ClownLoach wrote: ↑December 20th, 2021, 5:50 pm
Yuck. That combination of dark lifestyle ceiling that isn't repainted, plus the mediocre strip lights with removed diffusers, plus the scaled down version of the Pavilions decor which is mostly using wallpaper prints instead of actual letters is just awful. I guess we now have the Pavilions-lite package? The original new Pavilions decor does clash in design from department to department but at least the gross majority of it was textured walls and fabricated signage. Because of the numerous configurations of Pavilions stores you would see different design elements between stores. And the quality of signage was excellent - cut hardwoods, hand textured walls on the Patisserie, etc. Along with premium fixtures such as the humidity controlled "misting" meat and seafood cases which I'm guessing aren't present in this Safeway. This is barely a step up from the newer Walmart stores that hang printed foamboard in front of the walls, clipped together with plastic. And I can't believe that they even use the Pavilions slogan on the walls of this Safeway ("A World of Difference"). Were they too cheap to have a graphic designer photoshop in the current Safeway slogan? (Which apparently is becoming "Perfecting The Art Of Fresh")
Fixing the ceiling colors seems to be one of the last steps in their remodels. So we may still see them go and fix the ceiling colors.
This store looks really uneven. Some of the areas of the store look nice enough- pharmacy, deli. Seafood looks terrible.
As far as posting the Pavilions slogan in the Safeway location- I wonder if they are going to rebrand this store to Pavilions? Given they seem to have put signs up that have the Safeway logo, I think the answer to that is no.
Perfecting the Art of Fresh is a laughable slogan for Safeway as their fresh departments are quite marginal and not worth the prices being charged. Bought a cake there last week- awful. The white cake was so dense it was more like a yeast roll and the flavor was not good either. The saving grace was the real whipped cream used on the cake which is definitely above average. Not sure what has happened but Safeway seems to have switched to a different base cake supplier in the past six months and the base cake is terrible. They kept using higher quality frostings but it is all for not if the base cake is terrible. I hate to say it but Smiths has better cakes.
The Safeway store in San Ramon had the ceiling tiles spray painted white. It looks much brighter now. Other Safeway stores in nearby cities just got the new LED lights and ceiling tiles are being spray painted white as well.
These stores may be next for remodels. However, those might be getting the cheap version of the Florida decor.
ClownLoach wrote: ↑December 20th, 2021, 5:50 pm...And I can't believe that they even use the Pavilions slogan on the walls of this Safeway ("A World of Difference"). Were they too cheap to have a graphic designer photoshop in the current Safeway slogan? (Which apparently is becoming "Perfecting The Art Of Fresh")
Keep in mind the store was remodeled two years ago, i.e., before the current slogan was developed. The pics are dated November 2020, but the store already had that decor package when I tried to get a flu shot there in Autumn 2019.
magowan wrote: ↑December 4th, 2021, 7:58 am
Encinitas Vons just redone last month from Phase 1 Lifestyle - and got the cursive font colorful Lifestyle - not the seemingly more recent stark Florida package. Floors being torn up not clear what the end result will be but ceiling still the distinct soft Lifestyle beige.
That Encinitas store is more of a downscale shopper and very close to a busy Ralph’s but rarely busy so was surprised it even got remodeled.
To make that more strange the Solana Beach Vons down the road got the seemingly newer Florida package at some point with concrete floors but kept the lifestyle beige ceiling. Very upscale clientele for this one, usually well trafficked.
Any other Socal remodels get cursive instead of Florida this year?
The Vons on North El Camino Real in Carlsbad (near Highway 78) got Colorful Lifestyle this year. It previously had the 2004 Lifestyle interior.
The Albertsons on Melrose Dr in Vista also got Colorful Lifestyle earlier this year. It was remodeled out of the 21 year old Blue & Green Awnings interior. That interior dates back to when Albertsons bought this store from Lucky (Albertsons remodeled it after the marriage with Lucky).
Then there is the Wildomar Albertsons I mentioned in another topic. That is a 2002 build store that got remodeled into Colorful Lifestyle.
The Downey Albertsons also got Colorful Lifestyle. I'm sure this was the last Albertsons to be built in Los Angeles County (built in 2005). It previously had the Industrial Circus interior.
