Jewel-Osco | Bolingbrook, IL

 

1200 W. Boughton Road

Welcome to the Bolingbrook Jewel-Osco!

In December, to much fanfare, McDonald's opened its very first CosMc's restaurant in Bolingbrook, Illinois in a major shopping area with other stores like Lowe's, Best Buy, Meijer, and, of course, Jewel-Osco. We'll be seeing that store today. It opened sometime between 1994 and 1996, likely on the earlier end of that time frame since the Marshalls in the center held its grand opening on October 13, 1994. While the store received a light update to the Jewel Heritage decor, it also retains parts of the PF&H 1.0 decor that preceded it. Without further adieu, let's see what's in store at the Bolingbrook Jewel-Osco!

We're entering on the right side to the grand aisle.

Produce and deli (or Chef's Kitchen, as it was known at Jewel for many years) are on the right wall, with the bake shop across from that on the other side of the grand aisle. The butcher block is in the back corner, behind where the second photo was taken.

International foods are in aisle 4, which is still branded as Shop the World and seems to have a sign that matches the new decor. I thought that name hadn't been used since SuperValu.

Moving onto the last aisle of the store. This store takes a page from Wegmans having paper products and the like in the final aisle. The pharmacy is in view at the end of the aisle (side note: this store has a drive-thru pharmacy).

Beer, wine & spirits are on the left side in the last few aisles. This picture is still completely fresh and healthy.

Here, we're looking from the pharmacy towards the front end.

Floral is freestanding just past the left entrance. Frozen foods are visible in the background of the second photo.

Other Images of Interest

Street View Images

2022

I'm writing this post on February 28, and certainly hoping the weather is this nice when this goes up!

2015

If we could go inside, we would see all Premium Fresh & Healthy decor. The red apples in the windows signify that.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this tour of a Jewel-Osco! I certainly thought it seemed like a nice store. And thanks to our Illinois tour guide Calypso for bringing it to us. By the way, the CosMc's reference at the beginning obviously had nothing to do with this store itself, but I thought it was worth mentioning anyway since it's a cool fact. Thank you for reading. See you next week! Sincerely, The Retail Connection.

Jewel-Osco | Bensenville, IL

 

1127 S. York Road

Welcome to the Bensenville Jewel-Osco!

Chicago's favorite grocery store chain is back on The Retail Connection! The Bensenville Jewel-Osco is the first one we're seeing that wasn't actually built by the company. A&P (which the rest of the center was designed to replicate) originally opened on this site in 1961, becoming Dominick's in the early 70s. Dominick's razed the store and rebuilt it in 2001, closing with the chain in 2013. After a few years of vacancy, Jewel-Osco opened here in 2016. It has the Jewel Heritage decor we've come to know quite well inside. Let's take a look!

Heading in on the right side. I'm not sure why Bensenville isn't referenced here, especially considering there are no other Jewel stores in town that could be confused with this one.

In a somewhat interesting layout, a Starbucks counter on the front wall turns into the bake shop on the right wall. Across from that is an island with the deli facing the bakery and the pharmacy on the other side. I would imagine this layout came from Safeway, since none of the Jewels we've seen look like this and it's vaguely similar to the Genuardi's layout.

Beer and wine is in the back corner on this side of the store past the bakery, and dairy and meats run down the back wall.

A look at the dairy section from aisle 16, which has health and beauty products in stock.

Fresh cut meat and seafood is on the far left side of the back wall. I think it would've made more sense to put it where the beer and wine is so it would be with all of the other service departments, but at least here it's near produce. Speaking of which...

The sign is mostly obscured here, but it says "Your Neighborhood's Freshest Produce Market." I guess Jewel-Osco just really has something against the name Bensenville.

Fresh flowers are in the front corner next to the left entrance.

Looking at the Huntington Bank branch on the front wall, which as usual was TCF Bank prior to 2021. And, of course, Jojo is making an appearance to promote the Just for U rewards program. What a great way to end the tour!

