Winn-Dixie #104 - Perry, FL
The Blue Light Has Burned Out
Winn-Dixie #104
Taylor Square Shopping Center
2057 South Byron Butler Parkway
Perry, FL 32348
I've said this time and time again, but it pains me to watch these ALDI conversions progress through the places that matter to me. Perry, Florida, is one of those towns.
After all that Taylor County has gone through over the past two years, including being the landfall site of 2023's Category 3 Hurricane Idalia and 2024's Category 4 Hurricane Helene, as well as experiencing the closure of both its sawmill and its paper mill, you would think the "Tree Capital of the South" could catch a break.
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| Courtesy of Rinthy Matthews (Facebook) - July 24, 2025 |
Taylor County, the fourteenth least-populated in the state, serves as the de-facto commercial hub of the surrounding Madison, Dixie, Jefferson, and Lafayette Counties which rank 11th, 10th, 9th, and 2nd on that list, respectively. Thanks in part to its larger size (Taylor is the thirteenth largest county in the state), Taylor County ranks fourth in least population density, with only Glades, Lafayette, and Liberty counties coming in ahead. All of that is to say that Florida's Big Bend has some decidedly rural country.
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| Courtesy of Stephanie Garrahan Lee (Facebook) - August 10, 2025 - They took down the exit sign! |
Ruralness isn't a problem, considering how I much prefer sparsely-populated locales to the hectic urban sprawl of major cities. What is a problem, though, is when rural communities lose a key piece of butcher's twine that was binding them together: it seems that Winn-Dixie #104 was one such thread.
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| Courtesy of Stephanie Garrahan Lee (Facebook) - July 10, 2025 |
As part of preparing for this post, I decided to do a quick Google search to see if I could uncover anything new. I ended up stumbling upon a Facebook group for store #104 which really made the closure, scheduled August 10th, hit home.
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| Facebook - August 15, 2025 |
It is one thing to look at this supermarket as just another "nasty, old Winn-Dixie" where ALDI is swooping in to save the day with lower grocery prices, but it is another when you realize how many people are losing their jobs thanks to this deal, and how many more have to settle for Walmart as their supermarket if they don't want to drive an hour to Tallahassee or Live Oak for other options. In my opinion, a full supermarket is a key piece in a town having a soul; however, now Perry is just left with Walmart, the soulless void of retail, joined by Save a Lot and ALDI, two glorified dollar stores.
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| Courtesy of Stephanie Garrahan Lee (Facebook) - July 24, 2025 - Linda: Assistant Dept Manager - Front End |
Having lived in a small town, I know that the grocery store is where you run into people you know. It's where you go every week to not only pick up what you need to eat but also explore new ingredients to stir up some excitement in your kitchen. It's where you go to get a birthday cake, and also where you go to get your birthday steak. It is much more approachable than a massive supercenter, yet it still has everything on your list. Love it or hate it, almost all of us visit a supermarket every week – it truly becomes woven into our lives.
When that stitch gets pulled, our routine begins to unravel.
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| Courtesy of Stephanie Garrahan Lee (Facebook) - July 11, 2025 |
The roughly 7,500 residents of Perry were forced to sew back their lives beginning midway through last month. This Winn-Dixie received its last ever shipment on July 10, 2025, and the employees had a celebration for the time they had spent together (pictured above).
I'm not sure if we will ever know the real toll that the ALDI acquisition took on employment in small towns like Perry, but I do know that a select few dedicated workers decided they would rather commute an hour one-way and transfer than leave the company. At least the Live Oak store isn't on the conversion list! Many other employees chose this transition as the time to retire from the company, while some still were forced to seek out alternate employment.
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| Courtesy of Stephanie Garrahan Lee (Facebook) - August 11, 2025 |
Moreover, what is especially tough is how Southeastern Grocers has (mis)handled this whole transition. The fact that independent journalists, like me, are forced to spend hours compiling information on closing stores is bad enough, but the lack of transparency provided to team members has been even tougher to watch. I'm not sure how a company can recover for such an egregious violation of trust.
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| Winn-Dixie Weekly Ad - July 30, 2025 |
That's not all. I was reading through the comments on the posts I have included above, when I saw somebody mention that Stephanie, the lady who was most active on that Facebook group, was featured in the Winn-Dixie weekly ad. Sure enough, her picture was included in the top left corner of an ad that her store never even received – the Perry Winn-Dixie entered "phase 2" of its liquidation and quit honoring ad prices on July 16th; her cameo appeared in the July 30th run. Something about this just seems wrong. I suppose they at least managed to highlight the butcher from #104 while the store was still open. A week earlier, the ad posthumously featured store #657 in Sarasota in the Butcher's Corner. That store closed back in June.
