I’m happy to say that a reader has confirmed that this Pavilions was originally a Safeway-Super S combo, as I’d guessed. He also adds that his “childhood recollection, however, was that they didn’t use the Super-S name in Southern California but called them ‘Safeway Variety Centers’ instead.” Anyone care to confirm?

This reader also noted that the building is in danger of being demolished when the store is replaced with a new building at the other end of the current parking lot…

With that mystery solved, does anyone have a clue what the heck this thing might have been? It looks like maybe some chain discount store prototype, but it could have been a supermarket as well, I guess. This particular example stands on Mooney Boulevard in Visalia CA.