Is Downtown Ready for an Urban Grocery Store?

[Deuce]

There's just something about the Winn-Dixie Downtown that deturs people. I can't really articulate it, but I regularly bypassed it for Riverside or the one in Lakewood all the time.

It's the freaking people who shop there! The place looks nice and it's clean now and they are somewhat responsive to carrying items when you ask for them, but their clientele is not who I want to be shopping next too. I gave it a few chances and it failed consistently. I'm not returning. I would attribute part of their rise in sales to the closure of Quality Foods and some of the whole in the wall convenience stores in the area.

Can you find the Publix in this Greenville, SC photo?

Oh look another shout out to my home town of Greenville. BTW, there's an office supply store there too and within walking distance a vet and a top quality wine store with a high end restaurant attached. As for jobs, there are plenty within walking distance too, and the very nicely landscaped dowtown park & zoo are also within walking distance. Jump in the car and in ten minutes you can be at the two main suburban shopping destinations in the city. Kinda of makes me sick to my stomach.

As for downtown grocery stores, I want a freaking Whole Foods! Is anyone familiar with Kudzu at Litchfield Beach, SC. http://kudzubakery.com/

[second_pancake]

There's just something about the Winn-Dixie Downtown that deturs people. I can't really articulate it, but I regularly bypassed it for Riverside or the one in Lakewood all the time.

It's the freaking people who shop there! The place looks nice and it's clean now and they are somewhat responsive to carrying items when you ask for them, but their clientele is not who I want to be shopping next too. I gave it a few chances and it failed consistently. I'm not returning. I would attribute part of their rise in sales to the closure of Quality Foods and some of the whole in the wall convenience stores in the area.

As for downtown grocery stores, I want a freaking Whole Foods! Is anyone familiar with Kudzu at Litchfield Beach, SC. http://kudzubakery.com/

I totally agree with you on both points. 

Winn-Dixies in general, because of their low prices, lesser-quality generic products, the people to whom their advertising is geared, the design of their stores (not talking cleanliness here folks, talking DESIGN), and the locations they choose, are ALWAYS going to attract different people and convey a different atmosphere than Publix, Whole Foods, or Native Sun.

People who shop at Publix go there not for low-prices, but because they feel paying a higher price for the same or similar product available at Winn-Dixie, is well worth shopping in an environment that FEELS nice, is good to look at, and employees clean-cut, half-way intelligent people. 

Even the name itself determines the customer.  Winn-DIXIE.  This is a southern grocery store...born and bred.  People hear the word, Dixie, and automatically associate the south...whether that's good, bad, or indifferent.  Go into the store and then the 'south' becomes, hick, dirty, and slow.  Granted, Publix, is only a letter away from sounding like an uncomfortable subject from a high-school health class, but it's unique in a way that the only association you can make with it is based on your personal experiece from shopping there.  When you walk in, you see modern displays, up-to-date and well-designed surroundings from the floors to the lighting, to the way the produce is washed.  Everything makes sense as to where it is located and it's consistent among it's stores...you don't have to go hunting and pecking for items.  Design is applied even to the less-costly Publix brand generic items, depicting graphic images that are fresh, modern, and at times, humorous.  I once saw a depiction of a cyclist on a package of Publix-brand 'Depends'.  I'm sure you can guess the millions of thoughts I had about what they were trying to say, exactly, lol.

[second_pancake]

Speaking of what's-in-a-name:  anyone ever heard of the grocery store, Piggly-Wiggly??  We had those growing up in Tennessee.  Their signs had an image of a cartoon pig with a butcher hat on.  Disturbing.

[copperfiend]

I noticed the same thing in Atlanta. The Krogers I went to were messy, less appealing and with less helpful associates. Tthe Publix stores were cleaner and the associates were much friendlier.

[Captain Zissou]

I like to think that I frequent downtown far more than most citizens of our fair city (once or twice a week), but I have never seen the Winn Dixie.  Part of the reason it does poorly could be lack of awareness of the nearby residents (southbank, San Marco, etc).....

