Grocery stores offering dine-in options

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cjd
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Grocery stores offering dine-in options

Post by cjd »

Have noticed a number of supermarkets offer dine in areas now. Many independent/ethnic stores or chains do this. But it's becoming more common in larger chains as well.

Some of the larger format Publix stores are doing this, but unfortunately I was disappointed to see none of the new ones in my area have it. One store for some reason has some tables with umbrellas outside, but I've only seen it at that one location. Some Publix stores have a coffee shop as well, but I don't know that any are offering Starbucks. Possibly some of the 3 former Safeway locations are keeping theirs.

With the transformational Winn Dixie stores of the early 2010s era, they also offer this. Some of these are just a small seating area, while others have a bar with high chairs where one can eat food from deli. A few of them even offer a coffee shop and small snack bar area.

I did notice with the Winn DIxie remodel here a few months ago that they did fit in a few tables and chairs into the deli area.

To me this kind of setup can be convenient if one wants to pick up a quick bite to eat but doesn't want to sit in one's car to eat it.

I remember about 15-20 years ago an early 90s Walmart also had seating near its deli at the back of the store.
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Re: Grocery stores offering dine-in options

Post by Knight »

Supermarkets BI-LO, Harris Teeter, Ingle's, Kroger and Publix have had select store locations with cafes/seating areas.

Winn-Dixie briefly had cafes in its Marketplace stores. Marketplace store locations with Food Pavilions had them. Marketplace stores without Food Pavilions briefly had them until 2000. For the non-Food Pavilion Marketplace store locations that lost their cafes, it is not a wise idea to locate the cafe in center store with shopping traffic. Competitors that have cafes locate them on the perimeter of the store.
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Re: Grocery stores offering dine-in options

Post by wnetmacman »

Rouses Markets tries to put a cafe in each of its stores; some stores have more seating than others. Each has slightly different options. Some stores have Bayou Boys BBQ, some have pizza. They also have sushi bars. It just depends on what clientele the store will attract.
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Re: Grocery stores offering dine-in options

Post by buckguy »

there's nothing really new about this, regionally or otherwise. Kroger did this in a lot of their early Greenhouse stores. They called it Barney's Cafe and some of these Barney's had their own outside entrances. Unfortunately, they were selling stuff like Kroger's subpar fried chicken and deli products and mostly sold to employees on break. The space was re-allotted to something else when these stores were remodeled. Publix has had this in some stores since at least the 90s. Ukorps in Richmond had this in many of their stores. Independents in many places had this set-up as long ago as the 50s.
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Re: Grocery stores offering dine-in options

Post by pseudo3d »

It's definitely a thing that comes in phases, in the early 1990s, grocery stores experimented with "food courts", this ranged from just rebranded parts of the deli to full McDonald's or KFC outlets inside the store (with seating). Eventually, most of these went away, and by the late 1990s and early 2000s, the only people who ate lunch at the delis were supermarket employees, with usually a small option with low overhead like Starbucks. Now, we're going back to the full options, with items ranging from sub-leased local restaurants (365) or seating for specialized in-store eateries like barbecue or pizza.
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Re: Grocery stores offering dine-in options

Post by storewanderer »

Dine in of the 90's never went away at Hy-Vee...

Or at Wegmans.
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Re: Grocery stores offering dine-in options

Post by Brian Lutz »

Most Safeways and Fred Meyers that I've seen around here have seating in their deli areas, and Fred Meyers that lease space out to other tenants often include various other restaurants (usually mom-and-pop type places) although these are rarely connected to the actual store. One of the two QFC stores in Redmond WA also has a Panda Express at the front of the store, although this appears to be leased space similar to what Walmart does in some Supercenter stores. Aside from the usual McDonald's and Subways found in a lot of Walmart stores, I occasionally see other restaurants like a Checkers in one store I went to in Florida or a non-chain ice cream place in another store.
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