Fred Meyer Warehouse Foods Stores

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StoreLiker2013
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Location: Oak Grove, OR
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Fred Meyer Warehouse Foods Stores

Post by StoreLiker2013 »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWs2iux8DBQ

According to this 1987 TV spot regarding Fred Meyer Founder's Day Sales, the sales apply to all stores, except:
Fred Meyer Warehouse Foods in Albany, Coos Bay, Medford, The Dalles and Roseburg; Consumers' Warehouse Foods; Fred Meyer Foods at Mill Plain, Fourth Plain, Hazel Dell, 6th & Alder and Stark.
That's right, these sales were not held at any of their three Vancouver, WA stores!

Does anyone know about Fred Meyer's warehouse foods concept?

Also: the Stark location (at 122nd) never had a food department.

~Ben
Super S
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Re: Fred Meyer Warehouse Foods Stores

Post by Super S »

I do remember when Fred Meyer opened their first full-line store in Boise in Garden City, and they were promoting the food department as Warehouse Foods. It did have an open, warehouse ceiling, along with the home improvement area, but most of the store had a suspended ceiling.

I remember when nearly every page of a Fred Meyer ad said, "Not available at 6th & Alder"
VibeGuy
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Re: Fred Meyer Warehouse Foods Stores

Post by VibeGuy »

Roseburg had a Warehouse Foods in kind of an odd location at the east end of Garden Valley Boulevard that survived for a couple of years after the opening of the current mainline store several miles away.

When the new store opened, the food section was also in the Warehouse Foods model: center-store products displayed in cut boxes rather than shelved, and the deli section/"konditorei" was across the main aisle from the grocery registers. Customers were expected to bag their own groceries and unlike most Fred Meyer stores of the era, there wasn't a port cochere for courtesy clerk loading service. Originally, grocery and variety had separate cash lanes. Later, after they were integrated, the grocery section had longer hours than variety; they would drag a metal gate across the opening between the two to isolate them.
Super S
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Re: Fred Meyer Warehouse Foods Stores

Post by Super S »

VibeGuy wrote:Roseburg had a Warehouse Foods in kind of an odd location at the east end of Garden Valley Boulevard that survived for a couple of years after the opening of the current mainline store several miles away.

When the new store opened, the food section was also in the Warehouse Foods model: center-store products displayed in cut boxes rather than shelved, and the deli section/"konditorei" was across the main aisle from the grocery registers. Customers were expected to bag their own groceries and unlike most Fred Meyer stores of the era, there wasn't a port cochere for courtesy clerk loading service. Originally, grocery and variety had separate cash lanes. Later, after they were integrated, the grocery section had longer hours than variety; they would drag a metal gate across the opening between the two to isolate them.
The Boise/Garden City store also displayed items in the cut boxes and was a bag your own setup at first. It also had "Dual cashier" checkstands which were very similar to the Waremart stores of the time. Within the first few years, the checkstands were replaced with the type similar to what most Fred Meyer stores have today, but retained the grocery-department-only NCR registers already in use at the time (the main store had non-scanning NCR 255s while grocery had scanners and NCR registers similar to Albertsons), and they were heavily advertising how the cashiers now "bag and scan in one easy motion" or something similar. The grocery department struggled at first...keep in mind that Fred Meyer arrived in Boise after purchase of the Grand Central chain and this was their first full line store. I do remember reading an article in the Idaho Statesman where they were even considering eliminating the food department at one point. However, I don't think the hours were different in that department.

The Nampa store opened around the same time as Garden City, and I believe had the same grocery setup.

Back then there was a lot more competition. Besides Albertsons and Waremart, Boise still had Buttrey, Smith's, M&W, and D'Alessandro's (which Albertsons bought and eventually reopened as Maxx Warehouse Food & Drug) Walmart was nowhere near Boise at that time.
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