Storewanderer: 2012

This Frys Food (former Smiths) in Globe, AZ is a good example of Kroger's ability to continually improve its operation. The Globe area is not the greatest and appears to be a rather depressed spot. The town is spread out over about 6 long, slow miles with Frys sitting in the middle between two Safeways (one Safeway: a very small store in downtown Globe, the other an early 1990's store remodeled into a lifestyle that is about two car lengths from the entrance to the Globe Wal Mart Supercenter and rarely has more than 5-10 customers inside at once and has removed various lifestyle-standard displays from the perimeter and has quite a bit of other other areas designed for fresh product filled with fillers like soda/water/beer.

In 2009 when I first encountered this store it was very unimpressive, appeared to be struggling, and was a real contrast from the standard Frys operation you see around Phoenix. No self checkout, various understocked areas, dated decor...

I returned to Globe in 2011 to find this store received a very low cost remodel at some point into the Ralphs-looking decor but other than that little had been done to the store. It seemed a little busier but it was still kind of rough.

I returned to Globe yet again in 2012 to find the store received some additional work: the dairy alcove was covered and a long wall-type dairy was installed. The entire store was remerchandised (center store) with various items added that were not there before. The produce area received a decent mock wood looking floor to replace the black carpet (original to whenever Smiths opened this store). The bakery/deli saw significant merchandising improvements. The store still, is very much neglected and aged looking. The old Smiths floor remains in most of the store, old tan Smiths shelves remain in most of the stores, tile behind the bakery/deli areas from Smiths remains, etc. These are things that have long been remodeled out of the other former Arizona Smiths locations that I have been to (and in a number of cases remodeled 2-3 times by now since the Arizona Smiths were converted to Frys in 1999).

The photos below show this store in its various stages.