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| Today's post highlights Shelby County, TN, retail. |
If you've checked out
my flickr photostream before, you know I'm a big fan of the grocery store located at 576 S Perkins Road in East Memphis. I have a whole album dedicated to it (which you may visit
here, if you please). Heck, I've even mentioned it here on the blog a couple of times before (see
here and
here)!
The store began life in 1964 under the banner of a local chain, Seessel's. I have a post set for next month that will go into more detail about Seessel's, but suffice it to say that their stores were bought in 1998 by Albertsons, who exited the Memphis market in 2002, selling the former Seessel's stores to Schnucks. Albertsons had kept the Seessel's name during their time here but aggressively remodeled the stores (and built new ones as well); Schnucks, in turn, dumped the Seessel's name, and re-remodeled all the stores (well,
almost all of them...).
Schnucks lasted in Memphis until 2011, when they finally decided to call it quits and sold out select stores to Kroger. The 576 S Perkins location was among those Kroger assumed operations of, redubbed store #411, but they didn't actually own it; rather, it was a leased location. With the lease set to expire in June - and two other, larger stores (this one is only 28,041 square feet, and that's from a late '90s expansion) within a mile - Kroger decided to close this store on March 26, 2016.
Though the store was closed for two months, no activity took place, i.e. there was no auction of the equipment (and other goods) that remained inside. Turns out, that auction as just waiting for the lease to expire on June 1st! June 2nd, 2016, saw an auction finally take place at the hands of Grafe Auction Company, which has conducted multiple auctions for multiple supermarket chains in the past. The above and below images are all solely from that auction, unless otherwise specified.
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| Not for the duration of the auction it isn't... |
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| Auction registration taking place |
I came to the auction 1) to get photos, of course, but 2) because
I was interested in bidding on (and hopefully buying) a
lot, number 153 to be specific. I saved a view of its contents to the
Wayback Machine but can't find it... long story short, though, it
contained all of the hanging décor throughout the store - not the
actual wall signage, but everything else, like the "fast
checkout" promotional signage and the one I was going for, the
"public restrooms" sign.
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| I'm fairly certain this same balloon can be seen inflated up by the ceiling in one of my flickr photos from before this store's closure. |
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| Wishing I had taken this :/ |
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| I had never noticed the detailing on the gold parts before the auction! |
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| In one of the prep rooms of the service departments. Possibly an Albertsons relic? |
By the time the auctioneers reached my lot number, several hours
had passed already. Then they began the lot auction by claiming it
encompassed all of the wall décor, which, as I said, is false. I
told them that and upon further investigation of a list of future
lots, they agreed they were wrong. But instead of actually knowing
that the contents of lot 153 (as catalogued online for a week prior
to the event, remember) consisted of other items, they simply skipped
the lot and moved on to the next one. I did make sure to ask if I
could bid on the public restrooms sign individually, since that was
really all I wanted out of lot 153 anyway, and was told they would
get to that once they reached that side of the store again.
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| Under the platform... was becoming more experimental with my shots at this point :P |
...unfortunately for me, they had just returned to the left side
of the store (the public restrooms sign being on the right), and
began auctioning off all of the service departments' equipment. As a
result, it took three more hours of waiting for them to reach lot
330, the frozen and dairy department signs, which are located near
the restrooms one. I assumed the public restrooms sign would be
squeezed in next due to its proximity. I was wrong. They moved on
into the stockroom.
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| Old Schnucks tags! And creepy package of chocolate that was left behind... |
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| The sign I was trying to purchase. |
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| Neat backroom cart |
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| Kroger script décor checkout lights, which pretty well match the Albertsons Industrial Circus décor (as do the security camera signs elsewhere in the post) |
Now, I should note that the store, being closed, had working
electricity, but nonworking air conditioning, so I was inside a hot
former supermarket with nothing to do but wait for hours on end. That
was pleasant. (sarcasm...)
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| Would've removed this and called it my own if I knew how. The other checkouts were all stripped of this already. |
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| Headed to the mysterious upstairs... |
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| Old café chairs |
Finally, one of the auctioneers (the same one I had questioned
earlier) walked out from the back room and passed me, so I asked
him if they were going to get to my sign anytime soon. Immediately he
apologized and said he had forgotten about me. He took me into the
back room and interrupted the auction in process so the acting
auctioneer (there were two, one speaking/taking care of the
bidding and one writing results) could squeeze in the public
restrooms sign, which he did.
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| "Thank you for shopping" sign, which I also tried to purchase (story further down the page...) |
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| Edited this one so you could see remnants of the stylized Schnucks logo from where they had it placed under the "thank you" sign |
As soon as the bidding started I thrust my hand in the air,
because after what all I had gone through I wasn't walking out of
that place with that sign, haha! No one else bid, thankfully, so I
won the auction. The auctioneer who had taken me back so I could get
the sign also took me up front so I could pay. The total, however,
was not a pretty one; let's just say that I thought the speaking
auctioneer had begun the bidding in an amount that was in cents, but
was actually in dollars. Again, pleasant surprise... not.
I mentioned this to the auctioneer who was taking care of my
receipt, and for my troubles, he marked it down to half-price, which
was very generous. I still had to shell out more money than I was
hoping (especially since I saw, upon checking the online bidroom,
that certain lots went for $1.00), but at least it was a more
reasonable amount than it was to begin with. Almost certainly that's
a dirty auctioneer technique: starting higher than is necessary, then
reducing as needed to finally get bids. But, being an unexperienced
auction-goer, and having held my hand up so early, I got duped.
