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| Today's post highlights Hardeman County, TN, retail. |
Fred's is (was) an intriguing company, at times. It surprised us in the past with Fred's Closeout Bonanza, Fred's Discount Depot (see also here), EntrustRx (its specialty pharmacy arm), and its franchise operations. Just last week I shared with you how it has even risen from the dead -- its intellectual property, that is, in the form of Fred's Discount Outlet, a two-store chain up in Ohio (although that's beside the point).
In addition to all of those, Fred's also briefly operated two totally separate subsidiary chains. Today's post takes a look at them both, beginning with the more successful of the two: Getwell Drug & Dollar.
Getwell Drug & Dollar was born in 2012, created as a vehicle for Fred's to target smaller markets. 2012 was the year the company hit its peak, having experienced increasing success and growth up to that point, so it made sense for them to be experimenting with some new store formats. As the below excerpts from a September 2012 Memphis Business Journal article explain, Getwell Drug & Dollar took the typical Fred's square footage, 16,000 sf, and halved it:
Fred's Inc. is testing a new store concept that could allow it to go places it hasn't before.
The Memphis-based discount general merchandise retailer has opened its first Getwell Drug & Dollar in Middleton, Tenn., about 80 miles east of Memphis.
"It's starting out as a test," Jerry A. Shore, executive vice president and CFO, says. "It potentially gives us an opportunity to grow in areas which we didn't in the past."
The Middleton store is 8,000 square feet and focuses primarily on its pharmacy, which is located at the front of the store and has a drive-through window. The prototype also sells a variety of merchandise, including pet supplies, cleaning products, and grocery items.
Shawn Massey, partner with The Shopping Center Group LLC, sees the Getwell Drug & Dollar concept as a strategy that harkens back to Fred's earlier growth patterns.
"Fred's has always had an identity crisis," Massey says. "They didn't know if they were a dollar store, a variety store, a drug store, or a convenience store."
That said, Fred's experienced solid growth because when the company grew, it went into smaller towns where Wal-Mart Stores Inc. would not go.
"If a town didn't have a Wal-Mart, they would go there and be the Wal-Mart for that town," Massey says.
With the Getwell Drug & Dollar concept being half the size of an average Fred's, the company is taking that strategy to a smaller scale.
[Additionally, the city of Middleton is] "a better-than-average small town from a strategic perspective," Massey says.
The city's trade area includes 4,000 to 5,000 people. Its residents likely are patrons of Wal-Mart stores in Bolivar, Collierville, or Selmer.
"Middleton sits right in the middle of the market and makes all the sense in the world," Massey says. "The stuff they sell inside is going to be very similar to Family Dollar or Dollar General that are in 8,000 to 9,000 square feet, but they have the prescriptions, which really drives traffic to them."
Additional articles further elaborated on the concept. In a November 2012 Drug Store News article, Fred's CEO Bruce Efird said of Getwell Drug & Dollar, "The thesis behind it is to drive a growth vehicle in the future for smaller communities where we have either an Xpress Pharmacy or an opportunity to buy a pharmacy, and the community's not large enough to support the 16,000 square foot Fred's store. We're nine weeks into this. What we've seen thus far, we're pleased with the overall performance of the total combination of general merchandise and pharmacy." The author of the article then noted, "The smaller footprint will serve as Fred's growth engine going forward."
Another Drug Store News article, this one from February 2013, discussed the pharmacy-centric Getwell concept in closer detail. "Fred's Super Dollar is piloting a new store concept called Getwell Drug & Dollar that features a heavy focus on pharmacy, OTC, and value-oriented convenience basics. [The stores] will field some 7,500 front-end SKUs, 30% of which will be comprised of health-and-wellness items. While the store may be smaller, Fred's has actually expanded its assortment across several nonprescription categories, including analgesics, first aid, digestives and vitamins, minerals, and supplements. And there will be no tobacco sold in the store, though a full line of e-cigarettes will be on display."
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| Courtesy Behance |
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| Courtesy Behance |
The Getwell Drug & Dollar brand was developed "from the ground-up," meaning that it was created entirely fresh, not relying on any existing applications or retired trademarks, etc. Greg Wilson was the creative director for Fred's Inc. at the time, and his creative portfolio online showcases his work on the Getwell Drug & Dollar brand. Above, you can see a page from the brand identity styleguide, explaining the significance of all aspects of the Getwell logo. Additionally, as you can see below, Getwell was made very independent from Fred's: while its stores did carry some Fred's-brand products, it also had its own store brand ("Get," an acronym for "Good Every Time") and rewards program ("Getmore Rewards").
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| Courtesy Behance |
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| Courtesy Internet Archive |
Clearly, the brand was very invested in in applying both the "Get" and "well" concepts of its identity to as many facets of the business as it could. In the renderings and actual store photos below, you'll see that the walls consisted of slogans such as "Play well," "Eat well," "Feel well," and "Save well." These phrases were also repeated on in-store shelf signage, promotions, and advertisements. The entrance signs read "Wellcome" (with two "L"s), and the pharmacies in particular encouraged customers to follow certain practices, such as daily physical activity, so that they may continue to "Live well."
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| Courtesy Behance |
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| Image source unknown |
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| Courtesy Drug Store News |
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| Courtesy Behance |
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| Courtesy Behance |
Personally, I am very much a fan of the Getwell branding. The way the stores adopted it in every possible element of their identities feels very smooth, smart, and cohesive, in my opinion. It's a simple name that lends itself remarkably well (see what I did there?) to this type of business. And while I can't find any concrete proof of this online, I like to think that the name was rather simply inspired by the Memphis street on which Fred's had its longtime headquarters: Getwell Road.
(Fun fact, Getwell Road actually began life as Shotwell Road. But when a new US Army veteran's hospital opened on the road in 1943, a call to change the name so as to boost the morale of the wounded servicemen arriving at the hospital daily was answered with the swap to Getwell. Smart choice.)
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| Courtesy Randall Commercial Group |
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| Courtesy Behance |
Besides the rather obvious interior differences, Getwell Drug & Dollar's exteriors, too, differed from those of parent Fred's stores. As you can see above, the orientation of the buildings placed the entrances on a corner, much like any other Walgreens, CVS, or Rite Aid pharmacy building you'll encounter. The pharmacy drive-thru window was located on the side, and the construction materials seemed to be mostly siding-based, as opposed to the concrete block or brick of a regular Fred's. The color scheme, too, shifted from Fred's blue and green to Getwell's purple, along with a brown color to mark the main entryway (something that evidently had been changed in the time since the original artist's rendering shown in the top image of the above duo. Note also in that rendering that it appears as if one of the three figures in the logo is joined by a speech balloon with a heart shape in it, another element which was later dropped as the brand identity was refined).
