Location: 400 Simpson Dr, Chester Springs, PA
The Chester Springs store opened in 2003. It is located in a lightly populated area with no other supermarkets in the immediate vicinity. A Giant, abandoned Genunardi's and Redner's, which has recently opened in a former SuperFresh, are all located a few miles south in Lionville. Chester Springs was among a slew of new stores built in the early to mid 2000's under Albertsons' leadership. As we've seen in recent years, many of these stores have closed, most recently the one in Warminster. Not sure how Chester Springs does. It doesn't seem to be located in an area where it could ever become a terribly high volume store. It was doing brisk business on this particular day.
The photos in this post were taken a little over a year ago during the same road trip when I visited other stores in the area including Exton, Downingtown and Westtown.
Heading inside the FOOD entrance...
Albertsons Marketplace interior with some layout differences compared to other early 2000's stores we've seen on the blog. The Bakery here is located along the right wall instead of out on the sales floor running along aisle 1.
The Starbucks is now Bucks County Coffee. It may have been removed at this point. Acme is yanking these coffee bars out of stores. There is a small seating area up in the left front corner. This was one of the best café set ups I've seen at an Acme. I'm surprised they haven't used this configuration more often.
The blue light boxes are not illuminated
I would think this store does some pretty decent business. It is stocked to the gills!
The Meat and Seafood signage is a bit stunted. No light boxes either. Below is the same department from the now shuttered Clifton store...
The sign in Clifton sprawled over the whole department.
Back to Chester Springs...
Judging from my visit, this is a very well maintained store.
Plain white tiles in the frozen food aisles.
Here's a look at Sicklerville's frozen food aisle with the typical tile pattern for this decor package.
A less commonly used frozen food tile as seen in the Randolph store.
Looks like the milk cases may have been replaced since the store was built.
Walking along the front end to cards, floral and seasonal...
Customer Service is on the Pharmacy side of the store. We'll now jump over to the other end of the front-end...
Lower ceiling over the checkouts...
Self checkouts still here although these pictures were taken over a year ago.
GIANT "Thank You" sign! Never seen anything like it.
AERIAL VIEWS
Drive thru Pharmacy!
HISTORIC IMAGES
2013
2008
2002
Looks like the first A in Meats and Seafood is backwards.
ReplyDeleteSure does!
DeleteKinda a funny error, eh?
DeleteTo clarify: Redner's closed Dec. 31 of last year. The blue boxes are only sometimes lit up, not sure why. The coffee shop has been removed, but the self checkout is still there. Last December, the lights over produce and the checkout were replaced. I think the frozen cases were replaced sometime recently.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the updates! I almost mentioned the possibility of the lights over produce getting switched out. They're doing that in a lot of stores. Not surprised about the coffee shop.
DeleteA++!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if they have the offices on a balcony above the front end like in many of the 90's stores. That could explain the low ceiling. The one Giant I was in (NE Philly) has this (They even have an elevator to go up there)
ReplyDeleteA second-level office is extremely common in most stores I've seen. Off the top of my head, an early 1970s Skaggs Albertsons had one, an early 1990s Albertsons had one, a late 1980s Safeway had one, a late 1970s Kroger had one, an early 2000s Kroger had one, an early 2000s H-E-B...those are just the ones I can actually confirm as having one from the start.
DeleteThis store does very well on the weekends. Many seemingly slow Acme's pick up quite a bit Thursday through Sunday.
ReplyDeleteTo bad you weren't at the South Philadelphia store at 10th and Reed sts. today, 4/11/115
There were some parking spots available, but to walk the aisles you would wonder where theses people are coming from. About 11:30 am
Wow is that a busy store.
T
Either Acme wants to remove Bucks for the purpose of uniformity with the rest of the chain, or they at that division have decided they don't want coffee shops in their stores. Either way, it's not like they lost the contract: Starbucks is in literally every other Albertsons division (including Jewel-Osco, the prize of New Albertsons), not to mention the Safeway family.
ReplyDeleteVery nice store! Looks spotless in the photos. I just wonder why the Albertson's Marketplace decor was used so often...
ReplyDeleteACME Style, the label says, "Model: Alberstons", instead of, "Model: Albertsons". Can you fix the label?
ReplyDelete