Other Images of Interest

Street View Images

2016

Still quite a new Jewel-Osco here. It was only 12 years old when it closed as a Dominick's, too. I don't know when the last new Dominick's opened, but it probably wasn't very long after this store did. Genuardi's, a similar Philadelphia-area Safeway-owned chain which I'm sure we're all familiar with on the blog, opened its last store in 2005 and closed in 2012.

2011

As you can see, Jewel-Osco did make some minor alterations to the entrance towers, but other than that kept the store pretty much the same as it was as Dominick's.

Thanks as always to Calypso for this Jewel-Osco tour! This is quite a nice store, and it's especially interesting to see the layout I recognize from Genuardi's, a family chain from the Philadelphia area, in a store in Illinois. Next week, we're headed to another Jewel-Osco about 30 miles south of Bensenville, near the Naperville area. See you then! Sincerely, The Retail Connection.

Food Lion | Claymont, DE

 

3609 Philadelphia Pike

Welcome to the Claymont Food Lion!

It's our first time inside a Food Lion here on The Retail Connection! During the 1990s, the North Carolina-based chain began expanding throughout the country, opening new stores as far west as Texas and Oklahoma, as far south as Florida, and as far north as Pennsylvania. There were even plans for expansion into states like Illinois when a controversy on meat quality sparked by a Primetime Live report caused sales to decline, and the chain eventually retreated from all new markets except central Pennsylvania and Delaware, where stores continue to operate to this day. This particular Food Lion opened on August 26, 2009 in what was originally an A&P that later became a SuperFresh before moving down the street in 2000. The Food Lion opened with the chain's Rutherfordton decor, but now operates with Easy Fresh & Affordable 3.0, which we'll be seeing today. Let's head inside and get our lion's share!

The produce department is in the front right corner. Because of this store being a 70s A&P (which actually has a similar design in terms of the vestibule to purpose-built Food Lions), you have to walk past the registers to get to the grand aisle. Also for that reason, all of the departments in this store are quite small.

The deli-bakery is next, combined into one department in true Food Lion fashion. For being so basic, I actually really enjoy this decor.

No service department for meat and seafood, but it's in the back right corner past the deli-bakery counter.

Dairy products, ingredients that enrich meals, can be found along almost the entire back wall.

Paper products in aisle 7. The aisle markers are a high point of this decor for me. They're simple but look really good.

Frozen foods and ice cream run down the left side of the store. It gets really cramped once you get over here, but they still had a full selection.

Six checkout lanes and customer service under the front overhang. Even with all the lanes open, there were still lines! I was very surprised to see the store so busy, even on a Sunday morning.

Other Images of Interest

Street View Images

2020

This seems to have been during the remodel, as the main facade has the new colors but the rest of the store is still tan.

2017

Definitely still straight out of Rutherfordton, North Carolina here.

2007

Pre-Food Lion days here. To see photos inside the replacement SuperFresh when it was still open, click here.

Nearby competition

3.1 miles away: Acme of Foulk & Naamans

We're probably all familiar with this Acme by now. One thing I forgot to mention is that there was a Genuardi's across the street that opened in 1999 and later became a Safeway from 2004 until 2018. It had to close due to the Albertsons-Safeway merger, but I'm surprised they weren't forced to sell it off to another company to retain competition.

4.9 miles away: Acme of Boothwyn

Just barely meeting the criteria for nearby competition is the Boothwyn Acme, which we've seen in this section on several previous posts and toured back in October. It opened as SuperFresh in 1994, then was converted to Pathmark Sav-A-Center in 2008, then sold to Acme in 2015.

Thank you for reading this post! This was actually a much nicer store than I was expecting, and also quite busy. It's been the only supermarket in Claymont since SuperFresh's closure in 2015, so it is understandable. See you next week! This is our home, that's our The Retail Connection.