Brinkley Kroger: Bauhaus Uncovered!

Today's post highlights Monroe County, AR, retail.

On flickr last week, I started a new album documenting the Searcy, AR, Kroger during its 2021 liquidation sale (inasmuch as a closing Kroger actually "liquidates," but you get the point). As I've discussed at length within that album, Searcy wasn't the only small town in Arkansas to lose its Kroger store in 2021: Kroger also axed its stores in Brinkley, England, DeWitt, and Morrilton, with a final closure across state lines in McComb, MS, to round out the bloodshed for the year. The thing all of these stores had in common were that they were very old locations in (mostly) very small towns; all but two of them, in fact, still had wannabe neon decor, the final ones ever to bear that package chainwide. (Searcy was the only of the six ever to remodel to bountiful/2012 decor, while England has some unidentified package that may even predate Kroger's time in that building.)

Again, all of the details are discussed much further over on flickr, but suffice to say that there have been (somewhat) happy endings for most of these cases... Searcy, DeWitt, Morrilton, and McComb all had other grocery options in town already; McComb's store became a Corner Market (new to town), Morrilton's a Harps (relocating from elsewhere in Morrilton), Searcy's a clothing store, and DeWitt is still vacant (but at least has a Piggly Wiggly in town). Brinkley and England were both set to become food deserts, but Harps came to the rescue in England as well. As for Brinkley... well, wouldn't you know that the Kroger shopping center had actually been owned by competitor Edwards Food Giant since way back in 2013! As such, they were pretty much waiting for Kroger to close all along... they moved really swiftly, too, with Kroger closing on May 29, 2021, and Edwards reopening in the space within mere weeks, on June 19. Even cooler was that Edwards documented its renovation efforts on Facebook... so without further ado, I'd like to share those photos with y'all below!

Courtesy Facebook

We begin with the exterior, where the Kroger signage has been freshly removed (but their cart corral remains).

Courtesy Facebook

Heading inside and looking across to the back left corner, we see a number of the wannabe neon department signs, including Produce, Bread, and Luncheon Meats. We also see Kroger Delta's early 2000s "generic" (non-decor specific) aisle markers, as well as the registers with their original, classic lane light advertisements! Looking quite worse for the wear, of course, but still.

As a refresher of what the store looked like back when Kroger was still open, check out my album from 2017 on flickr here.

Courtesy Facebook

Here comes the fun part: old Bauhaus decor uncovered!! As part of their renovations, Edwards Food Giant (naturally) removed all of Kroger's wannabe neon signage. As it turns out, hiding behind that stuff this whole time has been old, unpainted Bauhaus! This pic takes a look at the deli-bakery area, where much more extensive work was going on below the wall signage, as the entire space was reconfigured (if not expanded, to boot). Kroger's iconic superstore-era staircase spindles used to be located in that small window space.

Courtesy Facebook

Wall decor hadn't yet been removed at the back of the store, but the refrigerated cases were busy being refurbished. As part of their quick turnaround, Edwards did not replace any of the fixtures at this store (except perhaps the produce bins?). These cases are newer than the store's opening anyway (they appear to be from Kroger's millennium decor era, i.e. the early 2000s or so), so most likely they are still in good shape and it wouldn't have made much sense for Edwards to get rid of them.

Courtesy Facebook

Fast-forwarding a bit, we see the product of more decor removal! Old Bauhaus "Produce" and "Bread & Rolls" signs have been uncovered. Compared to "Deli-Bakery," which had yellow text with a red outline, these signs had yellow text with a green outline, meaning this store had a multicolored version of the package. The Stateline Road store in Southaven, MS, famously had a single-colored, pink-and-periwinkle version; meanwhile, the last-ever Bauhaus store, on Spinning Road in Dayton, OH, had an inverted single-color red-and-gray version. There were many, many versions of this decor over the years, it seems like, and I wonder how it was decided which store got which colorations.

Courtesy Facebook

There were two produce signs at this store during the wannabe neon days, and this shot confirms that the same was true in the Bauhaus days. I wonder if this store always had Bauhaus from the beginning, or if it had superstore decor before that.

Courtesy Facebook

Over on the opposite side of the store, the flooring has been torn out, no doubt for work on refrigeration lines and other such plumbing. Above the wall, we find uncovered signage that used to read "Dairy & Ice Cream."