These optics aren't great, my friend.
That is enough sad news for now, let's improve the mood and take a look at the storied history of Winn-Dixie in Perry.
As far as I'm aware, it all began when Lovett's opened a 6,500 sq ft store across the street from the Taylor County Courthouse around 1943.
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| The Valdosta Daily Times (Newspapers.com) - March 3, 1955 |
The ad above showcases the 72 Lovett's stores which operated across North Florida and South Georgia and primarily catered to small towns that we have toured before, such as Monticello, Moultrie, Statesboro, and Thomasville.
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| Courtesy of Henry H. (Perry Facebook Group) - 1962 |
The downtown store served the residents of Taylor County for nearly 20 years until Winn-Dixie opened a "huge new supermarket" in 1962 at what would become Perry Plaza.
Perry Plaza was expanded in 1967 when Andrews Drugs opened a new store, and again in 1968 when Goodwill opened.
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| Courtesy of Henry H. (Perry Facebook Group) |
The 1960's and 1970's evolved into a period of commercial growth for Perry considering how Perry Square was constructed for a new TG&Y Family Center just across Jefferson Street around 1974.
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| The Tallahassee Democrat (Newspapers) - August 1, 1979 |
Later in the decade, Hall Properties, the same Jacksonville firm who had constructed Jefferson Square in Monticello several years earlier, announced plans to build a 100,000 sq ft shopping center on the site of the 30-year-old Perry Inn. The new plaza would feature a Kmart, Winn-Dixie, Revco pharmacy, and Pay-Less Shoe Store, along with 23,000 additional square feet for local businesses.
The shopping center held its ground breaking ceremony on March 20, 1980, and was scheduled to have its grand opening on November 1st of that year. That is quite the quick turnaround!
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| Courtesy of Michael Rivera (Wikipedia) - Kmart #7643 - January 2015 |
Kmart eventually outgrew the roughly 40,000 square foot space and decided to construct a Big Kmart on the northern edge of the property in 1994.
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| Courtesy of Michael Rivera (Wikipedia) - January 2015 |
Furthermore, Winn-Dixie seized upon this opportunity to take over the former Kmart space while opening a brand new Marketplace on September 26, 1996.
The store kept its classic Marketplace & Deli Café road sign until sometime around 2014 when it was replaced by one with the then-current logo.
Back in May, news officially broke that the Perry Winn-Dixie had begun its 90-day countdown to closure. I had known that this store was a goner for several months, thanks to an anonymous tip, but seeing confirmation of its fate really hit hard. It is also the fact that ALDI took all three of the rural North Florida Dixie Highway stores (Monticello, Perry, and Chiefland) that really gets me.
Anyhow, despite me photographing this store in 2023, I knew I needed to stop by this store one last time to get a better set. I'm so glad that I did because my original photo set sucked, to put it lightly. Despite this, we'll still be looking at a mix of my photos spanning from 2020 through 2025, so buckle up because we are jumping way back into the Sing Oil Archives.
We'll begin with a few photos I took during the summer of 2020. While the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns were raging on, I began to experiment with new ways to occupy my time. Remember, I didn't discover the world of retail blogs until January 2021, so I decided to dive into furniture refinishing, computer repair, podcast editing, record collecting, and film photography.
That latter hobby resulted in me shooting three rolls of film while learning the art of patience in hoping that your negative turns out. In an era where we instantly know if a photo is good or not, there is something special about having to wait weeks to find out if your image was properly exposed or if your framing turned out right.
Likewise, I took a series of photos on black and white Kodak Tri-X 400 film highlighting the "vintage" businesses situated along Highway 19, such as the circa 1955 Gandy Motor Lodge featured above.
Traveling north, my next stop was naturally the Winn-Dixie Marketplace vintage storefront. I wish I could ask my 5-year-younger self whether or not it was my intent to frame the bygone Winn-Dixie in the side view mirror, but alas, I was in an entirely different mindset at the time. I may not have taken a single color photograph of the store's classic look, but this picture is better than nothing!
Next up, we will find the Westgate Motel & Camp Grounds. I love the stenciled text reading, "WIRELESS INTERNET CREDIT CARDS. OK".
The last shot from this set features the old dog track just north of Monticello. I'm not sure how long it has been since the last race was run, but the greyhound track dates back to 1958 when Steve Andris, a Savannah native, built the facility.