Thanks for the update - sounds like they're either more actively differentiating packages by affluence of the local market or retiring Florida from Socal altogether
Not impressed with what I see of the upscale Pavilions decor that may be rolling out at the flagship San Ramon store
The example I see in Scottsdale has that "made in Boise" kind of faux distressed overly homespun look - think Chip and Joanna Gaines, houses with "live, love, laugh" quotes in frames on the wall.
ClownLoach wrote: ↑December 20th, 2021, 5:50 pm
Yuck. That combination of dark lifestyle ceiling that isn't repainted, plus the mediocre strip lights with removed diffusers, plus the scaled down version of the Pavilions decor which is mostly using wallpaper prints instead of actual letters is just awful. I guess we now have the Pavilions-lite package? The original new Pavilions decor does clash in design from department to department but at least the gross majority of it was textured walls and fabricated signage. Because of the numerous configurations of Pavilions stores you would see different design elements between stores. And the quality of signage was excellent - cut hardwoods, hand textured walls on the Patisserie, etc. Along with premium fixtures such as the humidity controlled "misting" meat and seafood cases which I'm guessing aren't present in this Safeway. This is barely a step up from the newer Walmart stores that hang printed foamboard in front of the walls, clipped together with plastic. And I can't believe that they even use the Pavilions slogan on the walls of this Safeway ("A World of Difference"). Were they too cheap to have a graphic designer photoshop in the current Safeway slogan? (Which apparently is becoming "Perfecting The Art Of Fresh")
Fixing the ceiling colors seems to be one of the last steps in their remodels. So we may still see them go and fix the ceiling colors.
This store looks really uneven. Some of the areas of the store look nice enough- pharmacy, deli. Seafood looks terrible.
As far as posting the Pavilions slogan in the Safeway location- I wonder if they are going to rebrand this store to Pavilions? Given they seem to have put signs up that have the Safeway logo, I think the answer to that is no.
Perfecting the Art of Fresh is a laughable slogan for Safeway as their fresh departments are quite marginal and not worth the prices being charged. Bought a cake there last week- awful. The white cake was so dense it was more like a yeast roll and the flavor was not good either. The saving grace was the real whipped cream used on the cake which is definitely above average. Not sure what has happened but Safeway seems to have switched to a different base cake supplier in the past six months and the base cake is terrible. They kept using higher quality frostings but it is all for not if the base cake is terrible. I hate to say it but Smiths has better cakes.
They're putting up those "Perfecting The Art of Fresh" branding signs all over Southern California right now and I agree that they need to rethink the message versus the product being sold before they go wide with the new slogan.
And SoCal is still getting Florida decor unfortunately. They just finished destroying the uniquely decorated store on Ocean Blvd. In Long Beach that used to be called 'The Market By Vons' and installed the Florida decor. That store is in a very upscale neighborhood and should have received the Pavilions decor and probably a rebrand however it is a tiny old building that I believe was a very old Safeway, it's maybe 12K Sq ft. But it seems that they are moving towards taking existing lifestyle stores with the "arched" signage and just repainting everything with colors along with a center store reset - the so called fake Colorful Lifestyle.
Alpha8472 wrote: ↑December 20th, 2021, 8:00 pm
The Safeway store in San Ramon had the ceiling tiles spray painted white. It looks much brighter now. Other Safeway stores in nearby cities just got the new LED lights and ceiling tiles are being spray painted white as well.
These stores may be next for remodels. However, those might be getting the cheap version of the Florida decor.
I think there is a energy rebate in PG&E served markets for replacing light fixtures with high efficiency LED which may be driving that work. That should at least give some consistency to the stores. The new LED strip fixtures actually don't look bad when they all match and are installed centered down the aisles properly. Down in SoCal we still have most Vons and Albertsons with a patchwork quilt of light fixtures from the lifestyle "brightening" projects. Even some Albertsons got similar work here. The worst I have seen though is in Centralia, WA where wildly mismatched fixtures butt up against one another, entire grids of dead spotlight fixtures are hanging with the cords cut off dangling in deli and apparently have been that way since Florida decor was installed.
