Frys Signature Marketplace-Tatum/Shea- Remodel

[storewanderer]

Definitely did not see a candy apple case, and they were still in the process of doing various remodel tasks when I was in the store including just putting up the decor but didn't have it finished yet.

The bar and lounge space was there when I was there and yes it is quite large. They need better prepared food to support that.

[rwsandiego]

...Disappointed to see the ugly wannabe-Whole Foods "Barnwood" decor being installed again. If the merger goes through both Barnwood and Honeycomb need to get killed off and replaced with a updated version of Pavilions ASAP.

Funny you said this, because walking around the store I thought "hmm, poor attempt at copying Whole Foods. The upscale Safeway decor would look great in here."

Which leads me to wonder why Albertsons can design stores that look good while Kroger keeps turning out schlock like this? Even the repainted Lifestyle 2.0 stores look fresh.

RE: Candied apples - I think that store does a rotation of seasonal treats. Given we are eight days from Christmas I'm wondering when candied apples will step aside an Christmas-themed treats will take their place.

[storewanderer]

...Disappointed to see the ugly wannabe-Whole Foods "Barnwood" decor being installed again. If the merger goes through both Barnwood and Honeycomb need to get killed off and replaced with a updated version of Pavilions ASAP.

Funny you said this, because walking around the store I thought "hmm, poor attempt at copying Whole Foods. The upscale Safeway decor would look great in here."

Which leads me to wonder why Albertsons can design stores that look good while Kroger keeps turning out schlock like this? Even the repainted Lifestyle 2.0 stores look fresh.

RE: Candied apples - I think that store does a rotation of seasonal treats. Given we are eight days from Christmas I'm wondering when candied apples will step aside an Christmas-themed treats will take their place.

I thought this decor looked pretty good for Kroger... but it wasn't all up yet when I was there... emphasis on the "for Kroger" part.

How many Lifestyle 2.0 repaints have you seen in person? The ones I've seen in person do not look fresh at all. Sideways move from just keeping Lifestyle as it was. They do not look fresh at all. They look very tired. The floors, checkstands, restrooms, perimeter departments, display cases, are untouched and often somewhat beat up. Colors clash quite badly on the walls vs. the tan on floors and some of the tan toned tiles behind perimeter departments since they don't replace any of that. The stores that get "colorful lifestyle" tend to replace tiles in prep areas and put in additional new displays in some of the departments so it addresses some of those issues (but the tan floors remain usually).

I actually think instead of cheap wall repaints these chains should focus more on maintaining their fixtures, displays, checkstands, carts, floors, etc. After addressing general upkeep of those items then look at the cheap wall repaint. Of course with Kroger you get ugly decor and beat up store all too often. The largest most successful grocers have pretty ugly looking stores (Wal Mart, Aldi, Kroger...) from a wall decor perspective. The latest Wal Mart decor is nicer on the grocery side though but in 2023 they stopped remodels in my area for some reason.

[ClownLoach]

...Disappointed to see the ugly wannabe-Whole Foods "Barnwood" decor being installed again. If the merger goes through both Barnwood and Honeycomb need to get killed off and replaced with a updated version of Pavilions ASAP.

Funny you said this, because walking around the store I thought "hmm, poor attempt at copying Whole Foods. The upscale Safeway decor would look great in here."

Which leads me to wonder why Albertsons can design stores that look good while Kroger keeps turning out schlock like this? Even the repainted Lifestyle 2.0 stores look fresh.

RE: Candied apples - I think that store does a rotation of seasonal treats. Given we are eight days from Christmas I'm wondering when candied apples will step aside an Christmas-themed treats will take their place.

It's awful. They can't make up their minds about what they want their "Fresh Fare" line to be. Is it a Whole Foods competitor? Or a Bristol Farms/Gelsons etc. competitor? Guess what - neither of the newest decor packages are competitive whichever way you go. I didn't see any die cut cardboard signs on the social media videos being shared but I'll bet they have those too. I can't believe they're expanding the use of it. They must like it because they basically are a repaint, just paint over the existing graphics and signage then either paint or attach new letters. Screw cheap barnwood panels into the walls elsewhere. Only real work is the herringbone tile behind service departments, and they even reuse the aisle hangers by just changing the top graphic card to show the barnwood. It's a cheaper and crappier remodel than Safeway lifestyle repaint.

[rwsandiego]

...Disappointed to see the ugly wannabe-Whole Foods "Barnwood" decor being installed again. If the merger goes through both Barnwood and Honeycomb need to get killed off and replaced with a updated version of Pavilions ASAP.

Funny you said this, because walking around the store I thought "hmm, poor attempt at copying Whole Foods. The upscale Safeway decor would look great in here."

Which leads me to wonder why Albertsons can design stores that look good while Kroger keeps turning out schlock like this? Even the repainted Lifestyle 2.0 stores look fresh.

RE: Candied apples - I think that store does a rotation of seasonal treats. Given we are eight days from Christmas I'm wondering when candied apples will step aside an Christmas-themed treats will take their place.