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| Courtesy Internet Archive |
Getwell Drug & Dollar was initially piloted in four test markets in 2012 -- two opened in the third quarter, and two more in the fourth quarter -- with an additional two locations opening in 2013, bringing the total number of stores to six. Unfortunately, the chain never grew beyond these six locations, and the brand was ultimately retired in April 2018, as noted on the sunset message shown above, which was posted to the homepage of its website, getwelldrug.com.
But on the bright side, five of the six locations survived even past the Getwell brand's retirement -- simply transitioning to regular Fred's stores, only without any signage changes -- and operated well into 2019, closing alongside the rest of the Fred's stores throughout the year. We'll touch on each of the six Getwell Drug & Dollar locations before the conclusion of this post, but we'll begin with a full store tour of the Middleton location -- Getwell's first -- as it conducted its liquidation sale.
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The Middleton, TN, Getwell Drug & Dollar was selected for liquidation in the June 2019 round of Fred's closures, meaning it would ultimately end up closing just shy of its sixth anniversary, having opened on or around August 23, 2012. I visited the store (incidentally) one month prior to that anniversary date, on July 23, 2019. Since the liquidation had been announced on June 21st, I expected the store to be quite close to its final day, and in fact was very worried it may have already closed. Thankfully, upon our arrival, I found it was still there and ready for its close-up. No way I could pass up an opportunity to bring this polished and clever, but relatively obscure, Fred's concept to the blog!
If this store's exterior looks identical to the sourced image I showed y'all previously, that's because it is: the sourced images are all of the Middleton location, for as I said, Middleton was home to the very first Getwell Drug & Dollar prototype. You'll see that the interior is identical to those images as well. That said, though, I don't believe any of the other following Getwell locations differed very much in design or appearance from this Middleton store.
Note from the presence of the "total inventory blowout" banner next to the "store closing" sign that this store was likely participating in clearance sales even before it was selected for closure. Simultaneous with its initial 2019 closure announcement in April, Fred's said that a majority of its non-closing store base would nevertheless begin "total inventory blowout" sales, which seem quite similar in concept.
Heading inside, as was promised to us with the introduction of the concept, the pharmacy department is pretty much the first thing we encounter, painted purple to contrast from the rest of the store and located directly at the end of the first aisle, in the back right corner of the interior. (This location is strategic, so that the drive-thru window could be located along the right-side wall of the building.) Since the pharmacy was still active with employees and customers, I barely got any pictures of it, but this one should suffice. I do very much appreciate how the pharmacy is identified explicitly as "Middleton's Pharmacy" (emphasis mine).
The second image above looks the opposite direction down the first aisle, back toward the entrance. There you'll find a small cart storage area, as well as the Getwell Drug & Dollar logo presiding over the doors, joined by the message, "Thank You Middleton..... Stay well." This can be seen again, from a slightly better angle, in the image below.
Some glances across to the left side of the interior give us a better idea of the store's full layout. In front of the pharmacy counter are a series of short-height aisles, stocked with pharmaceuticals and other over-the-counter medicine and health, wellness, and beauty products. The rest of the interior consists of aisles placed perpendicular to these, taller in height and stocked with the store's selection of general merchandise, including food, pet care, cleaning supplies, and more. Basically, Getwell carried much of the same product categories (albeit in lesser quantities) as Fred's, with the exception of items such as home decor, furnishings, and accents.
The front end registers were separated from the salesfloor by another perpendicularly-placed aisle, this one stocked with your usual impulse-buy items. You can also see that the store was plastered with those "store closing" signs in a variety of places.
Facing the opposite direction down the same aisle, we see that a lot of the stock has already been cleared. Also, behind the pharmacy counter, be sure to note the custom posters ("Be well," "Play well," and in the earlier image, signs about the payment methods accepted and immunizations offered daily).
A small actionway serves as the division between the pharmacy and general merchandise halves of the store. You can see the front end a little bit better here, as well as both the restrooms and clinical care room adjacent to the pharmacy. The concrete floors and open ceiling were very modern compared to certain other, older Fred's stores.
Moving along down a mostly empty aisle -- evidently once home to the very odd couple of both kitchenware and apparel (!) -- to the left-side wall, followed by a view to the front (and an emergency exit).
This store, as you have seen, is very yellow. That was likely obvious from the sourced images I shared earlier in this post, too.
Generally, I’m a fan of the color yellow in store interiors. I liked it in Walmart’s Project Impact. I liked it in SuperTarget. I liked it in Kroger’s 2012/bountiful, fresh and local, and Marketplace décor packages. I’m not the biggest fan of the shade used in Kroger’s current “paint and putty” refresh to 2012/bountiful, but I love it in their current Urban Mix design. About the only place I absolutely don’t like it in is Harvey’s.
Now, looking through my pictures, the overbearing presence of the yellow in Getwell’s décor gets to be a bit much; but taken as a whole, in person, I remember liking it. Or at least, not disliking it. The purple and blue accents interspersed throughout the interior really help to scale back the yellow from 100 percent overtaking the atmospherics. And like, I said, I just have an affinity for the color anyway.
But that may just be me. I’m curious to read your thoughts on Getwell’s interior décor in the comments to this post.
As we walk down another mostly empty aisle, we approach a tiny endcap shelf fixture adorned with small "Be well," "Play well," and "Stay well" stickers featuring the three figures from the Getwell logo. Like I said: very attentive branding details with this chain!
Per the purple gooseneck signs, this aisle appears to have been home to toys, books, party supplies, and seasonal, in addition to the greeting cards seen at the end of the aisle. Also: isn't it strange how some of the goosenecks are uppercase while others are sentence case?
A couple more peeks over to the pharmacy side of the store. The windows along the upper walls were a nice architectural touch, and something a lot of Fred's stores don't have.
If you enlarge the second image above, you'll also be able to see a prominent poster affixed to the front of the pharmacy counter encouraging customers to download the Fred's Pharmacy app. This was likely posted following the retirement of the Getwell brand.
Compared to the rest of the store, the food department seemed to be selling rather poorly, although the comparatively small discount (only 20 percent off) surely was a factor in that. The merchandise was likely condensed into this aisle from other nearby shelves, too, making it look like the department hadn't sold as much as it really had.
I took the second picture to show you some of the more recent (at the time) Fred's-brand products bearing the chain's new logo. As you and I know, that logo -- alongside the broader initiative to further expand the company's selection of store-brand products -- would ultimately wind-up being very short-lived.
For the sake of preservation, below you'll find several images of the 2018 redesigned Fred's private brand products. You might also be interested in another profile on the redesign by Fred's former VP of private brands, accessible on page 76 of this PDF, as well as two additional pages from Marketing By Design.
