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Re: Walmart in-store restaurants

Posted: 25 Sep 2012 21:53
by pseudo3d
Hempstead's looks like a Project 79 store. There are a number of them still out there--I know that Navasota still has the old WAL-MART on it (from circa 1980, after they switched from the "Western" font--no star!) last I can remember (which was earlier last year, admittedly). Caldwell does, though it has the new Walmart font, as with Madisonville. A bunch of Project 79 stores were shut down in the 1990s for Supercenters.

Re: Walmart in-store restaurants

Posted: 25 Sep 2012 21:55
by BillyGr
Ephrata1966 wrote:Are you familiar with the "Wal-Mart Cafe" (or maybe it was meant to be read "Cafe Wal-Mart") concept? The WM in Aston PA, which was built as one of the last Caldors in 1995, becoming Wal-Mart in 2000, had a very small snack bar by this name. It had a fancy black/tan color scheme and an interesting ambiance, almost like a Starbucks. Sadly it closed in 2005, and was replaced by a Subway, but that also has since closed. Now the store doesn't have a snack bar at all, and has a nail salon in its place. Not sure but I think the Subway was owned by an independent Subway franchisee, and closed because that chain really overexpanded in our area.

And what about an eponymous snack bar? The Norristown PA store (which was a Bradlees), when it opened in 2002, had a very generic snack bar with a red and white oval "snack bar" sign, in the font of most Wal-Mart decor from the 90's. This concept also didn't last, and was replaced by a Subway which remains to this day. I vaguely remember this concept also being at a Bradlees-WM conversion in rural CT where I went on vacation in early 2003.
Given that all the stores you mention started out as something else (Caldor, Bradlees) - perhaps all these snack bars were originated by the original chains and then continued (maybe remodeled or redone or such) when WalMart took over the locations?
I know that at least one or two Caldors and a couple of the Bradlees here had eating areas (one Caldor even had Nathan's hot dogs).

Re: Walmart in-store restaurants

Posted: 28 Sep 2012 15:06
by pseudo3d
I might venture a guess that the reason why they were generic is possibly due to the area: maybe franchising problems, zoning problems, reducing "Wal-Mart shock", etc.