It's awful. They can't make up their minds about what they want their "Fresh Fare" line to be. Is it a Whole Foods competitor? Or a Bristol Farms/Gelsons etc. competitor? Guess what - neither of the newest decor packages are competitive whichever way you go. I didn't see any die cut cardboard signs on the social media videos being shared but I'll bet they have those too. I can't believe they're expanding the use of it. They must like it because they basically are a repaint, just paint over the existing graphics and signage then either paint or attach new letters. Screw cheap barnwood panels into the walls elsewhere. Only real work is the herringbone tile behind service departments, and they even reuse the aisle hangers by just changing the top graphic card to show the barnwood. It's a cheaper and crappier remodel than Safeway lifestyle repaint.

I didn't see any cardboard cutouts when I was at the store. They did extensive construction work, though. The bar/Starbucks is brand new. The bar was located behind the Murray's Cheese counter and the Starbucks was up against the west wall.

[storewanderer]

It's awful. They can't make up their minds about what they want their "Fresh Fare" line to be. Is it a Whole Foods competitor? Or a Bristol Farms/Gelsons etc. competitor? Guess what - neither of the newest decor packages are competitive whichever way you go. I didn't see any die cut cardboard signs on the social media videos being shared but I'll bet they have those too. I can't believe they're expanding the use of it. They must like it because they basically are a repaint, just paint over the existing graphics and signage then either paint or attach new letters. Screw cheap barnwood panels into the walls elsewhere. Only real work is the herringbone tile behind service departments, and they even reuse the aisle hangers by just changing the top graphic card to show the barnwood. It's a cheaper and crappier remodel than Safeway lifestyle repaint.

Popular opinion here seems to conclude this interior is cheaper and looks worse than a Safeway lifestyle repaint. I don't know, but I can tell you these Kroger remodels are a lot more disruptive than a Safeway lifestyle repaint, so with the end product getting this cold of a reception they definitely are putting themselves out for not much benefit... Every time I look at their ugly interiors I wonder how much my opinion of the interior would change if it had an 00's Ralphs floor tile thing going on- not necessarily the same colors/patterns Ralphs used but at least a similar thing where the center store had mostly white tiles with a few colored accents, frozen had a nice criss cross brown type tile thing going on, and the area around most of the perimeter had a smaller version of the criss cross brown type tile thing going on immediately surrounding any refrigeration.

Kroger has been reusing aisle hangers in remodels for a while now.

[ClownLoach]

Funny you said this, because walking around the store I thought "hmm, poor attempt at copying Whole Foods. The upscale Safeway decor would look great in here."

Which leads me to wonder why Albertsons can design stores that look good while Kroger keeps turning out schlock like this? Even the repainted Lifestyle 2.0 stores look fresh.

RE: Candied apples - I think that store does a rotation of seasonal treats. Given we are eight days from Christmas I'm wondering when candied apples will step aside an Christmas-themed treats will take their place.

It's awful. They can't make up their minds about what they want their "Fresh Fare" line to be. Is it a Whole Foods competitor? Or a Bristol Farms/Gelsons etc. competitor? Guess what - neither of the newest decor packages are competitive whichever way you go. I didn't see any die cut cardboard signs on the social media videos being shared but I'll bet they have those too. I can't believe they're expanding the use of it. They must like it because they basically are a repaint, just paint over the existing graphics and signage then either paint or attach new letters. Screw cheap barnwood panels into the walls elsewhere. Only real work is the herringbone tile behind service departments, and they even reuse the aisle hangers by just changing the top graphic card to show the barnwood. It's a cheaper and crappier remodel than Safeway lifestyle repaint.

I didn't see any cardboard cutouts when I was at the store. They did extensive construction work, though. The bar/Starbucks is brand new. The bar was located behind the Murray's Cheese counter and the Starbucks was up against the west wall.

Many of the letters on the wall in the same decor package at Ralphs are actually die cut painted cardboard, something even Walmart tried and stopped doing. It's not immediately obvious but once you see it you can't unsee how cheap it looks for a "premium format" decor package. Also the smaller wall decor elements were cardboard. My guess is that they are cardboard in meats/seafood and dairy unless they changed to painted letters or something different for this store.

It seems that Kroger does more work to reset the aisles themselves than work on the facility in recent remodels. Nearly everything moves in the aisles and the assortment changes. In some remodels they break out natural and organic into separate planograms in each aisle which I think they did here based on Instagram videos. In others they don't separate the natural and organic, but create some valleys with dump tables and bulk displays which I can't stand. They also have been shifting aisles to install pallet racking type fixtures for water and paper goods. And they're lowering aisles in high shrink areas like liquor or healthcare in some stores. But in most cases they're not even changing out the old and damaged tile behind service counters, some like San Luis Obispo get repaint only graphics over very old decor packages where drywall work should have been done to flatten the walls (like the old oval Ralphs signs on the walls in their retired Tuscan decor).