Courtesy Facebook

Despite all the ongoing construction work, a separate crew already began stocking the store's shelves at this time! As I mentioned, Edwards was determined to reopen this store as quickly as possible, and set to work on immediately stocking non-perishable items as a result.

Courtesy Facebook

More stocking is taking place in this photo, where we can also get a good look (as in several of the above images) at the removed drop ceiling tiles. The drop ceiling would soon return, but for now, it's an interesting look!

Courtesy Facebook

Returning a little later, we get a couple of "aerial" views from on top of a construction lift. Definitely a cool perspective here! Stocking is in full swing, and we also get some high-quality views of the uncovered Bauhaus decor.

Courtesy Facebook

Another similar look over to the opposite wall of the store. It's interesting to note how only certain portions of the old Bauhaus walls went unpainted; we can clearly see the outline of the wannabe neon signage extending to either side of the unpainted area, and those "stair-step" portions did see new paint, it appears.

Courtesy Facebook

The restrooms received new plumbing work and upgrades, too, which is nice to see.

Courtesy Facebook

Lower quality pic here, but as promised, we see the drop ceiling returning.

Courtesy Facebook

This shot looks inside what *was* the store's entrance: a tunnel-like area that one entered on the right side of the storefront, under the superstore arches, but forcing customers to walk all the way across the entire front wall to get to produce in the far corner.

Courtesy Facebook

Edwards remedied the situation by relocating the doors front and center on the facade, as seen here. (Same exact doors, too, just moved to a new spot!)

Courtesy Facebook

Our last "birds-eye" view shows us the Bauhaus sign everyone was hoping to see: the "word train" of "Fresh Beef, Pork, & Poultry"! Given that this sign appears to have already been painted over in earlier images, I'm not so certain I'm uploading these in the correct order; in any case, they're all fun to see, regardless.

Courtesy Facebook

It was fun while it lasted, but of course we knew it couldn't last forever; by the time this photo was taken, Edwards had finally painted over the walls, covering over those last Bauhaus decor remnants :(  

Courtesy Facebook

Out front, new concrete was being poured along the front walkway.

Courtesy Facebook

Stocking of the refrigerated cases began in earnest even as the walls were still being repainted!

Courtesy Facebook

A good-looking frozen seafood selection here. I wonder how much Edwards's selection has changed as compared to Kroger's, and their prices, too, for that matter.

Courtesy Facebook

The deli-bakery area was seeing more extensive work, and as such was still covered up by plastic tarps at this point in time. Remember, all of this work happened over the course of only three weeks.

Courtesy Facebook

In the last aisle of the store, we see some fresh new paint colors begin to brighten the place up, including red and yellow. I find the flooring scene here interesting: it looks to me like all the tile was removed in this photo, but as we'll see in later images below, the original Kroger flooring appears to have remained. So I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at here.

Courtesy Facebook

New registers going up at the front of the store; we can also see the relocated entryway. Guest services is straight ahead, with the deli-bakery directly behind that: I wonder if that department expanded into the former entry tunnel corridor any.

Courtesy Facebook

Outside, new signage went up in the spot you'd think it would have been located all along: those iconic superstore arches. It was typical of Kroger not to put their signage here, but doesn't it just make so much more sense to utilize the architecture this way?

Courtesy Facebook

Here's the completed signage: Edwards Food Giant, Since 1959, The Meat People! Notice also the crews bricking over the former entrance area (and if you zoom in close enough, Kroger's yellow "this store is closed" notice in the window, too). 

Courtesy Facebook

Inside, we're very close to reopening, with the walls fully painted, shelves fully stocked, and registers close to being set up. It's funny to note that these "new" registers were brought in secondhand from some other Kroger store, as evidenced by that lane light!

Courtesy Facebook

I wish I had more photos of the finished interior to share with y'all, but alas, this is the only one uploaded to Facebook. In any case, though: it certainly looks like a totally different store!! (Minus the flooring and aisle markers, of course :P )  Edwards did a really good job with this renovation; I'm sure Brinkley is lucky to have them.

Courtesy Google Maps

Last but not least, the completed exterior, as showcased on Google Maps. Below are a few additional images I took while driving through in June of 2021, on the way to the Morrilton store while it was closing (as well as several other retail destinations!)...