Next up, I have some pictures of store #104 from summer 2023.
I of course didn't bother to capture the pharmacy sign or the A-frame gable in this shot (the two pieces of the store that would disappear later that year), but I did still get a decent shot of the building with its well-framed logo.
These also mark one of the rare times when you'll see a shot from my Canon DSLR on the blog; I'm still amazed by the quality difference between a smartphone and a proper camera.
The parking lot lines turn perpendicular to the supermarket once you head farther away from the old Kmart space; however, that transition also reveals a relic: Winn-Dixie's old cart return sign. I'm shocked by how many of these I've discovered over the years. Then again, most of them were about as hard to read as this one in Perry.
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| March 2023 |
Shifting back to photos from my Galaxy S10 (and later, Galaxy S24), we see a bit less vibrancy on this 2023 spring day compared to my various photos above. I also want to point out how the old version of the fa̤ade was still present РHurricane Idalia had yet to knock it down.
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| March 2023 |
This store's pharmacy was also still open, despite it being an early casualty of the August 2023 ALDI announcement. I wonder how I had the foresight to get such a nice shot of the sign!
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| March 2023 |
Stepping up to the front of the store on that March day, business was usual here in Perry with nobody aware of the pending storms on the horizon and their tragic outcomes.
It was simply a regular day, with the old swinging doors doing what they had done for the last three decades.
Things had of course changed come July of 2025. While there were no formal signs of the pending closure, it didn't take much to realize that this store's Western Union service being discontinued on July 23rd meant that storms were brewing. Oddly enough, that date was one week after this store entered its phase 2 closure round (when hours were reduced to 8am - 9pm) and close to two weeks after the final grocery delivery arrived.
The store, of course, would only shop 'n' roll for just over a month longer after these photos were taken, so you will already see some bare spots resulting from the phase 1 liquidation.
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| March 2023 |
Like we saw in Monticello, it is especially sad to see this store close considering its drastic transformation in 2022. This store looked nice! Based on the other options in the area, I'm sure that employees and local residents alike were also proud of the re-envisioned space.
Alas, all flowers eventually fade; it just seems that this rose withered too soon. You know it is a bad sign when the seasonal promotions for the weekly ad have been replaced by boxes of 75% off greeting cards. I also find this to be an odd place to find a beer advertisement.
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| March 2023 |
The floral section was quite impressive back in 2023. Well, other than the fact that many of the orchids have dead blooms and several of the plants look yellow. At least the cemetery flowers are vibrant!
I suppose that struggling live blooms and vibrant artificial ones still look better in the space than empty vases with bows around them.
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| March 2023 |
Thanks to the lower ceilings in parts of the space, it was easy to tell that The Beef People were not the first occupants in the building. I have also not spent enough time in early-1980's Kmart stores to tell you how many of the architectural remnants hail from that era. I do, however, know that the section of lower ceiling over the produce department reminds me a lot of a late-1980's or early-1990's Winn-Dixie Marketplace store, just without the artificial skylight fixtures.
The low ceilings did make the produce department feel a bit cramped, but the additional track lighting and vinyl plank floors added a warmth to the alcove.
The extended section of lower ceiling also provided the perfect spot for this store's local flair greeting. I wonder if this space was the original home of the floral department.
The store's equipment auction (set for August 12th) provided a bit of insight into building's remodel history. All of the produce cases were from 2021, which makes sense to be paired with the 2022 Winn Win installation. As for the beer and juice cases, they ranged in age from 1991 to 1996 to 2018. That most recent date seems to be a bit of an outlier, but the fixtures from the 1990's originally led me to believe that the store first opened around 1992.
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| Courtesy of Vision Equipment - Our obligatory banana index. |
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| Courtesy of Ryan Brotherston (Flickr) - May 2019 |
I just wish that I could make sense of this store's former interior package. Thanks to this picture from my friend, Ryan Brotherston, we can see the dramatic change the space went through in 2022.
The transition is definitely jarring, but the nuances of the circa 1996 look are what really throw me for a loop. By now, we are used to seeing the Rose & Teal look of an old Marketplace; however, Perry's old package is notably different from the mainstream look found in Chiefland, etc. For starters, the low ceilings in Winn-Dixie #104 meant it lacked any proper department signage and solely relied on secondary signage like what we see above.
