New Ralphs/Kroger Interior

[SamSpade]

Maybe this is an especially bad application of it, but really they took what was always a very nice store (even though it mysteriously was only signed as FF) and made it feel a thousand times worse. It gets like a negative 10 on a scale of 1 to 5. Really that bad. Even worse remodel than that Menifee store. Probably the worst grocery remodel I've seen in a decade.

Wow. I found photos online from September. I suspect in house this would be the fresh for everyone decor as that is their current slogan and what you see behind the checkstands walking out.

I also do not care for it and the flooring in this location looks especially bad. My dad always says people do not notice ceilings or floors in a store, maybe he is right. I do not understand all the paint with applied borders, faux wood on aisle marker toppers, and even in produce.

The one sign that's kinda fun from the photos I saw was the "Experience the Fresh Fare" at the front of produce, but I don't even get why what looks like a mainline grocer with a bit more Asian produce than most has this branding. Also, I think any graphic designer would cringe at how many type faces and colors and sizes are being used in this decor.

I know it probably seems dated, sort of like Safeway's "Ingredients for Life," but I really felt that QFC, Fred Meyer food departments, Smith's Marketplace in Millcreek UT, and Ralph's (where it started) all looked nice in the "Northwest Best/Fresh Fare/etc." lighting and perimeter decor.

[storewanderer]

I just found photos online and what a disaster of an interior. It kind of reminds me of the Save Mart/Lucky remodels but those look much more professional.

The walls look so bad. They'd be better off leaving them plain.

Complete bastardization of "Fresh Fare." May be a good interior for a store called Fresh 4 Less. Or Ruler Foods. Actually, it's too tacky for Ruler.

Yes all those stores with the older Fresh Fare interior looked nice; simple and felt somewhat upscale. They probably should have kept that around.

They may want to look to Wal Mart for some help on how to make a nice looking grocery wall decor interior, the current Wal Mart wall decor remodels look great.

[ClownLoach]

I just found photos online and what a disaster of an interior. It kind of reminds me of the Save Mart/Lucky remodels but those look much more professional.

The walls look so bad. They'd be better off leaving them plain.

Complete bastardization of "Fresh Fare." May be a good interior for a store called Fresh 4 Less. Or Ruler Foods. Actually, it's too tacky for Ruler.

Yes all those stores with the older Fresh Fare interior looked nice; simple and felt somewhat upscale. They probably should have kept that around.

They may want to look to Wal Mart for some help on how to make a nice looking grocery wall decor interior, the current Wal Mart wall decor remodels look great.

If this closed and was converted to Walmart it would look like they had dramatically upgraded the decor to make it more upscale.

It's even worse in person. It's like the people laying out World Market attacked a Ralphs with weird, bad sight lines and blocked views. A color blind person would do better with color. Hands down the worst Ralphs layout in the chain. And it was fine before.

It is an epic fail.

[Bluelightspecial]

Safeway has remodeled some stores in the San Francisco Bay Area into the Modern Decor and some into Pavilions decor near the San Ramon area.

There are many unremodeled stores still that have Lifestyle Decor. In fact, in Pleasant Hill, California there is a large and busy store that has the original oldest version of Lifestyle. Only recently did they change the refrigerators. The store still has the ancient 80s Safeway logo on the front of the store. It was never replaced. I know it has old fashioned neon inside because one day the plastic panels fell off and you could see neon inside.

Safeway has been slow to remodel stores and even the former Flagship in Dublin, California was only remodeled a couple of years ago. Even then, the worn and damaged Lifestyle floors are still unchanged.

I haven't seen the new Ralph's decor, but I got to tell you it can't be worse than the god awful "colorful" minor paint an patch jobs Albertsons is doing on some of the old Safeway Lifestyle stores. They basically leave the old lifestyle graphics up and just paint them some ugly neon color. They don't replace the wall tile in the service departments which is beige and looks out of place and date with this "colorful" decor. They don't do anything with the floors. I walked into one in Glendale after a "remodel" and the floor tile was peeling up. In my opinion The Modern decor is much better, but Albertsons definitely does a lot on the cheap except for a few stores. It reminds me of when Safeway would spend most of their money in a few stores and especially in one division- NorCal.

[ClownLoach]

Safeway has remodeled some stores in the San Francisco Bay Area into the Modern Decor and some into Pavilions decor near the San Ramon area.

There are many unremodeled stores still that have Lifestyle Decor. In fact, in Pleasant Hill, California there is a large and busy store that has the original oldest version of Lifestyle. Only recently did they change the refrigerators. The store still has the ancient 80s Safeway logo on the front of the store. It was never replaced. I know it has old fashioned neon inside because one day the plastic panels fell off and you could see neon inside.

Safeway has been slow to remodel stores and even the former Flagship in Dublin, California was only remodeled a couple of years ago. Even then, the worn and damaged Lifestyle floors are still unchanged.

I haven't seen the new Ralph's decor, but I got to tell you it can't be worse than the god awful "colorful" minor paint an patch jobs Albertsons is doing on some of the old Safeway Lifestyle stores. They basically leave the old lifestyle graphics up and just paint them some ugly neon color. They don't replace the wall tile in the service departments which is beige and looks out of place and date with this "colorful" decor. They don't do anything with the floors. I walked into one in Glendale after a "remodel" and the floor tile was peeling up. In my opinion The Modern decor is much better, but Albertsons definitely does a lot on the cheap except for a few stores. It reminds me of when Safeway would spend most of their money in a few stores and especially in one division- NorCal.

