Acme | Elkton, MD

 

101 Big Elk Mall

Welcome to the Elkton Acme!

Maryland is new territory for us, but at least there's some familiarity in the Elkton Acme! Acme opened a location here on May 4, 1976, as the original anchor of the Big Elk Mall, later being joined by a now-closed Kmart. In the 1990s, the store was expanded to the left, also receiving a complete interior remodel to the Red White & Blue decor, as well as this facade upgrade. The Wilmington location looks similar to this store, although that one has been more recently upgraded and repainted, while Elkton is pretty much true to how it looked for its grand re-opening. Notice the Sav-On sign? This store still has a Sav-On Pharmacy - and pre-Quality Built decor! Let's check it all out!

Not a glamorous foyer by any stretch of the imagination, but we do get to see this store's decor - Premium Fresh & Healthy 2.0! This decor was put into stores in the very late 2000s as a successor to PF&H 1.0. The wall colors are darker and the physical decor is less intricate, but there isn't a drastic departure between the two. PF&H 3.0 was a much bigger change.

The produce department is to our left. This store even still has the original '90s produce windows! The view isn't that exciting, though.

The small bakery counter is past produce but still on the left. Those two hanging pieces of decor are definitely not part of the actual package; they were probably found by a random baker at HomeGoods.

Delicatessen and the butcher block are on the back wall. This is the first time I've seen a word placed on a leaf in this decor; usually, they were put off to the side. They would've had room to put it on the left, but I guess they thought this looked better.

This is probably the only Acme left that still has a Shop the World department, even though it isn't really Shop the World. Interestingly, while Acme dropped that branding long ago, Jewel-Osco continues to use it in current decor today.

Frozen foods are in aisle 7. It's quite surprising to see how even the aisle markers have remained unchanged. The Concordville location has Quality Built aisle markers, even though the rest of the store still has PF&H.

Packaged meats continue down the back wall. Notice how the flooring is still from the RW&B package.

Dairy is on the right side of the store. The last aisle has quite an interesting selection, ranging from cheese to visit our bakery to cough and cold. I wonder how they decide which department to promote with the extra slot. I've seen other stores with "visit our deli" or the grammatically incorrect "visit our floral."

The last two aisle markers are labeled as "wellbeing" even though they don't actually have HABA items. Although, yogurt and cheese are both good for my wellbeing.

The pharmacy and floral departments are in front, just next to the other entrance. This is the only store I've seen with that lit-up "Sav-On Pharmacy" sign. The pharmacy hours sign is, I believe, the only Quality Built element of the entire store.

It may come as a shock to hear that checkouts and customer service are in the front of the store.

Other Images of Interest

Street View Images

2018

Notice the M&T Bank signage on the right tower. I would assume that that was where the DriveUp & Go department is now.

Nearby competition

1.1 miles away: Redner's of Elkton

Next week, we're headed to our very first Redner's, a discount chain based out of Pennsylvania. This particular location opened back in 2005.

2.0 miles away: Food Lion of Elkton

Last week, we toured the Elkton Food Lion, which is probably the easternmost supermarket in Maryland. It opened in 1999 and anchors its shopping center.

4.8 miles away: Safeway of Glasgow

Safeway is quite common in Elkton's state of Maryland, but not as much in Delaware, where there only two other locations. This store opened in 2004 in a former Genuardi's.

This was a nice store. I was glad to see that Premium Fresh & Healthy was still fully in place. Thank you for reading! I'll see you next week at Redner's. Sincerely, The Retail Connection.

Food Lion | Elkton, MD

 

1001 E. Pulaski Highway

Welcome to the Elkton Food Lion!

It's our first time in Maryland! The Free State is home to a wide variety of supermarkets like Giant Food, Shoppers, Harris Teeter, and Wegmans. It also has 52 Food Lions, and we'll be seeing one today! Food Lion opened its Elkton location in 1999 as the anchor of Elkton Crossing. As you can see, this store is a very traditional Food Lion location built in the '90s. It wasn't until 2006 that they updated to this design, which is still used for new stores built today. The chain modernizes their decor much more frequently than that, though, as we'll see when we head inside this store.

The bakery and deli are just to your right as you proceed through the grand aisle. Food Lion is the only major chain I know of that still has the bakery and deli combined. 

Produce and breakfast meats are in the corner. Currently, this store has the Easy, Fresh & Affordable (EFA) 3.0 decor, which we also saw in Claymont and seems to be quite a common sight in Food Lions today. Before that, the store seemed to have an odd combination of Millennium (which it opened with) and a cheap or transitional version of Quality & Value. I've never seen it before, but here's what it looked like.

Various cooking and baking essentials in aisle 4.

The back of the store is home to meat and seafood. Doesn't seem like a ton of meat was in stock here.

The back wall space not taken up by the meat department is used for frozen foods, and dairy is in the last aisle of the store. I think that sign to the right of "Dairy" is probably the only recorded usage of the phrase "creamy and affordable goodness".

Customer service and checkouts along the front.

Other Images of Interest

Street View Images

2023

Google doesn't really have many good angles of this shopping center. They've only been through it once. Food Lion is definitely the star tenant, being joined by various small restaurants and a vape shop.

