, as that's the slogan of Publix's competitor 😀)

     Wandering throughout the Goodwill side of the store, we'll get plenty of views of the old terrazzo and the raised ceiling. As for Goodwill's decor, the multi-color look we see here is what Goodwill of Central Florida has been using for quite a few years now. With Goodwill of Central Florida relocating numerous smaller stores in the late 2010's to larger locations, they've been pretty good at upgrading nearly all of their stores to this look.

     Certainly lots of stuff in here...

     ...and amongst all that stuff I found this small retail relic - an old video game with a Kmart price sticker on it. According to Google, this game was released in 2001. The Kmart tag probably dates to the early 2000's as well, although you never know when Kmart could have dusted something off from the backroom and put it out for sale!

     Here's one last look at Goodwill's well-preserved Publix interior before we move things next door...

     Back outside, here's one final look toward Goodwill's entryway.

     During my 2016 visit to Mill Creek Mall, a Habitat for Humanity Re-Store occupied the right half of the former Publix space.

     Since Big Lots/Goodwill got Publix's main entryway, Bealls Outlet/Habitat Re-Store's entryway had to be carved out of one of Publix's front windows, pictured to my right.

     Stepping inside the Habitat Re-Store, it's apparent Bealls Outlet spent more on their conversion efforts than Big Lots did. Bealls Outlet covered the old terrazzo with tile, and stripped out the ceiling for a new one. That being said, there wasn't much to see in here from Publix like there was in the Goodwill half of the building. Even merchandise wise, there wasn't much to see in here either. Besides a little bit of furniture and some other odds and ends, half of the Re-Store's sales floor was empty (and nearly every Habitat Re-Store I've been to is packed with stuff, so this was weird to see). I must have been here as this place was in the process of closing, as just a little over a year after I took these photos, Willer's Supermarket would be operating in this space. While the Kissimmee Habitat for Humanity Re-Store closed sometime in 2016, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Orlando and Osceola County closed all of their remaining Re-Store locations in January 2019.

     Most of the Re-Store's merchandise was pushed toward the back of the building, so the sales floor seemed less empty from this angle behind the kitchen counters.

     Jumping ahead a few years to 2020, the right side of the former Publix building becomes a bit more lively with the arrival of Willer's Supermarket. Willer's Supermarket opened in December 2017, the first location of the Willer's grocery chain in the mainland United States. According to news articles from when this store first opened, Willer's is a grocery chain from Puerto Rico that decided to expand into Florida as the state's Puerto Rican population began to surge post-Hurricane Maria. Willer's Kissimmee store was praised at its opening for importing a large number of hard to find Puerto Rican products to Florida. At the time of this store's opening, Willer's had announced plans to open more stores around Orlando and also Tampa. As far as I can tell, this is still the only Willer's Supermarket in Florida, as Google only pulls up this location. Willer's operations in both Florida and Puerto Rico lack websites, so I really don't know much about the company. This article from the Kissimmee location's grand opening goes into a little more detail about Willer's and the products the store sells, but that's all I can find.

     A little bit of paint and some standard grocery store fixtures gave the old Bealls Outlet/Habitat Re-Store space a more vibrant look. Willer's entire decor is a huge tribute to Puerto Rico, with lots of pictures from the island on the walls, tributes to various Puerto Rican cities, and even aisle markers designed in the shape of Puerto Rico (which we'll see up close momentarily).

     A giant "Puerto Rico" sign takes up the majority of the store's back wall, hanging over the meat coolers. Anyway, these first few photos from inside Willer's were taken in the produce department, which occupies the right side of the space.

      Here's an overview of the produce department, which occupies an over-sized aisle 1.

     Like I promised before, here's a close-up of one of the custom designed aisle markers this store uses, shaped like Puerto Rico.

     Since Willer's occupies a former Bealls Outlet located in half of an old Publix, it's not a very big store. Willer's had around 6 aisles total, although the aisles were pretty long since they ran from the front to back of the building. As you can see here, while Willer's specialty is hard-to-find products from Puerto Rico as well as other Hispanic-oriented groceries, they also carried some mainstream products as well.