[Prax_N_Jax]

When we drove back home from North Carolina, we stopped @ a Piggly Wiggly on our way back. It's like Winn Dixie's long lost cousin. Very southern in deed!

[jason_contentdg]

Speaking of what's-in-a-name:  anyone ever heard of the grocery store, Piggly-Wiggly??  We had those growing up in Tennessee.  Their signs had an image of a cartoon pig with a butcher hat on.  Disturbing.

Not only that, but there is also a chain called Hoggly Woggly in the panhandle of Florida....

[cline]

Winn-Dixies in general, because of their low prices, lesser-quality generic products, the people to whom their advertising is geared, the design of their stores (not talking cleanliness here folks, talking DESIGN), and the locations they choose, are ALWAYS going to attract different people and convey a different atmosphere than Publix, Whole Foods, or Native Sun.

Actually Winn Dixie is currently going through a new branding and ad campaign to help get rid of this stigma you speak of.  They seem to be having success with this(their earnings reflect this).  The Winn Dixie by my house is very nice and is where I do the majority of my shopping.

[Deuce]

Good point about brand identity second_p. To twist the Sprite tagline: Image is everything. I can't afford to shop at Whole Foods all the time, but I want one because of the image it conveys and the products therein.

Also, the store I mention in Litchfield Beach is right behing a Piggily Wiggily that is quite nice, nicer than most Publix we have in town. Most folks just call it The Pig.

[tufsu1]

All of you who refuse to shop at the downtown Winn Dixie because of the "lesser than you" people who shop there should be ashamed.

Guess what....part of being an urban pioneer is a willingness to live in neighborhoods that aren't upscale and may include neighbors that you would not normally socialize with.

[Deuce]

Not ashamed at all. I realize that being a pioneer means living next to people "lesser than me" as you put it, but I don't have to shop with them.

I am merely using my buying dollar to shape my community. Companies track who spends what and where to the penny. Every time I'm asked for my zipcode at SJTC, I proudly give it so that those stores will begin to see that a lot more buying dollars are coming out of 32206. This data impacts their decisions to build second stores and where they build it.

[iluvolives]

Back in the 90's and early 2000 I would say Publix was better- but now I think it's just based off which building is newer. When I lived off Gate Parkway and 9A I would go to the new Winn Dixie and liked it more than the Publix across the street. Now I live across from another new Winn Dixie and go to it rather than the Publix down the street. As long as the building was built in the last few years, they are really nice. Have you ever been to the Publix on Merril or at University/Powers- just as bad as an old Winn Dixie

As far as private label items go- they are all the same. The potato chip factory has one line filling Winn Dixie brand chips and the other line filling Publix.

If all is equal I would rather support a locally headquartered business.

[stjr]

Speaking of what's-in-a-name:  anyone ever heard of the grocery store, Piggly-Wiggly??  We had those growing up in Tennessee.  Their signs had an image of a cartoon pig with a butcher hat on.  Disturbing.

Piggly Wiggly was started decades ago by investors in Winn Dixie that got bought out.  Maybe that explains their similarities to this day.  Legend is that part of the deal was they couldn't open any stores in W-D's backyard of Jacksonville but for a very long time their headquarters were right here in Jax!

[copperfiend]

Back in the 90's and early 2000 I would say Publix was better- but now I think it's just based off which building is newer. When I lived off Gate Parkway and 9A I would go to the new Winn Dixie and liked it more than the Publix across the street.

The WD at Baymeadows/9A is by far the nicest I have ever been to. I usually go there if I need to get something after 10pm. That is probably the only WD I would go to before a Publix.

[cline]

Piggly Wiggly was started decades ago by investors in Winn Dixie that got bought out.  Maybe that explains their similarities to this day.  Legend is that part of the deal was they couldn't open any stores in W-D's backyard of Jacksonville but for a very long time their headquarters were right here in Jax!

Wrong.  Piggly Wiggly was actually founded before Winn Dixie in the early 1900's.