I find it strange how the old Kroger logo space was being used simply as home to a very temporary-looking "FOOD GIANT" banner. Hopefully that has been fixed since then. (It does look in the Google Maps photo like they may have gotten new roofing.)

In addition to Kroger's closure in 2021, Fred's (background, right-hand side of this image) closed during the bankruptcy in 2019, so Brinkley had a bit of a tough time for a little while there. However, not only has Kroger been retenanted, but the nearby former Wal-Mart has become a combination Family Dollar/Dollar Tree store... and, Brinkley has gotten a new-build Sonic in the chain's new style, which I found interesting to see. A few more pictures of that follow.

I like that the restaurant still has a letterboard despite also having a high-rise interstate sign. The presence of only the wordmark on that sign actually reminds me a bit of the retro-style Oxford Sonic, even if the rest of the restaurant is totally modern in design.

The drive-in spaces are located exclusively on the right side of the building, with the side facing the street here showing only the drive-thru window (and that giant Sonic logo).

One downside of using the sign shape as a high-rise sign like this is that, for drivers traveling the opposite direction (that is, from town, as opposed to from the interstate), the logo appears backwards. Compare the high-rise sign to the logo on the side of the building in this pic and you'll see what I mean.

One final shot, also showing the newly-opened Edwards Food Giant in the background.

I hope y'all enjoyed this post! I know I certainly got a kick out of stumbling across those Bauhaus images when I did, and I've been waiting for the right time to finally get to share them with y'all as well. I'm not sure right now what or when my next blog post will be, but I do encourage you to keep following me over on flickr, where I continue to upload regularly and where my Searcy Kroger series is just beginning. Stay tuned for more!

Until next time and as always, thanks for reading, and have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are :)

Retail Retell

Lucky Brand Jeans Closing, Ridgeland, MS

Today's post highlights Madison County, MS, retail.

After an absence from the blog in August (during which I instead was invited over to My Florida Retail for a Q+A session on Aldi's purchase of the Winn-Dixie and Harveys chains from Southeastern Grocers), I am back today with one of (hopefully) two very quick posts for you guys this month. It is September, which means the temperatures are getting cooler -- granted, here in Ridgeland all "cooler" means is 90 degrees as opposed to 108, but still -- and fall is on its way. Fall is my favorite season, and, despite all the encroachment from Halloween and Christmas already, I am excited to celebrate it. Today I put on my favorite pair of Lucky Brand Jeans, and that made me think of the photoset I took a few years ago at the Ridgeland store (before I moved here!) when it was liquidating. So, in that spirit, I thought I'd go ahead and finally share those photos with y'all today. As their jeans say: "lucky you"!

The Ridgeland Lucky store was located in Renaissance at Colony Park, an outdoor lifestyle center featuring a mix of upscale and local retailers and restaurants. Examples include Apple (soon to relocate to a new spot within the same center, actually), Barnes & Noble (the most consistently busy one I've ever seen in my life), and Hallmark (the subject of a future blog post...), among others. There are some vacancies, but nothing too alarming. Lucky's departure came as a result of the company's bankruptcy announcement in 2020; Ridgeland was one of 13 stores immediately selected for closure, which implies to me it must not have done great business. Today, the only Lucky store in Mississippi is an outlet location at Tanger in Southaven.

Heading inside the store, this is it -- the entire salesfloor. Compared to the Southaven outlet location, with which I am much more familiar, Ridgeland struck me as extremely tiny... but then again, perhaps that's typical for their regular/full-line stores. The aesthetic, at least, was similar to what I'm used to from Southaven.

Looking over to the right-side wall, then to the left. Lucky sells both women's and men's apparel, but as you can imagine, women's has a greater selection -- hence, the registers are placed in the center of the left-hand wall, breaking the men's department into two. Women's, on the other hand, spans the entire right-hand wall. I like the American flag decor behind the registers, as well as the pendant lights above.

Looking straight towards the back of the store. In my experience, it is a typical clothing store layout to have the fitting rooms lined up in a singular row hidden behind a "false" back wall, which is exactly what we see here. Even though the walls are almost entirely white, that is not to say they are bland, as I really like the texture added by the wood, moulding, and -- especially -- that unique ceiling. I know some have mixed opinions on concrete floors, but I think the stained concrete here plays nicely with all of those other elements, too.

