GIANT | Blue Bell, PA

 

1760 Dekalb Pike

Welcome to the Blue Bell GIANT!

It's The Retail Connection's 40th post of 2023! We'll be celebrating with the second half of our Norristown trip, which is taking place in the affluent and beautiful town of Blue Bell. There are three main grocery stores in town, and we'll be touring two of them, beginning with the GIANT. This store opened in 1995 anchoring The Shops at Blue Bell, and was the average 90's GIANT store with the trapezoid glass facade (like Burnham), but was remodeled to this nondescript design in the mid-2000's. Let's take a look!

This store has GIANT's newest decor, and while I do like it a lot, I don't think it really fits here very well. This store previously had the Fun House decor.

GIANT Direct and produce line the right wall of the store. The GIANT Direct area was originally the home of the Marketplace Cafe and Savor Coffee Shoppe.

The deli and kitchen are in the back corner on this side of the store. The hot bar area here is much more appealing than Aldan's salad bar.

Beer and wine are in the first two aisles, where Nature's Promise was originally located.

Meat and seafood line most of the back wall. The photo of the Carlisle Meat Market, the original GIANT, is a nice touch.

Health and beauty aids are in the aisles across from meat. These aisles end at the pharmacy, which we'll be seeing shortly.

Pet food is in aisle 17. This decor package finally eliminated the previous aisle marker design which had been used since 2010.

This GIANT has a total of 21 aisles, with dairy in the last one.

The bakery is in the front left corner.

Connected to the bakery is the small pharmacy counter. Hey, shouldn't those pretzels be with the rest of the baked goods?

Along the front end we see checkout lanes, customer service, and the Citizens Bank branch.

Other Images of Interest

Street View Images

2018

Still a GIANT Food & Drugstore at this point.

Nearby competition

0.8 miles away: Acme of East Norriton

This brand new Acme opened in a former ShopRite on October 20. We toured this store earlier, and you can see it here.

1.1 miles away: Weis of East Norriton

This building was previously owned by Norristown institution Genuardi's from 1999 to 2012, when Safeway sold it and two others to Weis. Click here to tour it.

1.8 miles away: McCaffrey's of Blue Bell

The Blue Bell McCaffrey's opened in 2016 in a former SuperFresh, which was a former Clemens, which was a former... mall. We'll be learning more about this store when we tour it next week.

That's all for this GIANT! While probably the least interesting of the four stores during our Norristown trip, it still seems like a nice supermarket. Next week, we'll be headed up the road to the beautiful McCaffrey's in town. See you then! The Retail Connection: For today's table.