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| Courtesy My Private Brand |
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| Courtesy Marketing By Design |
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| Courtesy Marketing By Design |
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| Courtesy Twitter |
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| Courtesy Twitter |
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| Courtesy Marketing By Design |
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| Courtesy Marketing By Design |
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| Courtesy Marketing By Design |
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| Courtesy Marketing By Design |
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| Courtesy Marketing By Design |
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| Courtesy Marketing By Design |
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| Courtesy Marketing By Design |
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| Courtesy Marketing By Design |
Returning to our tour, refrigerated and frozen cases lined the left half of the store's rear wall, joined by the slogan "Eat well" and a giant manifestation of one of those happy blue figures from the logo. Across the aisle, the gondola shelving is completely barren, filled with many boxes holding shelving parts and pegs instead.
We find the left-side wall similarly empty, with the same to be said of the endcaps visible in these images, too. The wall features a lineup of liquidator signs, and below those, a couple of orange printer paper sheets advertise fixtures as being half-off in price.
One more look over toward the "Eat well" wall -- note the half-empty aisle in the foreground -- followed by several more views of the "Play well" wall. Clearly, I was fascinated by that one, haha! In my defense, the way in which the movement of the jumping figure was presented, with its decreasing size and fading color, is very cool. (And it even lands on its feet!)
Closer to the front of the store, we find that this aisle stocked a limited selection of certain domestics -- guess this store had some home products after all! -- as well as trash bags, storage bags, and a similarly limited selection of electronics. Even some magazines can be seen hanging out on another of those endcap fixture racks in the second shot, which peers out across the store's front actionway (also starring the "fixtures for sale" liquidator sign). This store certainly made the most its square footage to maximize its product offerings!
The front wall of the store featured the "Save well" slogan, which also was the only one to be joined by both a rendering of the three figures exactly as they appear in the logo, and an actual three-dimensional sign of said figures (as all the rest that we've seen have simply been decals).
By the way, I remember having to mess with the lighting in some of these pictures, so that would be the reason why the yellow color looks slightly different/paler in any of them.
I tried to get the "Save well" sign on less of an angle in this shot, which is actually just a cropped version of the one immediately preceding it. You may also recognize this one as one of the teasers from my 100 Posts entry from last November.
It's a little hard to see in this image, but up at the corner of the roof, you can see some spider webs. A few are visible in other images of the "Play well" wall where the roof can be seen, too. I guess that's one downside to open ceilings, if they're not cleaned regularly!
As shown in the first photo above, this aisle was home to all sorts of cleaning supplies and paper goods; then, in the second and third photos, we can once again see out across the rest of the salesfloor and the front end, respectively. As you can see, every inch of space leading up to the registers was utilized, serving as home to a couple of refrigerated drink cases as well as a sunglasses/reading glasses display. Behind the register barricade were even more items, including small energy shot drink bottles, a can or two of spraypaint (?), and cigarettes (I guess Getwell caved and wound up stocking tobacco after all).
We see a small selection of appliances in the top image of the above set, joined by some automotive products on the endcap visible to the right; I took this shot mainly for the liquidator sign about the warranties, since as I've said before, I actually quite like the particular style of liquidator signage that Fred's employed for its store closing sales. Similarly, I took the second image (of the cart) for the close-up of the Getwell Drug & Dollar logo on the handle. I believe the entire fleet of regular shopping carts (like the one pictured) had been sold by the time of my visit, but the nontraditional basket-cart hybrids (like the one visible in the bottom image of the above set) were still available for purchase.
One more look down the dividing actionway, as well as over to the left-side wall, before we prepare to check out and leave. In the second image, based on the endcap, you can see that a lot of items in the store -- especially in the GM departments -- were Fred's brand, several even featuring the mid-2000s Fred's logo, which had already been retired several years before the Getwell Drug & Dollar concept even existed. In that case, I guess it's not so much that products with that logo sat on the shelves forever, as it is that their packaging was simply never swapped to the 2009 logo, for one reason or another.
In addition to the impulse buy items I previously mentioned, one item sitting for sale on the shelf placed in front of the registers was, of all things, a microwave; I took this picture of its printed sale tag specifically because the paper features the "Get (Good Every Time)" store brand logo. I didn't see any other references to that brand while I was here, and I assume it was likely phased out at the same time as the Getwell Drug & Dollar brand itself, if not sooner. As far as I can tell, the only products ever manufactured under the "Get" brand were the "gourmet" nuts and gummy bears shown as packaging examples on Greg Wilson's branding portfolio page.
The second pic above shows one of the register terminals, featuring a custom-to-Getwell "Did we do well?" sticker asking for customers' feedback, as well as a view of the card reader (which, surprisingly, showed the Getwell logo instead of the Fred's logo).
Two final interior views of the exit doors, both (unfortunately) badly edited, in regards to the yellow color on the walls. Sorry about that!
As a side note, be sure to note the pair of stickers on the doors, advertising the Getwell Drug & Dollar mobile app.
With our interior tour now complete, we now find ourselves back outside, wrapping up with a few more pictures of this store's exterior. So what did you think of this Fred's concept store? Please be sure to let me know in the comments!
The third pic of the above set shows the pharmacy drive-thru window, which is pretty much the only aspect of this store's exterior that we hadn't yet seen. Unlike your typical freestanding pharmacy/drugstore, the drive-thru here did not wrap around the rear of the building but was instead located along the structure's right-side wall. This effectively made it to where drivers made a bit of a donut when entering, driving through, and exiting the arrangement; lines were painted on the parking lot directing this traffic pattern, but had long since faded by the time of my visit, so they're not very visible in the photo.
At the edge of the property was the tall roadside sign bearing the Getwell Drug & Dollar logo, alongside the secondary sign "Pharmacy," if the "Drug" in the chain's name wasn't enough to get that point across. I'm disappointed that my first image of it came out unfocused, but at least it wasn't totally blurry to boot :/
As we exit back onto Middleton's Main Street -- also known as Highway 125 -- for a couple wide views of the building, be sure also to take note of the "Fred's Pharmacy is OPEN!" banner, beneath the Getwell sign. That was here because this store was one which had not yet seen Fred's close its pharmacy and transfer its prescription records elsewhere, meaning that, while its "front store" was indeed closing, Fred's was promising to keep its pharmacy operational until a buyer was found. Unfortunately, I'm not sure when the pharmacy closed or to whom the prescription records were transferred, but I have to imagine that occurred shortly after the chain closed all of its final remaining stores in October 2019.
Middleton does have an independent pharmacy, which at least puts it in a slightly better position than some other towns Fred's vacated which had no pharmacies whatsoever besides Fred's; but there's still a good chance that the records were transferred not to the independent pharmacy but to a chain pharmacy out of town, which would mean that residents now have to drive a lot farther to fill their prescriptions. As ever with all of the Fred's closures, this is one of the repercussions that upsets me the most, on behalf of the affected towns' residents.
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| Likely not from the Middleton store after all... |
We close out this store tour, as is customary with my Fred's posts, with some pics of my receipt, some Fred's bags, and that week's liquidation discount flyer. On all of these items, be sure to note that the Getwell logo is nowhere to be found; again, this was treated as a regular Fred's store following the Getwell brand's retirement (although the heading on the receipt does still read "Getwell Drug & Dollar"). Another interesting tidbit about the receipt was the presence (not pictured) of the line "All non-pharmacy sales are final" (emphasis mine); since that department, as noted, was to remain operational, I suppose it was still allowed to accept returns.