In the middle of the store, facing towards the back, were these two cool leather chairs. The Southaven outlet store has similar distressed leather couches (which are extremely comfy, by the way!), so I was surprised this much smaller store managed to fit some similar seating in! I'm assuming this is a common Lucky Brand store trait, and I definitely like it -- I would have loved to have purchased something like this for my apartment, but alas, I don't believe the fixtures were for sale quite yet (plus, who knows how expensive they would've been, lol).

Speaking of fixtures -- also take note of the tables behind the chairs. Those are of a unique style, too, and really zero in on the "vintage" vibe Lucky seems to be curating here.

A look at women's apparel in the back right corner, and men's in the back left (well -- men's, plus women's shoes, anyway). These sections were joined by some various posters showing off either generic Lucky Brand imagery (models and locales), or specific jean types (the men's jeans posters were in the front of the store).

I'm curious: do y'all like to wear jeans? They are by far my favorite type of clothing, as long as they are comfortable enough (which may be part of why I like a brand like Lucky, lol). But besides those who prefer shorts, it seems there are a lot of people these days who simply prefer sweatpants or leggings or the like. Where do you fall?

One final shot of the store shows us men's sale denim in the very back, adjacent to the fitting rooms (notice the black-painted wall as opposed to the white walls out in the salesfloor proper). As a Very Thrifty Individual™, you can rest assured that the only jeans I ever purchase from Lucky are from the clearance section, haha! And even with this store's liquidation sales of 30 to 50 percent off, I did not purchase anything on this visit.

Notice the fixtures in stores like this are designed to maximize storage space, and therefore increase the salesfloor and decrease the stockroom: beneath each of the stair steps are pull-out drawers to hold more stock. I've pointed out similar arrangements at other such stores we've visited on the blog, such as the Rockport at Tanger Outlets Southaven.

About a month into its bankruptcy, Lucky successfully sold its business to Sparc Group, the 50-50 partnership between Authentic Brands Group and Simon Property Group, which have snapped up a number of other ailing brands in recent years. Since then, it appears to have been business as usual for the chain -- lucky, indeed.

That's it for this short post; as I mentioned, keep your eyes out for another one later this month, if all goes well. Until then and as always, thanks for reading, and have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are!

Retail Retell

(Sunset on) Fred's Closing, Batesville, MS

Today's post highlights Panola County, MS, retail.

Well, friends, here we are: at long last, we've reached the conclusion of the Fred's saga. Not the conclusion of the overall series here on the blog, mind you, as after this point we'll begin exploring the various reuses of former Fred's buildings -- that promises to be a lot of fun! But rather, this is the very last Fred's store I visited while the company was still in operation. Call this tour a "sunset" on Fred's, if you will. That's particularly appropriate given sunset is also the time of day I visited this location, on October 19, 2019, with just nine days left before the chain would give up the ghost for good. I made this stop in Batesville, MS, on the way back from a day down in the Jackson area scouting out a good place to stay during my internship the following spring. And I'm definitely glad I did.

Courtesy LoopNet

Courtesy LoopNet

Before we get to my pics, we'll start with a handful from LoopNet showing the store how it used to look in the old red-and-yellow Fred's regalia. This store was a bit unique in that it was stuck smack in the middle of a regular old shopping center, which wasn't super common for Fred's stores that I've encountered -- even those that have been in shopping centers, such as Senatobia, were purpose-built for Fred's, and had separate exterior walls. (Horn Lake did not have separate exterior walls, but that's because it inherited a former Jitney Jungle space.) Batesville also does not have any particularly identifying Fred's traits, such as the usual stonework facade. That said, I'm still not doubting the fact that this store was probably a Fred's its entire life.

Image source unknown

I'm also including the top pic here of the store's later-logo look just so you can compare how it looked in regular daylight to all of my pictures, which -- as noted above -- were quite clearly taken at sunset!

While the storefront may have been updated to the chain's (second-to-last) blue-and-green logo, the old-style roadside sign out in the parking lot kept the yellow and red letters until the very end. I was very happy to see this and be able to photograph it in such good lighting. The close-up shot is one of my favorites I've taken in this entire hobby, I think. 

Senatobia kept its similar roadside sign, as can be seen here, but updated the logo, perhaps because it was visible from the highly traveled Interstate 55. In contrast, the Batesville Fred's is quite a bit west of 55 along Highway 6, and presumably never saw the need to go to the expense of changing out the letters.