For the most part,Sacramento region Safeways are still predominantly Lifestyle interior in one form or another(Dewey and Manzanita definitely have a later version.).The 2 newest ones(Curtis Park and EDH/Serrano)have what has been described as the Modern interior.While I haven't been in that location in roughly 3 years,it is my understanding that Citrus Heights(1996 Pak-n-Save conversion)recently had a 're-Grand Opening' after months of presumed remodeling out of the first version of the Lifestyle interior(I ride the bus past this store regularly to get to work and no later than this past spring I began noticing an 'open during construction' banner on the facade.).I don't know which interior it got,but I have been made aware of other interior packages in use at various ACI divisions(the Jewel Interior,the Florida package named as such despite their Sunshine State exit,and Colorful Lifestyle).
norcalriteaidclerk wrote: ↑December 21st, 2021, 6:45 pm
For the most part,Sacramento region Safeways are still predominantly Lifestyle interior in one form or another(Dewey and Manzanita definitely have a later version.).The 2 newest ones(Curtis Park and EDH/Serrano)have what has been described as the Modern interior.While I haven't been in that location in roughly 3 years,it is my understanding that Citrus Heights(1996 Pak-n-Save conversion)recently had a 're-Grand Opening' after months of presumed remodeling out of the first version of the Lifestyle interior(I ride the bus past this store regularly to get to work and no later than this past spring I began noticing an 'open during construction' banner on the facade.).I don't know which interior it got,but I have been made aware of other interior packages in use at various ACI divisions(the Jewel Interior,the Florida package named as such despite their Sunshine State exit,and Colorful Lifestyle).
It felt like Reno/Tahoe were moving full speed ahead on the Florida interior but there hasn't been any real progress this year. While the Reno location got a fairly extensive remodel and did grand reopen, Sparks got a real cheap remodel into Florida interior in late 2020 and didn't even grand reopen. South Lake Tahoe and Truckee both got very extensive remodels in 2019 and 2020 into the Florida interior.
Citrus Heights Greenback got the Florida interior. I think it downscaled the store. I wouldn't say it looks bad, exactly... but it looks like it could have been from 20 years ago in there after the remodel was done.
I visited a Safeway in affluent Alamo, California today where many former Safeway executives live. It is getting a much more extensive remodel into the expensive version of the Florida decor. The floors are being totally replaced with faux wood except for the middle aisles which are white tile. New cash checkout counters were added. The meat counter is being totally remodeled. The wine aisle is being redone with new wooden shelves. The dairy aisle has new totally clear plastic doors.
The quality of the remodel depends on the income level of the city as well as sales volume. The ceiling is totally repainted pure white. It was previously the dark brown Lifestyle color.
The Alamo and San Ramon stores are getting preferential treatment due to the former Safeway executives living nearby. Not even the Flagship Safeway in nearby Dublin got this level of remodel.
Alpha8472 wrote: ↑December 22nd, 2021, 5:08 am
I visited a Safeway in affluent Alamo, California today where many former Safeway executives live. It is getting a much more extensive remodel into the expensive version of the Florida decor. The floors are being totally replaced with faux wood except for the middle aisles which are white tile. New cash checkout counters were added. The meat counter is being totally remodeled. The wine aisle is being redone with new wooden shelves. The dairy aisle has new totally clear plastic doors.
The quality of the remodel depends on the income level of the city as well as sales volume. The ceiling is totally repainted pure white. It was previously the dark brown Lifestyle color.
The Alamo and San Ramon stores are getting preferential treatment due to the former Safeway executives living nearby. Not even the Flagship Safeway in nearby Dublin got this level of remodel.
Sounds like they are going to focus on improving the condition of upscale stores again. They already did this in SoCal where they rationalized the Pavilions fleet and remodeled the best stores while rebranding the underperformers to Vons. They've started slowly growing out Pavilions again with the long overdue Sherman Oaks replacement, Laguna Niguel store that replaced a lifestyle Vons, and Montecito store that is replacing another Vons. These are clearly highly productive stores. I wonder if they will try to implement that Pavilions branding gradually to add an upscale nameplate outside SoCal? Maybe they could use the Safeway "icon" logo next to the Pavilions name up there to help the customer understand its a better version of Safeway?
Safeway prior to the Albertsons merger had completely squandered the Pavilions name. For a decade there was virtually no difference between a Vons or a Pavilions, both had same exact lifestyle decor and layout. It must be the Albertsons management that decided to resurrect the premium nameplate concept.
