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.
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.
From the outside this really looks like an average 1990's built Food Lion, so Food Lion lucked out with the exterior design when taking over this building. Inside I'd have to guess Food Lion rebuilt the interior, as the layout appears to be close to the usual Rutherfordton design (and I can't imagine a 1970's A&P having an open ceiling). A&P to Food Lion is still an unusual conversion though. Also, I agree that EFA 3.0 isn't a bad decor either - it's a good balance of basic yet still appealing.
ReplyDeleteWith Food Lion, even if the Primetime Live scandal never happened, I still think the contraction from all those fringe markets would have occurred, maybe just a bit more slowly and after another new market or two (like Illinois) was entered. Food Lion's expansion efforts in Florida and Texas weren't doing well from the start, and I can't see either of those markets sustaining themselves for much longer than they did following the scandal. Would have been interesting to see what would have played out had the scandal not happened, as Food Lion was quite ambitious in the 1990's, more so than most other grocers in the last few decades.
All true! The vibe of a regular Food Lion was definitely there even if this store wasn't built by them. And it certainly would be interesting to have seen Food Lion continue to expand, if they really would have even without the scandal.
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