2014

2014 must have been a low point for this store. Look at that parking lot! The store seemed quite busy when I was there.

Nearby competition

2.0 miles away: Acme of Elkton

Next week's store is the Acme of Elkton, one of six Acme locations in the state of Maryland. This one opened in 1976 as the main anchor of the Big Elk Mall, later being joined two years later by a Kmart. It's the second-oldest Maryland Acme in operation, after  only the Chestertown store, which opened in 1967. It was expanded in the '90s and got the facade upgrade you see here. The decor has been updated more recently than that, but, as we'll see, it's certainly not Acme's newest decor!

2.1 miles away: Redner's of Elkton

We'll then be seeing our first Redner's, a discount chain that mostly operates in east-central Pennsylvania, but has a growing number of locations in Delaware and Maryland. This location in particular opened in 2005.

3.4 miles away: Safeway of Glasgow

And last week, we walked around the Glasgow Safeway. It opened in 1997 as a Genuardi's, and has been operating under the Safeway name since 2004. Currently, it's one of only three Safeways left in Delaware, along with Dover and Rehoboth Beach. There are numerous locations in Maryland, but moreso in the Baltimore area than on the Eastern Shore.

That's all for this tour! This was a nice store. It's nothing revolutionary, but I think that's a big part of Food Lion. Most of the stores are the same, with clean, streamlined aisles, simple decor, and "extra low prices". The history of decor for this store is quite interesting, as well. If you have any more information about it, please let me know! Like I said, I've never seen the version of Quality & Value that this store had, and it being mixed together with Millennium makes it even more interesting. Thanks for reading! This is our home. That's our The Retail Connection.

Safeway | Glasgow, DE

2400 Peoples Plaza

Welcome to the Glasgow Safeway!

Hey, we're at a Safeway! This store is the only Safeway in the Philadelphia area, as well as the only former Genuardi's still connected to Safeway (unless you count the Barnegat store, now an Acme, sister to Safeway since 2015). The presence of Genuardi's in Peoples Plaza dates back to before they were acquired by Safeway, however. They first moved into the center, and into Delaware as a whole, in March of 1995 with the acquisition of two Thriftways (one here and one in Bear). By 1997, they had built this new store, doubled in size and conforming with the standard Genuardi's store design. Safeway acquired Genuardi's in 2001, and, in 2004, all three locations in Delaware were brought under the Safeway name. The Bear Safeway closed in 2011, followed by the Wilmington store in 2018, making this the last Genuardi's-turned-Safeway in operation. Let's see if we can find any ingredients for life in here!

We're entering on the right side of the store through one of the large towers. 

Just through the entrance doors, we find a Starbucks. I don't know if the Starbucks was added by Genuardi's or by Safeway, but the "FOOD COURT" signage on the front of the building on this side of the store dates back to Genuardi's.

Poetry is in bloom in the floral department. Like the Rehoboth Beach store, this location has the woodgrain variant of Lifestyle v3.

A freestanding produce department is to the left of the grand aisle. Before the remodel, back when this store had Lifestyle v2, there was a wall separating the produce section from the aisles.

Prepared foods and the fresh deli are on the right side. This definitely was not the layout the store opened with as a Genuardi's. Pretty much every Genuardi's had produce on one side of the store and the deli/bakery on an island on the opposite side of the store.

The bakery is still pretty much right next to the deli. It's pretty big, too. A lot of space for all those oven fresh and irresistible goods.

Fresh (packaged) meats and a combined seafood and butcher block counter on the back wall. 

Dairy is in the last aisle of the store. This was probably where the produce aisle was in the Genuardi's days, but I don't know that for a fact.

Customer service is here in the front of the store. There was previously a WSFS Bank branch here, with customer service on the other side of the entrance doors (which you can see on the far right in the photo). The customer service sign on the wall is pretty bare-bones compared to Rehoboth Beach.

Well, you're welcome!

Other Images of Interest

Street View Images

2023

The remodel was probably sometime in 2023. Note how this store has DriveUp & Go signage, just like Rehoboth Beach. As I noted in that post, Acme has the service as well, but doesn't advertise it on signs outside.

2018

The WSFS sign is now gone, and the Signature Cafe sign has been swapped out for DriveUp & Go.

Nearby competition

2.4 miles away: ShopRite of Four Seasons

We took a look at this store last week. It first opened in late 2001, not long after Genuardi's was acquired by Safeway, as a SuperFresh. They closed in 2007, but A&P reopened the store as a Pathmark from 2009 to 2012. ShopRite took over in 2013 and has operated in the building since.

3.0 miles away: Food Lion of Elkton

When you join us next week, we'll be at a Food Lion. As you can see, this is a pretty typical location, having opened in 1999 as the anchor of the small Elkton Crossing center. Inside, it has the latest Food Lion decor.

Thanks for joining me on this tour! I've always liked Safeways, and this one seemed pretty nice. It seems to be well cared-for, considering Safeway put in its latest decor and redid the layout at some point (not necessarily recently, though), and it was decently busy. It's also quite interesting to see this store, considering Genuardi's went out of business 12 years ago now and their parent company is still operating out of one of their stores. Have a great weekend, and I'll see you next week when we're getting our lion's share! Sincerely, The Retail Connection.