How many sweetbay supermarkets are there in florida

We've discussed Kash n' Karry and Sweetbay before on the blog, primarily at these two posts two links there. Today we're going to take another look at a former Sweetbay Supermarket, for two reasons: 1 I want to present to everyone the evolution of Sweetbay over its short 10 years in existence, and 2 I just really liked this particular store.

I have a good number of former Sweetbay stores photographed of all different designs and eras, and I could have picked any one of them to serve as the first part of this post. This store won out from all the others as it happened to contain a fun little surprise inside that even caught me off guard, which we'll see a little later.

I also feel that since the vast majority of Sweetbay's stores were converted Kash n' Karry stores, this store serves as a good example of the "average Sweetbay". From Sweetbay's creation in until its demise in , the company did open a few new stores from scratch the bulk of which opened in the late 's.

I have some of those new-build Sweetbay stores photographed for the future, including a really fun one we'll be seeing a month from now to complete my evolution of Sweetbay series, but I'm getting ahead of myself there! All that rambling aside, let's get back to the star of today's post though, the former Fishhawk Sweetbay. The shopping center we see here was the first major development in the master-planned neighborhood of Fishhawk Ranch, a new neighborhood built out in the late 's on some former pasture and farm lands.

The Fishhawk Ranch development is one of the only major population centers in the mostly rural Tampa suburb of Lithia, located to the southeast of Brandon. With the completion of the new subdivision in the late 's, the developers set out to find a supermarket to serve as an anchor to Fishhawk Ranch's first shopping center, to be built at the community's main entrance at the corner of Fishhawk Boulevard and Lithia-Pinecrest Road. Kash n' Karry would ultimately be selected as that anchor, with the new 47, square foot supermarket opening in Fall The building design seen here was the most common one used by Kash n' Karry during its Delahize ownership years from until the debut of Sweetbay.

Delahize had a second store design used concurrently with this one at the turn of the millennium - the round prototype - but that funky design is a story of its own for another day! Delhaize really tried to turn Kash n' Karry around in the late 's, pushing for numerous new stores, and trying to grow the company outward into Orlando and Florida's East Coast. I have to give Delhaize a lot of credit for trying, both with Kash n' Karry's last ditch modernization spree and the rebranding to Sweetbay.

They wanted something to work, but unfortunately, the company got squeezed out of Florida in the end. The Fishhawk Kash n' Karry would convert to the Sweetbay banner in the mid's with the rest of the chain. Besides some new paint to better match Sweetbay's color scheme, the facade of this store wasn't touched much during the conversion.

Since this was a newer store at the time, the conversion here was nothing more than a decor swap and some new paint although some older stores got nothing more than that either, but there were some more involved conversions out there. Sweetbay Supermarket closed for good at this location on March 29, , reopening a week later on April 4, as Winn-Dixie.

With a one week turnaround time, Winn-Dixie did nothing more to their acquired Sweetbay stores than restock the shelves and put in their own register equipment.

All the stores retained Sweetbay's decor and layout, something that still holds true even to this day in many cases like we'll see here. Winn-Dixie has begun to remodel many of their acquired Sweetbay stores of late, as remodels to the new Down Down decor have ramped up quite a bit in the last year. Seeing a grocery store use a completely in-tact decor package from a former tenant is quite intriguing to me, so I've been trying to get to as many of these untouched "Sweet-Dixies" as I call them before the cans of red paint find them.

These Delhaize-era Kash n' Karry stores had very stately exterior designs, with the grand archways over the main entrance. I like the design of these stores, as the towering, grandiose entrance makes the store seem quite mighty. Stepping onto the front walkway, here's a look toward the store's main entrance. As far as I'm aware, the Kash n' Karry stores of this design only had a single set of doors serving as the entrance and exit, those doors pictured here.

Stepping through the front doors, to the right was the cartwell, which also included a community bulletin board and display of promotional items featuring Thanksgiving staples, as I visited here the week before Thanksgiving. Looking the opposite direction from the cartwell, we get this overview of the store's front end. Beyond the usual promotional stuff that greets you as you enter the store is the service desk and the check lanes. Until the early 's, the service desk used to be located against the building's front wall.

In Sweetbay's final years here, the service desk was moved to the island where it currently stands, as the customer service sign seen here is actually from the "Sweetbay 2. Speaking of the Sweetbay 2. The store we'll be touring today, like the vast majority of the other Sweetbay stores, used the "Sweetbay 1. The Sweetbay 1. All of the converted Kash n' Karry stores and Sweetbay's newbuilds through the end of the 's got the Sweetbay 1.

