Here is a quick and somewhat recent update at one of the few remaining old-school neon grocery stores in SE Texas. In fact, the store hasn't received any major updates presumably since the store opened. Even the parking lot configuration is something we rarely see these days with parking spots in front of the store.
The checkout area doesn't have neon, but the space age lights, and ceiling above the checkouts are pure 1980's.
The old-school checkout lane numbers are still intact.
The produce department.
The green neon signage in the floral department.
Not quite neon, but the metallic finish reflects the lights.
The aisle signage is still intact as well.
Some of the neon was burnt out at the bakery.
Here in the dairy department some of the neon was out as well.
This grocery store is a trip back to the 1980's. I can only hope that it remains this way for years to come.
That is all for this quick stop at the Market Basket. More to come!
I remember when you posted photos of this store to the blog back in 2019 and it became one of my favorite posts at the blog. This Market Basket is really awesome with the 1980s design. Not only does it have neon, artificial skylights, and other stereotypical 1980s features, but it also still uses those 'tilt-up', gated carts like so many supermarkets did in the 1980s and prior.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, it looks like not much has changed since you last photographed this store. It is neat to see this retro store still hanging on unlike most of our Fiesta Marts which have been updated. While some of the decor here looks like the 1990s Winn-Dixie Marketplace decor, this Market Basket version of it has aged much better than the Winn-Dixie versions, some of which were still up until just recently when so many Winn-Dixies were closed so they could be converted into Aldi stores. While the Winn-Dixie stores looked like a tribute to The Golden Girls, this still looks sleek and cutting-edge.
West Orange certainly has some unique supermarkets. I'm not sure if you've ever been to the Kroger there down the road from this, but it is an authentic 1962-built Kroger Family Center store which was originally a full discount store and grocery operation. Obviously, these days, the West Orange Kroger is more of a traditional supermarket as the discount store stuff was eliminated in the 1980s or so, but the store still has a bit of a classic 1962-era discount store look to it kind of like a Kmart.
The grand opening ad for that Kroger (Henke's) Family Center is over on the Portal to Texas History website. Click through the several pages of this grand opening ad, you'll be surprised what Kroger was trying to sell in these stores! Link: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1530735/m1/21/
I had to check out this store on the way back from watching the tower implosion in Lake Charles. It seems like our trips to Lake Charles always seem to run late so we have missed going back to this store for a while. On the most recent reviews of the store it looks like things haven't changed in 2025.
DeletePretty much the entire shopping center there is stuck in the past. I am glad that the Market Basket has remained the same for all of these years. I haven't been to a Fiesta market since last year. I can't remember when my last visit was to tell you the truth. I think it was the Willowchase location shortly after the renovation early last year.
I haven't visited the Kroger down the street. It must be from the same era as the Kroger in old Baytown. It is good that these older locations are still going strong and haven't been replaced. It goes to show you that these locations were well placed to last for years unlike a lot of the locations they opened up while expanding rapidly in the 80's and 90's. The Kroger Marketplace locations have brought back some of the clothing, housewares, cutlery, and small appliance departments of the past. Fine jewelry and furniture were initially part of the marketplace stores, but those have been eliminated.
Those prices in the newspaper article are jaw dropping. Imagine if you made the salary, you have now back then. Almost all items in the grocery department were advertised for less than a dollar, even bulk items. Clothes for $3 or less and even cigarettes for $2.67 a carton of ten packs. I don't smoke, but I know pack prices are close to $10 now. That is a huge increase.
This has been a boom or bust year for the blog. I haven't made a lot of trips this year, but I have been trying to make the most of my trips. The blogger site is giving me issues with uploading photos on my computer, so I have to upload photos from my phone (9 at a time or less). I need to file another help desk case since it has slowed down my uploads significantly. Thankfully I have at least 10 articles in draft status at any given time to work on. The first half of the Summer is going to be very quiet here due to my work schedule. I still have some articles from 2015 and beyond to publish. The oldest article is the incomplete Kmart Texas City history that hasn't seen an updated photo since 2015. Either way I will keep chipping away at the blog with old and new articles as time permits.
As old as the Baytown Kroger Family Center store is, the West Orange one is nearly a full decade older. That said, I think the West Orange store was given some kind of renovation to make it look more like a regular 1980s Kroger supermarket on the inside than what Baytown ever got. Baytown has a very strange layout for a Kroger or for any kind of supermarket.
DeleteSomeone would have to go to the Northwest US to see a modern version of a Kroger Family Center since Kroger's Fred Meyer stores have a full supermarket combined with a full discount store operation. I say that Fred Meyer's general merchandise is like a discount store ala Walmart or Target, but the softlines at Fred Meyer, and at our Kroger Marketplace stores, are more mid-tier than discount store. The clothing at Fred Meyer and Kroger Marketplace stores is more along the lines of what Kohl's and JCPenney sells rather than Walmart. Unlike Kroger Marketplace stores, the Fred Meyer stores have full garden centers, hardware, electronics (though, like with almost every store, electronics have been downsized in recent years), and so forth.
The Fred Meyer I went to in Wood Village (Portland, OR suburb) in 2023 actually had the clothing department on the 2nd floor of the store to make it feel more like an upscale softlines operation. The rest of the general merchandise on the first floor, where the groceries are, are more discount store looking. There really isn't another modern store quite like Fred Meyer. It is quite surprising that Kroger is behind all of that.
Looking at old ads does give some sticker shock in terms of the prices. Prices for things like groceries, cars, and houses seem shockingly low, but then prices for electronics seem quite high even without accounting for inflation and wage growth. Even still, the grocery prices likely could have been lower even back then if the supermarkets didn't offer stamps and stuff like that which started to fade away in the 1970s as customers were starting to pinch pennies.
Having to upload photos from your phone does not sound like a lot of fun when it would be a lot easier to get it done on a PC. Hopefully someone at Google can figure out the problem especially when you have posts which have a lot of photos.
I remember that 2015 Texas City Kmart post. I think I might have taken a few photos of that for you. They weren't anything great, but now that the Kmart building is long gone, I guess it is better than nothing. The retail at that intersection has really transformed since 2015. The HEB where Kmart was is very busy and makes it hard to seem that a dead Kmart lived there for so long. The neighboring shopping center got so much interest after that that Goodwill was evicted out of the old Randall's/Albertsons so they could put Aldi in there.
The former Woolco-Walmart-Bud's-Venture-Kmart-BP across the street has also been transformed back into retail after a stint as offices for BP/Marathon. The 50+ year old Kroger that I featured on HHR in 2023 is still there too so that is now a very hot retail half corner with 3 grocery stores and other big box stores. I suppose seeing how things looked in 2015 would be a good reflection on just how much things have changed out there even if I miss the Goodwill and RadioShack which were still there in 2015.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what you have in-store for the blog in the coming months. I'm sure it'll be good, I've really enjoyed the last couple of posts especially since they touched on a couple of favorite topics, the Willowbrook Sears and the famous Market Basket in this post.
Sorry to disappoint you and the blog readers for the complete lack of content and communication on the blog in the past few months. Since the late April trip, I haven't had the chance to gather any new content.
DeleteIt may take me a few days or weeks to get back into the groove of the blog, barring any schedule changes at work that pull me away again.
I will be back when the schedule gets better and reply to the backlog of comments.