The bags may look the same due to a lack of any other reference items, but the one you see on the right was actually one of those oversized, extra-large bags (the one on the left was regular-sized). And as for the discount flyer... given that 1) it goes up to 90% off, which this store's sales had yet to do, and 2) it doesn't match others posted throughout the interior (and visible in several of my photos), I'm actually reasonably confident now that this flyer did not come from the Middleton store closure. But I also have accounted for all of my flyers from all of my other Fred's store visits, so I'm just leaving it here in this post because I can't figure out where the heck it really belongs. :P
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| Courtesy Internet Archive |
As promised, now that we're done visiting the Middleton store, it's time that we explore the remaining five Getwell Drug & Dollar locations. The addresses of all six are listed in the screenshot of the chain's former website shown above. I believe that that list is presented in the order in which the stores opened to the public, so we'll go down the list in the same order, beginning with what I believe to be Store #2: Glenwood, GA.
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
The majority of the photos for this section of the post have been sourced from lease listings for the various properties; that holds true for all of the Glenwood Getwell images you see here. Recall that I mentioned that five of the six Getwell stores survived into 2019; Glenwood seems to be the only one that did not, as it didn't appear on any of the Fred's closure lists throughout the year, indicating that it must have closed beforehand. But I have no clue when, exactly, it did close up shop.
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
I kept the aerial images as part of the set just to reiterate for you guys that the towns Getwell built in were even smaller than the towns Fred's built in. That means that there were even fewer options for the community, and even less competition for Getwell. Besides Dollar General and the gas station across the street, I don't think a single other retail store can be spotted in those aerial views. For these six towns, Getwell's departure leaves behind a lot more than just an empty building.
Up next is the Getwell Drug & Dollar store of Leland, MS. Instead of relying on lease listings, for this store I actually have my own images, taken on a brief drive through the town in April 2020.
As you can see, unlike the Glenwood, GA, store, Leland got to survive closure with all of its signage still completely intact, if sun-faded. It's not even blacked-out or anything: this contrasts it to most Fred's stores that closed in 2019, too. I'm not sure if this store was just one of the lucky ones not to get its signs blacked-out, or if it was more purposefully left unaltered, due to the fact that the Getwell brand was both more obscure than Fred's and, technically, already retired. (You'll note that the "Pharmacy" signs, at least, were indeed blacked out. I believe it's illegal to leave those visible once a pharmacy closes.)
The Leland Getwell was selected for closure in the very first Fred's round, released in April 2019, making it -- with the exception of Glenwood, of course -- the first of the five surviving Getwell Drug & Dollar stores to close.
Besides an apparently-rare Getwell Drug & Dollar store, the Mississippi Delta town of Leland is known for being the birthplace of Kermit the Frog. In town, there are several billboards, a water tower, and even a museum to this effect, and while it's been years since I've been to said museum, I remember it definitely being a cool place. Leland is where Jim Henson was raised, having been born in nearby Greenville, MS.
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| Courtesy Google Maps |
Like Store #1 in Middleton, Store #3 in Sulligent, AL, was selected for liquidation in the June 2019 round of Fred's closures. And unfortunately, I couldn't find any actual photos of it online, so this street view image will have to do. The Google car passed by this place in 2014; by the time of its next stop in 2019, the purple signage had faded as badly as we saw at the Leland Getwell.
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
The other Getwell Drug & Dollar store in Alabama -- located in Eutaw, AL, to be exact -- survived all the way to the end of Fred's run as a company, closing alongside the final 81 stores in the September round of closures. While the third photo above says "actual site photo," you'll note that the second one reads "identical prototype." That's because that second image was actually used in the lease listing for the Sulligent Getwell store. (You can tell it's actually the Eutaw Getwell from the address numbers at the entrance.) Obviously, though, each of the six Getwell stores were indeed identical in practically all respects!
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
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| Courtesy LoopNet |
The sixth and final Getwell Drug & Dollar store was located in Tompkinsville, KY, and closed in the July 2019 round. Like Sulligent, it wasn't actually built on a street corner, but it kept its corner-oriented layout nonetheless. Although it's at the edge of town, Tompkinsville does at least have a Walmart, as well as other retail and restaurant options; so I'd say that perhaps it's the best off of the six towns affected by Getwell's departure.
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You'd think that would be it, but nope, there's more! Remember, I said at the top of this post that Fred's ran two separate subsidiary chains. Getwell Drug & Dollar was one of them. Yazoo Trading Company was the other.
Unlike Getwell Drug & Dollar, Yazoo Trading Company differed drastically from Fred's. Where Getwell was basically a miniature Fred's store, Yazoo adopted an entirely different product line. Per the official company exposition as shared in the Quad Cities Daily in June 2013, Yazoo was positioned as a discount hardware, auto, and pet supplies store: "Fred's has long been a part of the Florence, Alabama community and we are excited to welcome our first new prototype store. The new Yazoo Trading Company features a wide selection of name brand hardware, automotive, lawn & garden, and pet supplies, including services such as paint mixing, key making, battery testing, etc."
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| Courtesy Internet Archive |
In other words, Yazoo seemed to be an entirely new venture for Fred's. Ultimately, four additional Yazoo Trading Company stores would be opened, for a total of five; these are listed in the webpage capture shown above. The Florence, AL, store appears to have been the first, followed by locations in Crossville, AL, Benton, TN, Macon, GA, and Temple, GA (meaning none of the Yazoo locations were near the Mid-South). All of the Yazoo Trading Company locations were existing stores converted over from Fred's, rather than being built from the ground-up, as the Getwell Drug & Dollar stores were.
(On the "from the ground-up" note: Greg Wilson, former creative director for Fred's Inc., has a page in his portfolio for Yazoo Trading Company, too, and interestingly, he describes it as "developing old brand into new." So perhaps this indicates Yazoo Trading Company was a previous store brand for Fred's, back in the day, that may have been dusted off and revived for these new stores? Who knows for certain...)
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| Courtesy Behance |
Speaking of the branding for Yazoo Trading Company, above is one example of a grand opening flyer for the chain, which explains the products and services it offers. (It also includes the question you're surely asking yourselves, "What's a Yazoo?" The correct answer is that Fred's likely lifted the name from any of the Yazoos in Mississippi -- Yazoo County, Yazoo City, the Yazoo River -- of which the latter came first and was named after the Yazoo tribe of Native Americans.) Additionally, below, thanks to the aforementioned Quad Cities Daily article, we get several good glimpses outside and inside a Yazoo Trading Company store, some of the only known photos to exist online of this short-lived chain:
No, your eyes don't deceive you -- that's definitely not your typical ribbon cutting ceremony! As the author wrote, "Normally, when the Chamber holds one of these events, we see a big blue ribbon being cut... But not today! Instead, the folks broke out a '1 by 8' and cut in half with a hand saw! A fitting touch for a hardware store." As you can see, the Florence Yazoo Trading Company opened in late June 2013, and I think the other five all opened before the end of August the same year.