     From the look of it, Willer's raided a former Publix store for all of its fixtures. These two coolers are very much from a Publix, as the "Cool It • Chill Out • Take It Easy" slogan on the top of the cooler identifies it as a former case from the Publix Deli. Willer's check lanes are also Publix ones, and the shelving and coolers are probably from Publix too (however, the origins of those items aren't as easily identifiable by eye). While not from the Publix originally located in this space, I still managed to stumble across Publix relics in here too!  

     Here's a look across the back wall of Willer's, essentially looking from one side of the store to the other. This part of the store was home to meats and frozen foods, with a meat counter located behind me.

     Speaking of that counter, here it is. It's not quite a full service counter, but the window looking into the back room makes it appear like one.

     Looking across the left side of the store, we find more meat coolers mixed in with the regular groceries in this aisle.

     Returning to the front of the store, here's a look at the quiet front end. There was only one other person shopping in here as I was walking around taking photos, which surprised me, as I visited this store on a weekend afternoon when the rest of the complex was quite lively.

     Taking a closer look at the front lanes, you can easily tell these counters came to Willer's from Publix. The lane lights and their posts are the classic Publix cube design. While lanes 1-3 use generic white cubes now (as the original cubes would have had the Publix logo on the side), the service desk (the only check lane open while I was here) used an original Publix express lane cube light.

     Exiting Willer's, we'll begin to make our way toward Mill Creek Mall's western corridor. However, before we do that, we need to do some more tile mural appreciation...

     The tile mural on the right side of the former Publix building continued the mountain village theme we saw on the other mural. The mountain village theme, along with the cornucopia/wine bottle one, were the two most common Publix tile mural themes out there. While many of the tile murals shared themes, no two were ever exactly the same. Like its counterpart on the other side of the building, this mural was also covered over in fake stone in 2019 (but this time, I'll spare you all a close-up photo of that tragedy).

     Now that we've finished our look at the former Publix building, off we go through these doors into the western corridor of Mill Creek Mall...

     Mill Creek Mall's west corridor is an exact copy of the east corridor, featuring the same skylights, floor tile, planters, and benches. The mall's west corridor is also the "busier" corridor, as more of the businesses on this side of the mall actually use their mall entrances.

     Speaking of businesses located in this side of the mall, let's start off on a high note with this obvious Baskin Robbins labelscar! Scoops4U clearly wasn't trying hard to cover that labelscar, especially with that tiny little banner of theirs. Baskin Robbins was an original tenant to Mill Creek Mall, opening with the mall in 1980 and closing sometime in the 2013/2014 time frame. I'm quite surprised Baskin Robbins lasted as long as it did here, as it's been years since I've seen a stand alone BR location (as every one I know of now is combined with a Dunkin Donuts). Scoops4U came along shortly after Baskin Robbins closed, and from the looks of things, didn't change much.

     Unfortunately, Scoops4U didn't last long, closing sometime in 2017 from what I can scrape up online. When Willer's Supermarket opened in late 2017, they took over the old Baskin Robbins/Scoops4U storefront, converting the space into a sandwich shop called El Punto Sandwiches de Willers. Even though the place is a sandwich shop now, and the "Baskin Robbins" part of the labelscar has been painted over, Willer's never bothered to take down the "Ice Cream" part of the mall sign. While I'm not sure if El Punto sells ice cream, it certainly doesn't seem like ice cream is their focus. However, they seem to be in no rush to change or remove this sign, which is something I'm not going to complain about. That sign is original to the mall's opening in 1980, and upon the mall's opening, all the mall tenants would have had matching signs in that same font above each of their respective storefronts.

     Even though there's no ice cream to be found at Mill Creek Mall anymore, we still have our fair share of 1980's aesthetics to see in the west corridor.

     Like Baskin Robbins, Kissimmee Optical (pictured here) was also an original tenant to Mill Creek Mall, and probably one of the only, if not the only, original tenant left within the mall itself. Since this place dates back so far, it too retains its original sign in the mall corridor, the only other original sign besides the "Ice Cream" one to survive into the 2020's.

