The closest Safeway was Millbourne Market Mall, deep in the heart of Millwoods. If you have never been there, I really don't suggest it - it has to be one of the chuddiest Safeways I've been to in a while. (and don't get me started on the rest of the mall - it's like a worse version of Capilano mall, if you can believe that!)
Anyway - going to that Safeway is like a trip back in time. It's like this store was passed over when Safeway did their store upgrades a few years ago. Instead of fancy flooring, organized isles, self-checkouts, etc... you get:
- Wide lanes. I think it's because they have this huge store, but not much stock. It's like that Seinfeld episode:
- Old-school style round checkouts: You know the ones - instead of a conveyer belt, it's a turn-table kind of dealy that endlessly rotates. It's not like they needed to save the space in the store that those conveyer belts take up (see #1). Maybe their clerks are erstwhile DJs or something.
- Old-school style freezers. Yes - instead of the stand-up freezers with doors that hold a ton of food, you get the floor-level, top-loading big bulk bins of coldness. These take up a lot of room (see #1).
- A whole lot of dead space. The front of the store has no Starbucks, no video renting machine (and P.S. who buys DVDs from a vending machine at Safeway)? Just a bunch of old linoleum in that 1970s Safeway style. The store kindof looks like a 10-page report that you wrote, but did it treble-spaced with huge margins, so there's really only 2 pages of content.
- A produce selection that rivals communist Russia. I almost wanted to put on a big furry hat and line up with some vouchers for my monthly lettuce allotment.
Or still is, if you have to take your kids along - right Kathryn?