Notice also the blacked-out "PHARMACY" lettering beneath the main signage.

A couple more shots of the storefront before we head inside show the sunset reflecting heavily along the facade of the store (they also show the plain block building material, as opposed to the trademark Fred's stone). Even absent the sunset, you can tell this store gets a lot of sunlight during the day considering how faded those liquidation posters are.

Immediately inside the store, the wall of the register unit to my left showed some black-and-white photographs of fixtures available for sale, many of which had already sold.

Like many Fred's stores, the entry doors take us into the right-hand side of the building, with the pharmacy immediately occupying the front right corner. In front of the pharmacy are the health and beauty aisles, running parallel to the storefront. Notice that this Fred's had a fairly high aisle count: looks like it went up to 32 in total.

While the rest of the store was updated to the common 'lowercase Fred's logo' decor package, the cosmetics department managed to hang on to its older-style hanging department sign, matching those we saw over in Somerville, TN.

Approaching the back actionway now, as we travel farther along the right-hand side. Looks like the aisle straight ahead of us was a double-wide aisle, perhaps home to the seasonal department at one time.

Even if I had wanted to take a right turn upon reaching the rear actionway, the caution tape wouldn't have allowed me to. Given that this store was only nine days out from closing time, many areas and aisles were blocked off from public access.

Seasonal or otherwise, whatever this double-wide aisle was once home to, it had by this time been converted into the miscellaneous fixture sales area. And when I say "miscellaneous," at this store, I definitely mean it! A wheelchair isn't one I normally seem to see, and while I guess all of those items on the left side of the aisle appear to have actual SKUs, they still seem more like random junk that was hiding in the back as opposed to actual merchandise sold by the store. Just take the below velvet-encased silverware set, for instance!!

Some more shots of the more "traditional" fixtures for sale, including the shelf pegs, grid caps, hangers, and U-Boat carts (misspelled as "U-Bolt" on the liquidation signs).

A look across the back wall of the store shows a fully emptied-out space, whereas one of the neighboring aisles, home to automotive and pet supplies, still had a fair amount of stock left in it. Access to the restrooms was located through those stockroom doors in the background.

Looking across the center actionway towards the left-side wall of the store. As you've probably been able to tell by now, the orientation of the aisles have switched to perpendicular to the storefront for the majority of the salesfloor. The front half of the perpendicular aisles is located on that wooden-style floor, whereas the back half is located on regular gray tile. Again, many of these aisles were already emptied and roped off.

Something I found particularly interesting about this store, which I had not encountered at any other Fred's location, was that the grocery selection was located in the back left corner of the store! (It's a bit difficult to tell from these pics, given how all the aisles were blocked off, but the "candy shop" endcap should help give it away. The cooler/freezer units were also located along the back or left-side wall -- can't remember which.) 

This was literally the farthest away that groceries could've been from the front entrance, and that seemed counter to Fred's normal M.O. Olive Branch had them against the back wall, but even then, that was straight ahead from the entrance -- not buried away in the opposite far corner. Many stores, like Church Road in Southaven, even moved groceries forward over the years into the wooden-floor area once used for the clothing departments, which Batesville certainly could have done considering those departments were fully intact here -- but I guess they just never got the memo!

Looking back over towards the right-hand wall from whence we came, followed by a few shots of the apparel sections in the wood-floor area along the left-hand wall. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, a lot of Fred's stores relocated these items out of this area, in favor of moving food to this more visible spot in the salesfloor (the headquarters store along Getwell Road in Memphis -- which, by the way, is still vacant -- included). It was kind of refreshing to see apparel still in its dedicated area here in Batesville, even if that also meant seeing the grocery department in a very strange spot as a result.

A couple random shots here, the top one showing the greeting cards discount flyer -- note how its edges were cut off by the printer -- and the bottom one showing some various liquidator signs not currently in use, resting quietly on an endcap.

A couple pics looking along the front end now, showing the aisles to the left, the registers to the right (note those classic lane lights!), and the already-shuttered pharmacy off in the background. The fact that those aisles on the left are also sitting atop some woodgrain flooring leaves me wondering why said flooring was installed in this area, in addition to apparel. Surely the apparel department was never so large as to take up both wood floor areas, so I'm not quite certain why the special flooring was continued over here.