As with Getwell Drug & Dollar, you can tell that a lot of attention to detail was placed on the Yazoo Trading Company brand identity and interior atmospherics. Major props to Greg Wilson and the Fred's creative team for their work on these two brands. Besides objectively reaching their peak in terms of number of stores in 2012, I'd argue that Fred's creative direction was right up there during the same time period, too.
These final two images show not the Florence store, but the Temple, GA, one. Like all the others, this one opened in 2013, and then, per this article, closed on May 31, 2016, "fewer than three years after it opened in the old Fred's location." I'd assume the others followed suit around the same time period. Only the Macon, GA, Yazoo reconverted back to Fred's; the others all just shut down entirely, and to this day, only the Temple store pictured above has been occupied by a new tenant. (This just goes to show how hard it is for these smaller towns to backfill what are, to them, comparatively large retail vacancies.)
So, it would seem that, in the end, Yazoo Trading Company was a less successful experiment than was Getwell Drug & Dollar. But, by the same token, it was also more "out there" for Fred's than was Getwell, given that Yazoo offered products and services not found at your regular Fred's; and for that, the project is certainly commendable. For that matter, Yazoo and Getwell both are very noteworthy points in Fred's history, representing the company's attempts to grow not only via its namesake stores but also with these two new experimental brands and product lines... so I'm excited and happy to have had the chance to share the story of them with you today. I hope you enjoyed this post, and as always, please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below!
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That just about wraps up this showcase of Fred's two lesser-known, briefly-lived subsidiaries. One final interesting thing that I'd like to point out before you go is that a number of independent pharmacies with the name "Getwell" -- stylized either like that, or as "GetWell" or "Get Well" -- have popped up recently. Fred's trademark applied specifically to the full term "Getwell Drug & Dollar," so these independent pharmacies aren't interfering with that; and in any case, I doubt the phrase "Get Well" can really be limited to just one owner, given its genericness and relevance to a pharmacy's mission.
What's more, none of the various non-Fred's Getwell pharmacies appear to be related to one another... but intriguingly, a lot of them have been formed by pharmacists formerly employed by Fred's who are now starting businesses on their own to fill the void left behind by Fred's departure (such as the GetWell Pharmacy chain whose logo is shown above, which has locations in Batesville, Hernando, Olive Branch, and Senatobia, MS -- all towns previously home to a Fred's Pharmacy). Again, there's likely no relation to Fred's 2012 Getwell Drug & Dollar concept, but I just thought it was a neat coincidence worth mentioning.
Our next Fred's post will return our focus to just a regular, plain old Fred's store, albeit one that is very significant to me personally and which has been featured here on the blog before. Please be sure to stay tuned for that post, which will come your way this September, as well as all other future posts in our Fred's series -- and heck, why don't you stick around for all future posts in general, while you're at it? :) Until next time, then -- thanks for reading, and have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are!
Retail Retell
Getwell seemed like a good concept to me, and they seemed to offer a decent product selection for such a small store. As yellow as the decor was, it looked pretty nice too. I think the use of accents helped to break up the power of the color, something Harvey's decor doesn't do (which is why theirs looks so bad).
ReplyDeleteI agree, Getwell seemed to be a step in the right direction, although it still surprises me that, for as small of towns as Fred's normally builds in, even they had towns they wouldn't usually touch! Getwell seemed like a good idea to get into those areas, too, but in the end with them having gone out of business, perhaps it's best that the concept didn't grow any further than it did.
DeleteAs for the décor, you make a good point there, too. I never really realized how popular the color yellow was in retail during the past decade! Walmart was the most obvious example, but I kept finding more and more as I compiled that link section...
I never did visit a Fred's store or their other brands. I didn't even know about Yazoo. Yazoo seems similar to the Ace Hardware, True Value, Do It Best, or Sears Hardware approach, but perhaps without local ownership.
ReplyDeleteAs for Getwell, it looks like a combination of different parts of Walgreens, Dollar General, and Dollar Tree. If their pharmacies had good customer service, something which many Walgreens and CVS locations have trouble with, then they might have been an excellent alternative. As you say, they might have been the only local alternative for some communities, but perhaps local businesses will open up when the chains leave town.
I'm not so sure about the use of yellow in retail stores. The more beige looking yellows, as seen in the Kroger 'Bountiful' photo you posted, looks quite nice to me. It blends in well with other earthtones to create a warm, pleasing feel. A lot of Safeway 'Lifestyle' themed stores have that color as well. Although the 'Lifestyle' theme does not please many, I quite like it at our local Randall's stores.
Some other orange-yellow type shades, like the one used on the background of your blog, work okay as well. It's funny that you mention Harvey's because I was actually thinking about AFB's memorable post about Harvey's just yesterday. That bright shade of yellow just screams 'deep discount store' or 'if this store sells men's briefs and tube socks in packages, all the packages will be ripped open by the other customers'.
The Getwell yellow looks more like the 'ripped open bags of briefs' yellow than the 'cozy earthtones' yellow. If I was ill and needed to visit a pharmacy, I'm not sure if the industrial floors and bright yellow walls of Getwell is where I would want to spend time. The decor seems more appropriate for an indoor child's gym or something like that.
Still, I agree that the Getwell yellow is not as odd looking as the Harvey's yellow. The purple trim is a good match. Louisiana/LSU fans might like that color scheme, but I'm not sure how well that'd go over in Tennessee and Mississippi.
Some Houston grocery stores have started to use a lot of yellow in their designs. The first one that comes to mind is El Rancho, a Hispanic-oriented grocery chain from the Dallas area which has some sizable investment from Albertsons. I'll post a link to Google photos of the first store they opened in Houston back in 2018 I do believe. The store is yellow on the outside and has a lot of yellow on the inside. The outside look can be debated, but I think the yellow works well on the inside. The carts are also Harvey's yellow. El Rancho:
https://goo.gl/maps/ovak7CTPLkdjeVpq8
Joe V's Smart Shop, which is HEB's discount grocery division, uses some yellow on their interiors as well as you can see in this link: https://goo.gl/maps/YdGtiQsnaSoRg6Fa6
That particular Joe V's location is mostly in a former Service Merchandise building, but part of it may use the former Venture/Kmart building to the left of it which was subdivided. All of those were built in the 1990s. That particular Joe V's looks more like a typical HEB. Here's another Joe V's that has a more typical Joe V's look. As bad as HEBs usually look, this Joe V's is even worse, IMO. Of course, it is a discount grocery store and it's hard to beat bananas for 33 cents/pound! Link to this other Joe V's: https://goo.gl/maps/igdUW4PBW7CFphFM6
That second Joe V's is just down the road a couple miles from a Greenhouse Kroger which has a lot of yellow/orange-yellow on the inside. I think that Kroger looks quite good on the inside. It's a mix of new and vintage for sure. I'm not an expert on Kroger decor names, but I'm sure you're familiar with this theme: https://goo.gl/maps/twK8s9VkK2JBXBAc6
Don't worry, you're not alone in not having heard of Yazoo. In fact, I bet most Fred's shoppers never knew of Yazoo or Getwell. And to be honest with you, before their whole downward spiral last year, I was never that much of a Fred's shopper, either. About the only time I'd been in one in recent memory prior to 2019 was so I could get photos for the blog, back when it was announced they'd be taking over the divested Rite Aid stores from the Walgreens merger. But after that failed and the whole company began to falter and liquidate so many stores, with it being a Mid-South staple, I felt I needed to document them. Now that they're totally gone, I'm glad I did.