Entering the 's and Sweetbay's final two years, that's when the super rare Sweetbay 2. A month from now we'll see the amazing rarity that was Sweetbay 2. The produce department is located in the front right corner of the building, the first department you enter following the natural progression of this store's layout.

In the previous photo we saw some of the wall decorations for the produce department, with the main sign visible in the photo above. The floral department is located in an unsigned island between produce and the grocery aisles. The only feature designating the floral department are those hanging wooden circles, a distinctive feature from these larger, open ceiling Sweetbay stores. From produce, here's a look back toward the front end and the left side of the store.

The floor tile pattern we'll see throughout the store is from Kash n' Karry, that light orange and white striped pattern a remnant from Kash n' Karry's late 90's decor package. Here's a close-up shot of the floral island, with an overview of the produce department in the background.

Beyond floral and produce we find the "grand aisle", home to the store's deli and bakery departments, located toward the back of the building. Between produce and the deli were some refrigerated cases, containing the lunch meats and specialty cheeses and Winn-Dixie really wanted to get the point across that there were specialty cheeses in this case, putting three signs on top of each other, each getting smaller as you go down!

Heading down the grand aisle, we finally make it to the deli counter. What's always fun about these Sweet-Dixies is how to this day, Sweetbay's logo can still be found all over the place in the store, such as the really large example behind the deli sign.

It's so easy to forget you're in a Winn-Dixie when shopping at one of these stores - it really feels like Sweetbay never went anywhere! Here's a wide shot of the deli counter, looking back toward the lunch meat coolers in the background. The display cases closest to the left side of the image are original to the store, as the purple stripe running along the front of the cooler is a remnant from Kash n' Karry's decor which was teal, green, and purple like we saw at this former Kash n' Karry in Ocoee , only this store would have had a more deluxe version of the decor seen in Ocoee.

Zooming in behind the deli counter, the original Kash n' Karry wall tile was never changed out either. Original flooring, cooler striping, and wall tiles from Kash n' Karry are nice and all, but let me top all of this by turning around:.

While some of those harder to swap out things from Kash n' Karry tended to linger at these Sweetbay conversion stores, never have I seen a Kash n' Karry decor sign so obviously left behind like this!

I didn't even know this sign was here when I made my visit, and it took me a few passes up and down this aisle before it sank in that there was something off about the 'Fine Wines' sign. But yes, that's very much a piece of Kash n' Karry, a piece I'm very surprised lived into the Sweetbay years.

Once I realized this sign was a Kash n' Karry remnant, I had to sweep back through these aisles for a few more photos. If you're like most people and don't recall or know what Kash n' Karry's decor looked like, this signage does kind of blend in with the rest of Sweetbay's decor, as it uses bright colors and wooden accents like we've seen elsewhere in the store. As far as I'm aware, Sweetbay never had official signage for the wine department, which could have been a reason why these old signs from Kash n' Karry made the cut to stay here.

In addition to the main 'Fine Wines' sign, some smaller matching signs also hung over the department, describing various kinds of wine Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc are the two visible here. As we saw at that former Kash n' Karry in Ocoee a while back, there were similar descriptive signs used in the produce department as well.

Here's a nice overview of the entire wine department and its matching original signage. There is so little documentation of Kash n' Karry out there, especially inside the stores, so finding any any traces of Kash n' Karry's old decor is always a nice surprise.

Moving away from the wine department, we find the bakery in the back right corner of the store. Like we saw behind the deli counter, the tile backsplash in the bakery continues with Kash n' Karry's old pattern. The 'Bake' portion of the 'Bake Shop' sign blends into the logo in the background, which uses the same shade of red as the 'Bake' lettering.

In person the blending in isn't as bad, but the pictures make the problem seem much worse. Here's a look at some additional signage at the corner of the bakery counter. As we begin to leave the grand aisle, here's a look across the back of the store. Meat and seafood take up most of the back wall, with the wall transitioning into dairy nearing the left side of the store.

The first grocery aisle, which is unnumbered, contains a portion of the wine department, as well as various condiments. The numbered aisles begin under the drop ceiling with aisle 1, the next aisle over. Here's another look at the decorative hanging wooden circles as we exit the wine department.

