Lucky's Market spaces may not be standard sized or particularly upscale, but they are certainly a lot newer and more modern than many of WD's own locations. I think a few of those are what these newer, smaller WD stores are going into.pseudo3d wrote: ↑January 31st, 2021, 3:51 amBetween the Baton Rouge and New Orleans market, Winn-Dixie and Albertsons have both lost stores, the former faring the worse.
For the past few years, Albertsons (despite some store pruning) has been rolling out some attractive new-builds with nice features. Winn-Dixie's biggest "new openings" from what I can see is moving into Lucky's Market spaces, which are neither standard size stores or particularly upscale.
It also appears WD is trying to brand itself as more of Florida's supermarket in their newer openings. So I think they may be trying to focus more on their roots, if it means anything.
I would be interested to know if in other states what exactly some of the oldest WD stores are like, and just how old they are. I'm pretty sure the oldest stores remaining open in Florida either have the "cheap white" early 2000s decor or they have the 90s pastel and neon Marketplace decor. I don't believe there are any remaining stores with 80s chrome and neon. In AL I'm pretty sure I've heard of one or two stores closing in last 5 years, that still had some kind of 70s or early 80s decor that predated even the 80s chrome and neon, and had never been updated up until closing.
When I was a kid in the early 90s where we lived, we would shop at a WD that had been built about 1973 and seemed to have the original decor. I remember these funky green tile backsplashes in the bakery and green walls in produce with these plastic 70s-mod curvy produce displays.
The meat dept had the Beef People sign with a faceless man in a cowboy hat (similar to the 80s decor). There was also this same man but in a baker's hat in the bakery. That store was replaced in 1996 by a new Marketplace store, having the pastel and neon decor.
That store later was damaged by hurricanes and reopened with a very rare decor in 2005 that resembled the "cheap white" decor but was a lot more colorful and slightly more upscale. That style of decor no longer exists, it was only used in the handful of new build WD stores that were built from 2000 up until the 2005 bankruptcy. So it was very rare to begin with and all of those stores have since been updated to newer styles.
In the town I live in now, we had one mid 70s WD which also had the funky tiled floors and backsplashes in the bakery. But it had been updated to the chrome and neon decor in the 80s. It closed in the early 2000s. On the other side of town, the WD was built in the early 80s with chrome and neon decor. That got the cheap white update in about 2003, and then the full late 2000s remodel in late 2008.
WD also acquired the Sweetbay which remained the same up until about two years ago when it got the red and white remodel, which was very minimalistic.
A lot of the smaller towns in Florida do not have a Publix, only a Save A Lot and Walmart. When WD acquired Sweetbay they would usually operate both stores in these towns simultaneously at first but the FTC ruled that in some of these towns that there was not enough competition for WD to trade fairly. So in general, WD would close their original store and continue to operate the Sweetbay. (Probably because Sweetbay stores were almost always more up to date than WD's existing stores, which largely dated to the 90s Marketplace era in these towns).
It also didn't make sense from a logistical standpoint to operate both stores as they were essentially competing with themselves. I know in one town where the two existed right across the block from each other, and both operated for quite a few months!
I know in the town south of me, the existing WD was in the town proper but the Sweetbay was about 10 minutes south, in what I consider basically to be "middle of nowhereville". But there is a big retirement and RV park right behind it. WD again ended up closing its in town store and kept the former Sweetbay. This has given Publix nearly total dominance in that town with only a Save A Lot in the former WD as competition. Yet the WD also gets a lot of business because it's more convenient for that retirement community and also there's nothing on that end of town except Dollar General. LOL