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| Several cases in this store that were being auctioned were either a) units sent for use in this store from older Kroger stores, or b) units sent to this store from older Kroger stores for auction purposes only. As you can tell from the purple trim, this one is an old millennium décor case. |
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| Thought this shot turned out well :) |
Oh well. I was able to get my sign, so I shouldn't be complaining!
The next challenge was removing it; luckily, we had brought the right
tools, and were able to leave shortly thereafter. By that time it was
nearly 5:00PM. We had arrived around 10:00AM; the auction began at
10:30AM. Ultimately, I got what I wanted, but I more or less wasted
the entire day in doing so.
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| I know this gold shelf is likely an Albertsons or Schnucks relic, since the former Seessel's/Schnucks in Southaven has several gold shelves as well. Thinking (what's left of) the sticker says Albertsons more so... |
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| Another find from upstairs (sorry for not having it with the rest of the shots): quite likely a message from 1976! |
Now, you're probably asking – aside
from “Are you insane?! Who in their right mind would spend seven
hours in a closed grocery store in Memphis in June without air
conditioning?!” - “Why would a public restrooms sign be so
important?” The sign – as pictured earlier in the post – is
important to me because it is a manageable piece of Seessel's by
Albertsons history.
You see, when Albertsons was on that
remodel streak I mentioned, this store received the chain's
“Industrial Circus,” or (as it's officially known) “Broadway,”
décor package. Remarkably, Schnucks, and Kroger after them, left
this décor untouched, save for a few things like the logo placed
with the “thank you” sign and Kroger's customer service signage.
The public restrooms sign was a way for me to own a piece of this
décor history that's relatively small in size.
I say “relatively” small because
it's actually a lot larger than I was expecting :P Let's just say
this: I was hoping to hang it above a restroom door in my house; it's
more accurately the size of one-half to three-fourths of the door! I
still have found a place to display it, though. No sense in paying
for it if you're not going to show it off, right?
After securing that sign, I got to
thinking about the “thank you for shopping” sign, since it, too,
was original to
Seessel's by Albertsons' 2000 remodel of this store. It was, after all, a part of that lot (153) which I had
wanted to bid on originally. I decided to call the number listed on
my receipt about getting that sign; I left a message, and heard back
later that it was not the auctioneers' number, but that of the
equipment removal manager, who said – and I quote – it is his job
“to sell or do whatever with” any items left in the store.
With that, as well as confirmation that the
thank you sign remained in the store, in mind, we returned once more
to 576 S Perkins on June 4
th; the picture above, as well
as the ones below, are from that visit, joined by several shots of my
takeaways. Naturally, I was hoping I could get this sign for free,
given the “do whatever with” language; that, or at least a really
cheap price, would make up for my having to pay more than I had cared
to for the public restrooms sign. Unfortunately, the equipment
removal manager instead asked me to make him an offer, which I did:
$1.00, good-naturedly saying I was going to start cheap.
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| It was pretty neat seeing one of these completely dismantled! Since I neglected to mention this elsewhere, all the wall décor in this store did sell off. Perhaps it will live on... but scattered around, and not here with whoever the next tenant may be. |
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| Perhaps you don't recognize this wall sans bakery and deli signs...? |
He countered with some unreasonable figure like $150.00, saying if I started low he was going to start high, and proceeded to 'teach me a lesson' about bidding, negotiating, and the auction process. I don't mean to bad-mouth him (or Grafe, for that matter, as they were professional), because ultimately I was able to secure the thank you sign (minus the Kroger logo – more on that in a moment), and he was likely trying to do me a favor, but this did nevertheless rub me the wrong way.
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| Handwritten "Albertsons Thanks" message on the back of one of the letters, photo edited so you can hopefully see it better. Cool find! |
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| At least the equipment removal manager let me have this crate to place the letters in for free XD |
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| Door notices I discreetly removed from the store |
Another cash sum later (and only $5
less than the restrooms sign, too :/ ), I was able to walk out with
the “thank you for shopping” letters. The Kroger logo, I was
informed, had to stay, because he personally was required, as part of
Grafe's deal with Kroger, to take anything that says “Kroger” and
break it in two so it can never be reused. He did hint that if we
were to come back on the final days (the store remained open for five
days following the auction for equipment pickup), he would let us
have it, but I decided not to return for that, especially after what
I'd been through just to get those two signs.
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| Newer Kroger tag, with closeout price underneath. Kroger doesn't seem to do big, all-encompassing liquidations, instead choosing to closeout certain items only. The 33% off perishables is about as close to that as they'll go. |
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| Older Kroger tag |
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| Schnucks tag that was left on one of the shelves! You can see several of them at one point above... |
You can see I didn't just make out with
those two signs, though – I did manage to sneak out some old
pricetags and such. If I had had more time (and patience) on my
return visit, I probably would've walked down every aisle to see if
any goodies could be found amongst the dust and trash that marked
where shelving once stood. But I wasn't about to spend more time in
there, as hard as that is to say. This is my second favorite store,
even though it's now closed, and I hate to say that of my five visits
there overall, two weren't up to par. I'm not going to let them
tarnish its legacy in my mind, but I do want to get their story off
my chest, hence this blog post :P
All in all, in terms of walking out
with what I wanted, I got the easy way out... but I had to take the
hard way to get there.
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Hope you enjoyed the 100+ pictures I
took during all that waiting I had to do, lol, and thanks for helping the MSRB break 10,000 page views!! Stay tuned for a blog
post concerning Seessel's as a chain more broadly next month... and
until then, have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are!
Retail Retell