Yeah, I don't get the reasoning behind repaint lifestyle. I think it's an attempt to brighten up what are otherwise dark and dingy stores, but the color selection is very bad. Somehow the same colors work fine with the full colorful lifestyle decor, but not the original lifestyle.

I've seen far worse than the lifestyle repaint though. They still have the predecessor to lifestyle in Murrieta where they just painted over all the wallpaper in plain white paint and then painted the letters beige leaving all the faded wall decor. All the fixtures and equipment are rotting. The worst Vons in California, yet it's maybe 20 years old at the most.

[storewanderer]

Safeway has remodeled some stores in the San Francisco Bay Area into the Modern Decor and some into Pavilions decor near the San Ramon area.

There are many unremodeled stores still that have Lifestyle Decor. In fact, in Pleasant Hill, California there is a large and busy store that has the original oldest version of Lifestyle. Only recently did they change the refrigerators. The store still has the ancient 80s Safeway logo on the front of the store. It was never replaced. I know it has old fashioned neon inside because one day the plastic panels fell off and you could see neon inside.

Safeway has been slow to remodel stores and even the former Flagship in Dublin, California was only remodeled a couple of years ago. Even then, the worn and damaged Lifestyle floors are still unchanged.

I haven't seen the new Ralph's decor, but I got to tell you it can't be worse than the god awful "colorful" minor paint an patch jobs Albertsons is doing on some of the old Safeway Lifestyle stores. They basically leave the old lifestyle graphics up and just paint them some ugly neon color. They don't replace the wall tile in the service departments which is beige and looks out of place and date with this "colorful" decor. They don't do anything with the floors. I walked into one in Glendale after a "remodel" and the floor tile was peeling up. In my opinion The Modern decor is much better, but Albertsons definitely does a lot on the cheap except for a few stores. It reminds me of when Safeway would spend most of their money in a few stores and especially in one division- NorCal.

I don't know why they even bother with the Lifestyle repaints. And they did that cheap effort to some good stores too like Bishop. That store makes so much money if you think you need to remodel it (not really any real competition and the store looked fine physically; its appearance issues have been sloppy execution/bad service/bad store operations- not a problem with the color of the walls), just do at least a semi-proper remodel, which I guess the Modern qualifies as.

But I think the Lifestyle repaints look better than the Google Maps photos I saw of this Anaheim Hills Ralphs from the second half of 2023.

There is peeling or damaged flooring in the Modern remodels too especially around refrigeration. One store they tried to replace some of it with new Lifestyle tan flooring but they don't match and even the "finish" is off (new floor has a flat finish, old floor has more of a glossy finish).

[storewanderer]

I think I found something worse than this Ralphs interior in Anaheim Hills.

Go to Google Maps and go to the Save Mart in Clovis on Herndon. This is a former Ralphs. Save Mart did a cheap wall repaint when they took over. They later did a more formal remodel around 2021. Plenty of before/after photos. Cannot believe how bad the 2021 remodel looks.

I think that may look even worse than the other former Ralphs there in Fresno, a Franchise F4L, at Chestnut. They just threw yellow paint everywhere. It looks... like F4L. At least it is consistent color throughout the store. That Chestnut store performed so poorly as Ralphs. Price price price... Probably would do just fine in the current Ralphs model that Kroger has...

[SoCalShopper1023]

I came across a Vons in Anaheim Hills, that was previously a Pavilions and converted to the Vons banner sometime in the past couple of years.

This store appears to have had the “Pavilions Lifestyle” decor (that most Pavilions had at one point before they went with the standard Lifestyle remodels)

When it converted to Vons it got the Colorful Lifestyle repaint on top of the Pavilions styled signage. They didn’t even bother changing the Aisle markers, as it still has the Pavilions styled aisle markers (from what I see on Yelp). The store looks so mismatched and tacky in my opinion. This is probably one of the laziest “remodels” that I’ve seen.

[ClownLoach]

I think I found something worse than this Ralphs interior in Anaheim Hills.

Go to Google Maps and go to the Save Mart in Clovis on Herndon. This is a former Ralphs. Save Mart did a cheap wall repaint when they took over. They later did a more formal remodel around 2021. Plenty of before/after photos. Cannot believe how bad the 2021 remodel looks.

Atrocious. But about the same as the San Luis Obispo Ralphs off Madonna Rd. Same ugly repaint of the walls with bad colors and stickers added, just in the Ralphs "neighborhood" style.

[storewanderer]

I think I found something worse than this Ralphs interior in Anaheim Hills.

Go to Google Maps and go to the Save Mart in Clovis on Herndon. This is a former Ralphs. Save Mart did a cheap wall repaint when they took over. They later did a more formal remodel around 2021. Plenty of before/after photos. Cannot believe how bad the 2021 remodel looks.

Atrocious. But about the same as the San Luis Obispo Ralphs off Madonna Rd. Same ugly repaint of the walls with bad colors and stickers added, just in the Ralphs "neighborhood" style.

I don't know why they even bothered with remodeling... may as well have kept the early 2000's look...