DeleteAnyway, I agree with you on your assessment of Yazoo, as well as Getwell. Like you, I'm hopeful local businesses or at least some other business at all will take over the former buildings, but we'll have to see what happens. Happily, I've been seeing a lot of Fred's buildings backfilled for various uses (ranging from Dollar Tree/Family Dollar, to Goodwill, to Roses Express, to Harbor Freight, to furniture stores, medical uses, even churches...), but on the other hand, those Yazoo stores I mentioned have all been closed since 2016, and still only one has been reoccupied in that time. It's really a shame.
I can definitely agree with you on the analysis of pleasing vs. jarring yellow colors. (Great comparison with the ripped open packages, too!) I didn't think Getwell's shade of yellow was overly jarring myself, and as you read I also quite liked the cohesiveness of the design, but you make a very good counterpoint with that child's gym comparison -- I can totally see that, with the blue figures (that now look to me as if they're doing jumping jacks!) and everything. That's why I like discussing store atmospherics and decor packages; it's always interesting to see how others react and what they think of the designs.
Thanks for all those Google Maps links! I concur that the yellow on the outside of El Rancho is a tad much, but it does look nice on the interior. Joe V's, on the other hand... yeah, not much to see there, but like you said, that's a discount store for you.
Funny, with all my familiarity of Kroger decors, you had to bring me the one I know the least about :D About all I know of that one is that it's regularly used in their Food 4 Less stores, but sometimes has been put into Kroger-branded stores that are of a certain age and/or are in certain demographic areas. There's another person who comments here sometimes, by the username of 11110, who seems to know more about that package than I do. I recognize it from pictures, but I've never actually seen it in person myself.
Those small form factor discount stores have never really appealed to me. We didn't have Fred's here, but Alco opened a couple of stores in Houston shortly before their demise. I liked them, but the whole company went under shortly after they came here and it didn't seem like they were doing well here. We have Dollar General and Family Dollar here (more of the latter than the former in my area), but they've never really appealed to me. It's probably a good thing that you chronicled Fred's before they went under since they are a local company to you.
DeleteI made my comment about children's indoor gyms without really knowing what a modern one looks like. Thus, I loaded up Google Maps and looked at the relatively new play center in this area which opened up in an old Greenhouse Kroger. It's called Jumping World. I don't know if that's a national chain or what. Well, they don't have any majorly yellow walls, but they do have a large lime green wall. I say that's close enough to Getwell! Lol. Jumping World: https://goo.gl/maps/Ufa3cAayAamQyLwf8
I didn't realize I would have stumped you with that Kroger decor theme, but now I'm stumped as well as I really can't imagine why a local Kroger is sharing a design theme with a Food 4 Less. AFAIK, Food 4 Less is a deep discount grocer owned by Kroger and this Kroger is not a discount location. I did look up a couple of Food 4 Less locations in California and they do indeed share the same decor theme as that Greenhouse Kroger mentioned above.
What's really interesting is that there is another Kroger in this area which also has the same decor. That Kroger may have similar demographics to that Greenhouse Kroger, but the store itself is quite different. It's a much newer store from the early-to-mid 2000s and it's actually a Kroger Signature store. I'm not sure if Signature stores are something which Kroger only does in Texas, but Signature stores are larger stores (though not as big as Marketplace stores) with expanded product selection and amenities like an in-store bank. As you can tell from the outside, it wasn't really built to be a discount store. Link: https://goo.gl/maps/ZudTpvtWtZCYyumu7
The only thing I can guess is that perhaps Kroger uses that decor theme with bolder colors in stores that might serve a larger proportion of Hispanic customers (that might also explain the Food 4 Less stores in Southern California). I'm not totally sure about that because neither of those Krogers are in what I would call predominantly Hispanic areas. There are certainly more Hispanic areas in Houston than those, but then again, if you look at that Google Map closely in the above paragraph, you'll notice that the CVS across the street is actually called a "CVS Pharmacy y más." It's a pilot store for a CVS oriented more towards Hispanic shoppers and it has a slightly different product mix. I wish there were photos of it, but none seem to exist.
Earlier I showed you the very bold looking El Rancho store. The dominant Hispanic-oriented grocer in Houston is Fiesta Mart. They have a recently renovated store near the El Rancho I shared above in a very old ex-Safeway. That store also has very bold colors and maybe that isn't a coincidence. That's my best guess at least. Link to the Fiesta: https://goo.gl/maps/2mm6yYotTHfj4VkDA
If you really want your mind blown, let's go back to the Greenhouse Kroger from the above post. Across the street from it is an Asian supermarket called the Hong Kong Food Market. It's an an old 1992-3 Food Lion that's hardly been changed. They still have the same aisle markers from the early 1990s with the advertisements for products like they used to have in old supermarket aisle signs. Here's a 1992 era ad for Scope and Crest toothpaste: https://goo.gl/maps/upjx8zXhzJUN1dP69
And an ancient ad for Kraft Mayo/Miracle Whip: https://goo.gl/maps/eL5RQXXFNwD32Gkn8
Yeah, I’m in the same boat, about the only one I’ll regularly go to is Dollar Tree (since everything actually is $1 there, unlike the others!). Fred’s never really seemed to know what it wanted to be – discount store, pharmacy, etc. – but it seems best to lump in the same category as the Dollar Generals of the world, just with pharmacy counters added on to drive extra traffic as well as serve the community. I wonder if DG would ever be interested in getting into the pharmacy game. (Although personally, I’d rather see them enter the fresh produce game first, if they were looking to expand their offerings…)
DeleteHa, yep, that lime green wall is close enough for me! (And look at that carpet!)