Even though the grocery department was located in the back left corner of the store, by the time of the liquidation, all of its remaining merchandise had, of course, been consolidated forward into the frontmost section of the salesfloor. This aisle shows a portion of that remaining grocery selection, and will also serve to -- a bit abruptly -- close out our interior tour of this store. You see, about the time that I took this pic, I was trying to read what those papers taped to the "Visit the Hallmark Card Department" signs said, when (who I presume to be) the manager of the store came up to me and asked if he could help. I replied that I was just trying to read the sign (because I was!), and when I met up with my mom the next aisle over, she told me that, after talking to me, the manager went over to another customer who told the manager, "well, he was taking lots of pictures," and the manager mumbled something in reply -- which, of course, implies that the customer had said something about me to the manager before, and that's why he came up to me in the first place. My mom told me I should stop taking pictures, and I did, to be safe.

Certainly not the worst way that could've gone down, and if I remember correctly it was also my one and only "encounter" -- if you could even call it that -- after photographing a great many Fred's stores in 2019, so I'd say I was pretty lucky with that track record! Still kind of unfortunate to have something like that happen at the very last Fred's store I'd ever visit, but I have no bad feelings against anybody but myself, for not capturing certain parts of the store the first time I was in those areas (namely, the grocery department). As it turns out, at the end of my visit, I asked if I could purchase the store's hours sign, and the very same manager laughed and let me have it for free! So he was very kind and most likely didn't even care about the pictures, but again, I didn't want to push my luck.

And with that, we'll hop back outside again, to resume our quick tour of the closing Batesville Fred's with a few more shots of its exterior. By this time the sun had just about set, as the sky had turned more so to dusk in the photo above. The Fred's logo sign had lit up, as well.

While riding past the store on the way out of town, I also snagged the above two pics, mostly in an attempt to capture the store's unique pharmacy drive-thru contraption out in the parking lot. Since this store was fully encased within a shopping center, the drive-thru was instead erected via a series of pneumatic tubes out in the parking lot. I've seen a similar setup at some Walmart and Kroger stores.

As promised, here is the store hours sign that the manager let me have for free! Despite having holes to hang from or affix to something, this was just resting in the windowsill of the store, hence the odd curvature to it. It is decently small (a nice change of pace from several of the other retail memorabilia items I've got!), and certainly a welcome addition to my collection. If you zoom in to my pic of the entry doors back at the top of this post, you can actually see this sign still in action.

Last but not least, for one final time -- here's my usual collection of the store closing flyer, my receipt, and one of the store's plastic bags. It's hard to believe I won't be posting any of those things again!! This series has spanned five years, and spawned north of 15 posts, including 13 store tours of my own, 2 guest posts from Albertsons Florida Blog, and an interview featured in a profile on the company in The Daily Memphian. I've said before that, given all of this, it's kind of ironic that I never really shopped at Fred's prior to its liquidation sales (!), but I certainly am appreciative of the opportunity I had to document the local Mid-South chain before its demise, and I've had a ton of fun doing it. Like I said earlier, too, I'm not done yet; this simply concludes the portion of the series where we're looking at active Fred's stores. Up next, we'll transition to exploring former Fred's stores and their various reuses, which should be a lot of fun, and I hope y'all will all stick around for it!

On that note, I'll conclude this post with a bit of a spoiler on one of those reuses. I have yet to revisit the Batesville Fred's building post-closure, but as announced in The Panolian in July 2021, the building would soon be taken over by a Roses Express discount store -- the same fate as many other former Fred's stores, as you'll soon learn. Roses also took over the Senatobia Fred's, and at that location, they dismantled the old Fred's roadside sign, despite the interstate frontage. But according to Google Street View imagery, luckily, here at the Batesville store, the old Fred's sign lives on -- and offered Roses the perfect number of spaces to add its own name in Fred's place :)

Courtesy Google Maps

That'll wrap up our sunset tour of the Batesville Fred's, also acting as a sunset on the first major part of this series. Much more to come in the future, though, so please stay tuned for all that in the second half of the Fred's series! And of course, there's plenty more other retail coverage coming soon to the blog as well, and perhaps to some other blogs, too -- you'll just have to wait and see what I have in store...

Until next time, then, and as always: hope you have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are!

Retail Retell