102205-winndixie

Poor old, forgotten Winn-Dixie…

For those of you who care about such things, this particular one was originally a Zayre store. The Winn-Dixie relocated from elsewhere in the same center (on Cone Boulevard in Greensboro NC) in the late 1980s, after Zayre gave up on the location…

I believe this was Greensboro’s first Winn-Dixie “Marketplace” location. There was one in Charlotte at Tryon and Sugar Creek with exactly the same façade; it had originally been a Woolco store, and it closed several years ago…

It’s interesting to see how the ever-increasing size of supermarkets caused them to take over so many old discount stores in Greensboro. A King’s store on West Market Street became a Kroger and later a Food Lion. The Kmart across the street became a relocated version of that same Kroger and then a Harris-Teeter. And Greensboro’s other Zayre store was briefly reborn as a Lowes Foods…

I have my doubts that there will be a new tenant in this old Winn-Dixie anytime soon, though…

Even my old hometown is courting supermarkets in the central city now:

Jones said they have had some interest from a few grocers, but he declined to say who they were. In general, he said, chains like The Fresh Market, Whole Foods Market and Harris Teeter are interested in spaces for smaller stores.

In August 2003, Harris Teeter opened a 17,000-square-foot store in uptown Charlotte. The store is part of a condominium complex.

It will be interesting to see what happens here. Downtown Greensboro is, in a sense, where this website was born. It was there, at age nine or so, that I became obsessed with the ancient A&P store which sat near what used to be my great grandmother’s house. It was in Greensboro that my mom showed me the few entrance tiles which were all that remained from the Big Star store which had been Greensboro’s first real supermarket back when she was a little girl.

It’s where the obsession began, after all, so it would be nice to see some supermarket chain return to the area after thirty years or so, even if it’s in some trendy, new wave building that looks more like an Urban Outfitters than a grocery store…