The Closing Continues - Lucky's Market of West Melbourne

Winn-Dixie #2268 / Lucky's Market #31 / Future Winn-Dixie #2???

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

     As Lucky's Market of West Melbourne enters its final few days in business, it's time I continue my coverage of this store's closure. To start off today's post, we'll be seeing some photos from February 9, 2020 - five days into the closure process. On this day I came by here not expecting to take photos, but so much had changed since my visit a few days prior, I took photos anyway.

     Since it was relatively early in the closure process, all of the store was still accessible during this visit. Most of the change we'll be seeing was the rapid depletion of merchandise, as the first few days of Lucky's closure got people out here in mobs. On February 9, the closing discounts were only at 25% off, as noted on the banner sign out front.

     Heading inside, we'll take a quick spin around the sales floor to see how empty everything was beginning to look. As you can see in the above photo of the produce department, merchandise was going fast here.

     Five days in, frozen foods were practically wiped out, minus a few odds and ends pushed into the coolers at the very front of the aisle.

     The empty coolers continued into the dairy department...

     ...and from the empty coolers we now surround ourselves with empty shelves. On this day, employees were working to consolidate all the remaining merchandise toward the front of the aisles, leaving the backs empty like we see here.

     Leaving the grocery aisles, here's a different angle of the emptying dairy department.

     No more meat to be found here.

     As you can tell, Melbournians love themselves a good sale! In five days the town was able to deplete this store of half its merchandise. Actually, not only were people from Melbourne coming to shop at this store to stock up on deals, but people from out of town too. I overheard one couple talking to an employee during my visit, saying they came here from the Orlando area for their Lucky's fix, thinking this store was still on the go forward list as previously reported. While they weren't angry or anything to find this store closing after driving all the way out here, they were sad to find a closing sale, discovering Lucky's was leaving Florida after all.

     As I mentioned previously, the goal of my visit on this day wasn't originally for photos: it was for pizza. I really wanted to have Lucky's pizza one last time before this place closed, and I was hoping to see some out for sale. Well, I was right, Lucky's still had pizza this day - but the employee in the kitchen had pulled the last few slices from the display and discarded them a few minutes before I got there! (Just my luck!) Now, I don't know if that was the very last pizza batch to come out of this store, but it was the last time I knew it was being made here. By my next visit, the service departments had all been shut down.

     Even if I came out of this visit pizza-less, I did come out of it with 15 photos I wasn't planning on taking. Before we depart for this visit, here's a look at some more empty shelves in the bulk food department.

     Lastly for my February 9, 2020 visit, here's a photo of one of the three signs that employees made and hung by the registers. The posters were signed by all the store's employees, sharing their gratitude and memories with the community for the last three years. While this is a nice tribute, it's certainly sad to read some of the comments, as a lot of the employees were upset to be losing their "work families".

     While that completes my photos from February 9, 2020, that's not the end of my post - the closing continues in the next half of this post, with photos from a week later on February 15, 2020:

     In the span of a week, a lot had changed here at Lucky's. The closing discount had dropped to 50% off the entire store on February 12th, wiping out much of what was left in stock. A lot of the store had been closed off at this point, and the crowds were dying down as there wasn't much left to buy. For the first time in ages, I was able to pull into this parking lot and see it half empty (the way it always was when Winn-Dixie was here).

     With the selection of merchandise shrinking, parts of the store were getting blocked off. Customers were no longer allowed in the left half of the store, including the areas where produce, frozen foods, and the dry grocery aisles were.

     Emptiness was the only thing to be found in the produce department anymore...

     Displays and baskets of what little grocery merchandise was left were being used to block off the empty parts of the store from customers. As you can tell, this place isn't looking so "glorious" anymore!

     During my visit, the Ramen bar was the only service department left open at this point in the closing. The ramen was also the only item excluded from the store's 50% off discount too, marked down from its original $9.99 to $7. $7 still seemed a bit pricey to me for ramen, so I didn't try it (so I guess I'll never know how "gourmet ramen" stacks up against its 39 cent counterpart!).

     Looping around to the back of the ramen bar, here's a look at what grocery merchandise remained. Part of a grocery aisle was left open to house the remaining food items, which were mostly canned goods, jars, and sauces. There was a cooler left running for some leftover Thanksgiving turkeys that must have been pulled from the back, as well as a half aisle of beer and wine next to the cooler.

     Here's a close-up shot of what little dry grocery products remained, with the old rotisserie chicken display being used to block off the rest of the aisle.

     Like the left half of the store, the back right corner (home to all the service departments) was also blocked off from customer access. 

    In bulk foods, the bulk barrels also made for a good secondary use: barricades.

     The Kitchen was all lit up, but there was nothing left to cook.

     Wicker baskets of random merchandise blocked off access to The Kitchen, with the beer corner peeking out in the background.

     Since the kitchen is closed, we'll follow the wicker baskets to the apothecary department...

     The apothecary was the most well-stocked department left in the store, still full of a decent selection of vitamins, supplements, and such. As the closing got further to the end, apothecary items were about all that remained in the store.

     Since there wasn't much left to pick from, we'll finish up this post with a look across the front end as we begin to exit.

     As we head out, we'll also see the cafe had been shut down and roped off by this point in the closing. Sip and stroll is no more here in West Melbourne (unless Winn-Dixie plans to bring that back, as they did experiment with a Sip and Stroll experience of their own at a store up near Jacksonville last year). However, I can't see Winn-Dixie bringing too many fancy extras like Sip and Stroll to West Melbourne, as good of an idea as it may be to win back Lucky's former shoppers (many of which are bitter about Winn-Dixie returning to this location). Who knows though, as I'm not sure how much or how little Winn-Dixie plans to do with the 5 Lucky's stores they purchased. That's one of the big reasons why this whole situation is so intriguing to me, as seeing a new Winn-Dixie is so rare!

     So that's all I have from Lucky's for today, but before we depart, Lucky's themselves has some inspirational words for us taped to the door...

     "Don't be sad. Be happy it happened 💗," reads the handwritten sign taped to the door. I couldn't have phrased that any better myself, and I feel this phrase could apply to so much in life, not just Lucky's closing. While Lucky's wasn't in Florida for long, they were in West Melbourne for three years, three years we'll (hopefully) never forget. While many would have loved to see Lucky's here for much longer than that, we should be grateful for the three years we did get to spend with Lucky's. Instead of dwelling over the closing, we should think about all the good times from the past - the people, the experiences, the pizza, etc. So many times people want to turn to the negative, when really, we should try to find the positives in a situation like this. That's what the West Melbourne Lucky's wants us to do, and do I shall (and hopefully you guys do too).

     While that's all I have for today's post, more coverage from the closing of the West Melbourne Lucky's will be coming shortly. I have at least one more closure photoset to come to MFR, and potentially one more after that if I can time a visit right for the very last day. The last day will more than likely occur before the planned date of February 25th, as there was hardly anything left in here during my last visit. If you're keeping tabs on this store, the actual final day will be posted to the store's Facebook page the morning of when it will occur, so keep an eye out for that in the coming days. (Update - Lucky's Market of West Melbourne closed on February 21, 2020, four days earlier than expected).

Anyway, that's all I have for now. So until the next post,

AFB

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