Correct, from what I understand Kroger seems to put that décor in some of their namesake stores even though the stores are not discount oriented like the Food 4 Less stores are. It’s kinda strange. And also interesting to see that other, non-greenhouse store with the same package as well. What I remember reading in the past is that the décor is used in stores that cater more to Hispanic customers, so you’re likely onto something with that. It is strange that you say the neighborhoods aren’t all that Hispanic though, but maybe Kroger still felt the demographics were right for the décor? As usual, I can never claim to understand their logic behind decisions :P
As for the Kroger Signature stores, yep, I’m pretty sure those are only in Texas. To me, it sounds like just a regular Kroger these days, as our normal stores are quite large and often have banks. But depending on how long ago Signature was introduced, I can see that being a fairly new and different concept compared to the older and smaller greenhouse and superstore builds.
I’m not seeing the CVS Pharmacy y mas designation on the Google Maps link, but did find this webpage that suggests they have a large number of such stores: https://www.cvs.com/content/ymas It certainly sounds interesting! Guess it must be successful too, to have expanded like that.
I’m familiar with Fiesta Mart from a handful of Houston folks who sadly are no longer active on flickr. You’re probably onto something with the bold color scheme for sure. I particularly like the way the mascot is used to transition between two department fields on the wall in one of the Google Maps images.
And that old Food Lion is fantastic! Love seeing those aisle markers still intact. Most of the time it seems only the generic product images remain in aisle markers of that vintage that somehow (miraculously :P ) stick around; it’s amazing to see some with real ads left in them still!
Sorry, I may have to cut this post into two different ones due to length. I apologize for that.
DeletePart I:
Perhaps if Dollar General Market takes off, they'll consider adding pharmacies. The only dollar/dollar-type store I shop at with any kind of regularity (one visit a year?) is 99 Cents Only. 99 Cents Only does sell fresh produce, but there have been rumors for years that 99 Cents Only is in financial trouble and that they could close. An interesting side note is that a two-part photo of a 99 Cents Only store once held the record as being the most expensive photo ever sold at $3.34 million! Subsequent printings of the photos also sold for over a million. Perhaps retail photographers like yourself have something to aim for now, lol. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Cent_II_Diptychon
I also do like Big Lots if we're counting them. Big Lots has shifted from being a closeouts store to more of a general discount store in recent years. I'm not sure what to think of that, but at least they more consistently sell name brand stuff now. I'm not entirely sure if I would trust Big Lots and DG pharmacies though if they ever opened them. I'd probably look for someone a little more trustworthy.
On the topic of strange carpets, do you have Piccadilly Cafeterias in your part of the world? We had one here at Almeda Mall that closed a few years ago. They had some funky decor! The 'modern' carpet is even more wild than the photo of the place from the 1960s/70s. The strange thing is that Piccadilly attracted mostly senior citizens, not children. The image of the modern carpet is down towards the bottom of this blog post: https://southbelthouston.blogspot.com/2017/06/south-belt-spot-piccadilly-cafeteria-at.html
The areas where those Krogers are with the Food 4 Less-like decor are what I would call diverse. There are pretty big numbers of families of all the major ethnicities including Asians. The area near that El Rancho and Fiesta I mentioned above is most certainly heavily Hispanic, but the areas near those Krogers are less so. I will say that the demographics are perhaps a bit more working class, but the Kroger Signature store is also on a major highway that leads to a more professional class suburb and I'm sure they do get some visitors from commuters heading home at the end of the day. Still, I would have to guess Kroger used that decor to cater to the tastes of Hispanic shoppers just based on where we're seeing colors like that being used around the country. We can only speculate those I suppose.
Kroger Signature stores started opening around here in 1993. At the time, I think they were really aiming at taking down Randall's, who was a major player in Texas at the time, and Kroger was quite successful. The Signature name may not be necessary these days since the features of those stores have been normalized, but shoppers might worry that their stores are being downgraded if they take the Signature name off. Kroger has downgraded some Signature stores in the past. One store in particular was a Greenhouse store that was upgraded to Signature status, but the aisles just became too tight with all the added stuff so the extra stuff was taken out and the Signature sign was removed.
One thing Kroger Signature stores had in the 1990s which I don't think they have now is free child care for shoppers. They would even have TV monitors around the store showing the child care area so shoppers knew their kids were safe. Maybe these stores still have child care, but I have not seen anything about it in years.
Part II:
DeleteOne store concept Kroger had here in Houston many decades ago were the Kroger Family Centers. These were basically Marketplace stores years before Kroger had Marketplace stores. They sold clothing, car parts, and stuff like that. You may have had these in your area as well, but I don't know. Here is a 1984 photo of a Kroger Family Center in Conroe (far north part of the Houston area) from the Houston Chronicle. Here you can see Kroger Bauhaus being used for a shoe department: https://s.hdnux.com/photos/62/05/56/13130685/3/1024x1024.jpg
We also used to have Globe Discount Department Stores here in Houston. That was a small chain owned by Walgreens that tried to compete in the discount store game with Kmart, Woolco, and company in the 1960s and 1970s. There is a little bit of information about these stores in Walgreens history books, but otherwise it's nearly impossible finding images and articles about them. It was a small chain and presumably it wasn't very successful. Of course, so many other retailers tried big discount stores like JCPenney (The Treasury) and Montgomery Ward (Jefferson Ward). Speaking of which, Je recently made a new post on the Louisiana & Texas Retail Blog about the Amigoland Mall in Brownsville, Texas. This is right on the US-Mexico border and Amigoland had a JCPenney with a company-owned grocery department. The mall also had a Globe discount store across the street from it that eventually became a Kmart. There were some real retail oddballs at that mall.
Fiesta is by far our most visually interesting grocer in town. They have some of the most interesting products as well. Fiesta stores differ quite significantly depending on where they are. That said, most Fiesta stores have not been renovated since the 1980s, but they are maintained quite well so they look vintage without looking shabby. The nicer ones are actually renovated less than the ones in poorer areas. I'll post a link to my local Fiesta store which opened in 1988 and has not changed almost at all since it opened. The only changes this store has seen is that the produce department was tiled after being carpeted initially and a refreshment stand near the seafood department was walled off even though the neon sign for it still exists. Other than that, welcome to 1988. It's so well maintained that it doesn't really feel like 1988 though. Link: https://goo.gl/maps/Q83MW56AsdRAg6ST9
Here is the store near the Astrodome. A few area Fiestas have this look. It's different than the previous store, but it still feels like 1988: https://goo.gl/maps/qKi7ZunGA1fm9FgJA
By comparison, here is a more Hispanic serving Fiesta which has not been as heavily renovated as the one I shared with you yesterday. As you can see, this one also has bold colors even if it's not implemented in fancy of a way: https://goo.gl/maps/kumzjbfp2xsj3JgP7
It seems that there are some CVS Pharmacy y más locations in Florida now. Maybe you can drop a hint to AFB and see if he'll take a peek inside one, lol. Granted, I can just visit one since we have them in town, but it would be nice for others to be able to see it too. For whatever reason, most CVS and Walgreens stores don't have many photos, especially good ones, on Google. Retail bloggers tend to ignore them too since I suppose they are mostly cookie cutter. The Getwell store pictured here was certainly not cookie cutter compared to the average CVS or Walgreens though!