     I really like all the natural lighting these skylights bring in, in addition to the design of them. These skylights let in so much natural light, there isn't any need to turn on the corridor lights throughout the day. It's bright enough as it is!

     Since my 2020 photos were taken on a Sunday afternoon, they don't help to make the mall look any livelier. Since most of the in-line mall tenants who still use the corridor entrances are offices, which are closed on Sunday, there weren't too many people hanging around in the mall itself.

     I don't believe the east corridor had a hallway like this, but here on the west side, this hallway broke off from the mall corridor about halfway through, running toward the back of the building. While it seems intriguing, this hallway only leads to mailboxes for the mall tenants, a set of bathrooms, and an emergency exit.

     Rounding out our tour of Mill Creek Mall, here are a few final photos of the west corridor, looking back toward the former Publix:

     Exiting the west corridor, we find ourselves on the sidewalk leading to the mall's original Eckerd space. This photo looks back toward the mall entrance, however, spinning around...

     ...we find the front of the former Eckerd space.

     During my 2016 visit to Mill Creek Mall, the Family Dollar that had taken over this space in the years after Eckerd's relocation had closed and been sitting empty.

     Family Dollar retained the old Eckerd entryway setup during their time here.

     Peeking through the doors, we find more Family Dollar remnants than Eckerd ones, as would be exptected.

     Come 2020, the former Eckerd/Family Dollar space would become home to All Star Mattress and Furniture, a locally-owned discount furniture store.

     Stepping into the parking lot, we can see where the mall corridor sticks out from the rest of the building.

     Kissimmee Optical is located in the corner space in front of me, with the exterior entrances of the other front in-line tenants beyond that.

     While Osceola Square is interesting in its own respect, its problems were much more visible to others than its quieter counterpart on the other side of town. Even though Mill Creek Mall has stumbled a bit since it opened in 1980, it's still a viable community shopping center with a decent occupancy rate. While the mall corridor itself has become nothing more than an air-conditioned cut-through between the current anchors, it's still a funky flashback to the past, and still serves a purpose to access the office tenants located in the back portion of the mall.

     Now that I've gotten all that out of my system, are any of you hungry? I'm in a mood for pizza...

     If you're in the mood for pizza while visiting Mill Creek Mall, you're in luck! The little strip mall annex in front of Mill Creek Mall houses one of the area's Cici's Pizza locations. While Cici's status as a broken chain is debatable, the Orlando area still has a good 12 or so of these floating around - this being one of them. Ever since the closure of my local Cici's, this particular location is now the closest to where I live too. Cici's is also one of the biggest draws to Mill Creek Mall these days, as this place was packed on the Sunday afternoon I visited here! Most of the cars in the mall's lot were concentrated over here too.

     I actually have a whole post about Cici's to upload to MFR someday, providing a little more insight into Cici's time in Florida. For now though we'll take a quick look at this location in East Kissimmee. Stepping inside, here's a look into the dining room. This location, as of early 2020, still retains Cici's late 2000's design. A lot of the other Cici's franchises in Florida have upgraded to the current look, with this design becoming much less common than it once was. 

     The crowd just never stopped while I was here, with a steady stream of people at the buffet. By the time I left, most of the tables in the dining room were filled. 

     In addition to the standard Cici's stock photos, this location had a lot of local sports memorabilia hanging on the walls.

     However, I came here to eat, and eat I did! We'll wrap up this post about the Mill Creek Mall with a picture of pizza, my appetite quite good this day. From funky 80's mall architecture to Publix relics to pizza, you can get a little bit of everything at Mill Creek Mall! Well, you get a little bit of everything at Mill Creek Mall if you're a retail history fan that is. If you're a shopaholic, then you'd probably be better off driving the few extra miles to visit the Florida Mall. For me though, I'll take Mill Creek Mall over the Florida Mall any day.

As I sit here with a craving for pizza now, that's all I have for today. So until the next post,

AFB