Retail Watchers

Super S wrote: ↑March 16th, 2021, 8:47 pm
The Longview, WA WinCo (where I usually shop) opened in 2005. I did notice that at some point they placed new letters above the pizza department in the font used in the newest stores, making me wonder if this was the beginning of a transition, but it still retains the Cub interior, even though this one did not open as Cub.

One of the two Reno locations did this to its pizza department fixture as well. I thought it was odd at the time and figured there must have been an issue with the fixtures and it was a one off situation. Evidently... that was not the case. Why would they do that?

storewanderer wrote: ↑March 16th, 2021, 11:47 pm

Super S wrote: ↑March 16th, 2021, 8:47 pm
The Longview, WA WinCo (where I usually shop) opened in 2005. I did notice that at some point they placed new letters above the pizza department in the font used in the newest stores, making me wonder if this was the beginning of a transition, but it still retains the Cub interior, even though this one did not open as Cub.

One of the two Reno locations did this to its pizza department fixture as well. I thought it was odd at the time and figured there must have been an issue with the fixtures and it was a one off situation. Evidently... that was not the case. Why would they do that?

Didn't.they change their pizza provider from Figaro's to a no name generic pizza name at one point?

babs wrote: ↑March 17th, 2021, 7:54 am
Didn't.they change their pizza provider from Figaro's to a no name generic pizza name at one point?

Yes, and they changed the fixtures at that time when they stopped the Figaro's agreement. They put fixtures up to whatever the generic name is (Leonardo's?) at that time which by now seems like it has been 10-15 years. In the above two stores with a more recent fixture change on the pizza, those post-Figaro's fixtures are removed too and there is giant ugly red "PIZZA" painted onto the wall in red font above the department. It is out of place since the other wall signs are all fixtures and this is painted on.

Also I was taking a hard look at the white floor at the South Reno WinCo this week and that floor is also looking rather dull and like it needs some work in certain high traffic areas around the perimeter (generally looks good on the regular product aisles). I wonder if certain maintenance has been delayed or if they are planning to do something else with the flooring going forward.

Out of the three Winco stores in Snohomish County, the Marysville store opened in 2007 and the Everett store opened in 2010, and to date both stores retain the Cub decor package. The Edmonds store appears to have opened in 2016 with a newer design package than the other two (the store also has significantly dimmer lighting than the other two), but it appears that it may have had some work done on it at some point as well. I don't shop there too often since I don't live nearby, but on the most recent visit I noticed that they have replaced all of their metal shopping carts with plastic ones some time in the past couple of months. Neither the Everett or Marysville stores have done this yet, and at both these stores the carts generally seem to be in pretty rough shape.

As for the pizza department, the Marysville store is the only one here that has one, and also seems to have its sign in the newer font while the rest of the store is in the older one.