No worries. The comment system isn’t the best. If you type all this out in the tiny comment box, I’m beyond impressed!
DeletePerhaps so. As for 99 Cents Only, I’ve heard of them from another blog I follow, but didn’t realize they were in Texas or that they sold fresh produce. That’s interesting. I did see those rumors about their troubles, though. Wouldn’t surprise me if they, too, fell victim to 2020.
And that is interesting about the photo! Ha, not sure I can ever see myself selling photos for absurd amounts of money like that, but one of my photos did actually get compared to the work of Stephen Shore, a famous photographer, so that’s something, I guess. Unfortunately, the comment was in response to a Twitter account called “Uninteresting Photographs,” which stole over a dozen of my flickr photos, which isn’t so much of a compliment. Nor are most of the other responses to the images. :/
I still count Big Lots more among the closeout stores than dollar stores, but yeah, I guess that’s not a totally accurate designation anymore. Good point about Big Lots and DG pharmacies being rather suspect if they ever were to happen, too.
We do have Piccadilly Cafeterias, although I don’t know that I’ve ever been to one. (I do hope to try the new “Piccadilly To Go” they opened up recently in my county, though!) You’re absolutely right about that carpet being wild…
Yep, a lot of this hobby is just speculation, I’ve come to notice :P Thanks for the history on Kroger Signature as well. I can understand the worry that stores are being downgraded if the name is removed, even if the name is rather useless these days. That’s interesting about the child care service as well!
I’ve heard of the Kroger Family Centers, but don’t think I’ve ever seen an interior photo of one. That’s awesome to see Bauhaus décor in there!! Love that. I don’t think there were ever any in the Memphis area, but I could be wrong. Globe I’ve heard of as well, but likely only from that post you mention and the comments there.
That’s good to hear the Fiesta stores are maintained well. That’s always the goal – find a store with outdated décor, but one that is also kept up well. Usually those two don’t go hand in hand :P Those stores with the late 80s décor look pretty great!
Ha, I can mention it in the retail chat room, there are several Florida folks there :P Yep, I’ve noticed that about pharmacies being quite undocumented on Google – that’s been an issue for me when trying to find converted former Rite Aids to see if Walgreens kept the old décor or remodeled. One Memphis flickr user took lots of Walgreens photos years ago, but he’s no longer active. I have pics of my local Walgreens in my archives, but other than that, not much. I think for me it’s that they’re smaller stores with poor sightlines, in addition to the fact that it’s hard to spend a lot of time in there without being noticed. All the Fred’s stores I visited were nice in that they’re half-pharmacy, half-not…
Believe it or not, I did actually type that whole reply in this tiny box! My apologies, I suppose I can be a bit long-winded at times.
DeleteI have a couple of other thoughts. As far as 99 Cents Only stores go, they actually announced several years back that they were going to leave Texas, but then they decided not to leave. They're still around, but I agree that the coronavirus situation might be the end of them if they are having financial difficulties.
99 Cents Only used to only sell items for 99 cents when they first opened up here. I suppose that explains the name! Of course, 99 Cents Only actually sells 99 cent items at 99.99 cents. Yep, they actually charge fractions of cents just like gas stations! Anyway, a number of years ago, they started selling higher priced items as well. Thus, they are a mix of a dollar store and a Dollar General type store.
I'll include a link to one of the local 99 Cents Only stores so you can get an idea of what they are like. They actually have a pretty significant grocery department, but I've read reports in recent weeks that their selection of fresh food has dwindled since the virus situation started. The store I'm linking is not the one closest to me, but it's still pretty close and it's nicer than the one near me. If you look carefully, you'll see signage painted on the wall saying "New merchandise daily" in Bauhaus or a Bauhaus-like font. Bauhaus lives on in modern retail! Link: https://goo.gl/maps/yD3FE6Ms7dMcghn8A
That particular location is in a spot that formerly used to house a Drug Emporium store in the 1990s (it was a Handy Dan hardware store before that). I don't know if you read the posts some years back on the Louisiana & Texas Retail blog about Drug Emporium. There may be multiple chains using that name, but the one in question mostly has stores in Texas and Louisiana. They do have one store in Little Rock, Arkansas though so it might be relevant to your blog.
Drug Emporium is like a jumbo Walgreens. You could compare it to a Phar-Mor in some ways if you remember them, but they don't have Phar-Mor's corporate fraud. Well, at least I hope they don't. Current Drug Emporium stores are split between the regular pharmacy and general merchandise and a store-within-a-store called VitaminsPlus that sells vitamins and health food. The VitaminsPlus section of the store is painted in a pretty bright shade of green. It's not quite GetWell levels of vividness, but it's up there.
I was a little surprised to learn that Drug Emporium was still around when Je did his posts about them because I assumed the chain closed when the local store in Houston closed in the 1990s, but they look to be alive and well. Their homepage is pretty neat because it has a flying tour of one of their stores. The VitaminsPlus sections look rather modern, but the rest of the store has a retro 1990s look to it which I quite like. I think you'll enjoy checking out their page: https://www.drugemporiuminc.com/
If you scroll down a bit on their Lubbock, TX location page, you'll see a video doing a flying tour of that particular location which was recently renovated. It was renovated, but it still looks 1990sish to me. That's a good thing to me at least. The VitaminsPlus there is not green. Instead, the whole store is painted in a beige-like yellow that looks rather soothing. Getwell and it are both yellow, but the differences in the shades of yellow really give the two pharmacy stores a very different look. Link: https://www.drugemporiuminc.com/stores/lubbock-tx/
No need to apologize! As anyone who has actually been brave enough to read completely through one of the posts on this blog knows, I’m not known for my brevity, so no worries :) I’ve taken to opening up a blank Word document when I want to type out a long comment, that’s all!
DeleteInteresting! Good for Texas that they reversed their decision; I guess we can only hope that they continue to choose to stay.
Yep, I was familiar with the 99.99 cent pricing policy from that other site I mentioned. I want to say I’d heard of them selling higher priced items too, which as always sucks given their name is very explicit about what they *should* sell! There was news in recent years that Dollar Tree has been experimenting with increasing prices too, but thankfully they’ve kept away from doing that so far.
Wow, that store looks a lot nicer – and is a lot bigger – than I expected! I wasn’t expecting that much in the way of groceries, either. Definitely looks like a better selection than a Dollar Tree or even Dollar General. Nice to see that Bauhaus font, too!
I can’t say I’ve seen those Drug Emporium posts, those were likely published before I stumbled across that blog. Maybe I should check them out sometime. I’m not familiar with Phar-Mor either, as they went out when I was still very young. Drug Emporium sounds like a nice store though, and per those videos on the website, looks nice as well. (The videos themselves are super neat, too!) I agree with you that the stores look decidedly 90s, which is interesting that even the modern renovations still keep that vibe. That yellow color is indeed very soothing and pleasant. Much less in-your-face than Getwell!