Organic foods and organic frozen foods take up this half aisle. While most grocery stores seem to be making the switch to mixing in the organic products with their standard counterparts like Publix , Winn-Dixie, even in recent remodels, keeps the organic products separated in their own departments like this. Turning out of the aisle, here's a nice overview of the store's front end.

As we make our way to the other side of the store, let's meander through some of the grocery aisles The "Seafood Market" is nothing more than some self-serve coolers. It looks like there could have been a full-service counter in this spot at one time, but it was most likely removed and consolidated into the meat counter during the Sweetbay years. Here's a different angle of the 'Seafood Market', this time showing the location of the bakery in the background. The full-service meat counter is located right next door to the Seafood Market, in an interesting little round pop out from the back wall.

What I've always found interesting about these Sweet-Dixie conversions is how Winn-Dixie went through the trouble to replace Sweetbay's meat department signage with a sign that said "The Beef People" - in the same font to match the existing Sweetbay decor too. Originally this would have been branded as the rather generic " Butcher Shop ", as presented to you at that link by Sweetbay's former spokes-butcher, Kevin.

The rounded design of the meat counter makes it stand out from the rest of the store's back wall, the spokes from the counter's awning tying in well with the hanging decor visible over the meat coolers in the distance. Here's a close-up of the service counter itself. The left half of the counter isn't used any more, the empty display cooler now covered with ads, with the only meats for sale located in the display case on the other side.

To the left of the service counter is this small alcove with all the prepackaged meats. A decorative piece matching the awning over the service counter hangs above the alcove. A short aisle of some groceries splits the back aisle in half, separating the meat alcove from the grocery aisles.

Back into the grocery aisles we go for a little while Even Sweetbay's original category markers stayed through the conversions to Winn-Dixie. One of Winn-Dixie's big points when they converted these stores was to not touch the layout of the store in any way, a means to ease shoppers into the new brand taking over their local Sweetbay stores.

As time went on, Winn-Dixie has made themselves at home in these buildings. Like I said before, many Sweet-Dixies had full remodels to Down Down in recent years some of those remodels more intensive than others. The ex-Sweetbay stores that have yet to remodel are still pretty close to their original layouts, even within the grocery aisles, although some minor shuffling has since occurred.

For example, the category marker here advertises "Hot Cereal", which has since moved elsewhere within this aisle. Unless you like your Froot Loops warm, this category marker is a bit inaccurate now! Getting to the store's halfway point, we find the pre-packaged breads and baking supplies.

Greeting cards, magazines, and baby stuff in aisle 9. Throughout the 7 years the Sweetbay 1. The tri-siders were the most common design in Sweetbay 1. Sweetbay 2. As we get closer to the left side of the building, here's a look across the back of the store, looking at what we've covered so far. Here's one last look at the meat alcove. N, in St. Sweetbay started informing employees about the closures on Wednesday. Those eligible would receive severance packages. Some may be transferred to other stores.

Jeff Harrington contributed to this report. Susan Thurston can be reached at sthurston tampabay. Subscribe Manage my subscription Activate my subscription Log in Log out. Regions Tampa St. Letters to the Editor Submit a Letter. Investigations Narratives Pulitzer Winners. Connect with us. About us. Obituaries Homes Jobs Classifieds. Careers Advertise Legal Contact. Log in.

Account Manage my subscription Activate my subscription Log out. Sweetbay Supermarket to close 33 stores in Florida. By Times Staff Writer. Published Jan. The Sweetbay stores were modeled after Delhaize's northeastern chain Hannaford , with Sweetbay's interior decor, logo, and pricing strategy all incorporating elements of Hannaford, but with a Floridian twist. While still facing competitive obstacles, Sweetbay Supermarket continued to open new stores into the s including locations in Cape Coral [3] and Palm Harbor [4].

After nearly 10 years in operation, the new Sweetbay Supermarket stores were still facing the mounting competitive pressures that its predecessor Kash n' Karry was having trouble fighting.

With Sweetbay suffering from being "stuck in the middle" [6] , caught between discount chains Save-A-Lot, Walmart, and Aldi, and more upscale chains like Publix and Whole Foods, Sweetbay was continuing to see sales losses and decreasing market share in the increasingly polarized Floridian grocery market.

In February , Sweetbay announced it was shuttering 33 of the company's locations at the time [7]. Included as part of the sale were two of Delhaize's other banners, Harvey's Supermarket and Reid's. As part of the sale, all of the remaining Sweetbay stores would convert to the Winn-Dixie brand.