Furthermore, the most striking difference is the lack of any prominent Deco Rose paint throughout the store. Instead, we just have the companion San Jose Blue featured as the predominate hue, paired with matching lettering atop a pinstripe strip of wallpaper. It seems that WD decided to play with the color palette of this store's Marketplace package to conform with the lower ceiling height. After all, most of these design elements were also found in the prototype Poinciana Food Pavilion which opened in 1993.
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| Courtesy of Ryan Brotherston (Flickr) - May 2019 |
What confuses me even more is the fact that this space was accented by a pale blue band wrapping the raised ceiling over the general merchandise aisles. This seems to be the same shade of blue used to accent the familiar Marketplace department signs; I have just never seen the color used on the walls of any other store.
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| Courtesy of Mellissa Richards (Google Maps) - September 2020 |
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| March 2023 |
In the end, I suppose the space turned out much nicer following the 2022 remodel than it would have after a 2018 remodel. It was all for naught, anyhow.
It was very sad to take part in this store's dirge knowing that it had to go so soon after its upgrade. As we can see, the pallets of bottled water had already begun to dwindle despite the business being over a month out from closure.
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| March 2023 - Notice how the sale price is valid through January 7, 2024; a common tactic at WD. |
This store also happened to be the only place I found Odessa-based Big Storm Brewing's Reef Revival Lager. What is special about the beer is that it claims to have been sold exclusively at Winn-Dixie (and even features the WD logo on the can). Big Storm seems to have encountered bankruptcy troubles of its own recently, so maybe that is part of the reason why I haven't found the brew elsewhere. Well, on top of the fact that Winn-Dixie isn't exactly thriving at the moment.
My other craft beer find came last month when I picked up the last case of this Orange Blossom Pilsner from Lakeland. Chiefland's #168 was my previous go-to spot for this beloved brew, so I knew I had to snag this guy since both that store and #104 are now trashed. Oh yeah, now a 6-pack of craft beer now costs $2.50 more than it did in 2023!
Our slow march through the space will continue following one last look at the "Fresh" department.
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| March 2023 |
WD did a good job of conforming this inherited building to a standard Deli Café layout from the 1990's. Likewise, I'd imagine that the wine aisles were originally home to the café dining area.
Notice how the cases at the deli are covered by "Winning Deals" posters – that is a product of Winn-Dixie discontinuing its prepared deli salads over the last year or two.
Anheuser-Busch hung yet another set of beer banners in front of the beer department. Are these common sights in other supermarkets?
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| March 2023 |
I'm really glad that I stopped trying to use the fisheye lens on my phone . . .
As a break from convention, the main deli cases were from 2001 and were probably installed during the company's cost-cutting measures leading up to the 2005 bankruptcy. I've seen where many stores had the extended food service options removed around this time, and one can only assume that a circa 1996 store followed suit. The hot food cases above are almost certainly from 2022.
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| Gasp! This Winn-Dixie used closed-top freezers! |
The butcher and seafood signs highlighted a combined space which rounded out the right section of the raised ceiling.
Just like the produce department, the seafood cases were entirely replaced with 2021 Hill/Phoenix models during the Winn Win remodel. I still wonder why the Kysor butcher display case was from 2001, along with the deli service cases.
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| March 2023 |
The store's grand aisle was officially signed as #1, with aisle #2 hosting sports drinks and bottled water.
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| March 2023 |
Despite the Down Down era mostly fizzling out once the 2020's rolled around, a few traces of the infamous campaign from Down Under lingered until the Price Hold branding made its debut in November 2023.
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| Courtesy of Winn-Dixie |
Skipping over to aisle three, now is the perfect time to point out how nearly all of the general merchandise shelving was installed in 2022 and stood at a meager 66" tall. Standard gondola shelving is 78" tall and was only used on the one side of aisles 8 and 11 which abuts the upright freezers. Do you wonder why this is?
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| Courtesy of Vision Equipment |
Well, with over 51,000 square feet of space, The Beef People no longer knew how to fill this store with product. Rather than shrink the space, they opted to use shorter shelves through most of the store which had the added benefit of making the space feel open and airy.
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| Courtesy of Vision Equipment |
In addition to the shorter-than-average GM shelves, aisles 14 & 15 were split with a set of 48" tall health and beauty shelves. I would say that the tactic was effective.
Returning to our regularly scheduled programming, we find that a line of columns unfortunately fell in the middle of aisle five.
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| March 2023 |
Heading over to aisle six, we see where the ceiling height drops roughly three feet as we approach the center of the store. It looks like Winn-Dixie was restricted to a lower ceiling height in the center of the store to allow adequate room for HVAC ducts. You'll notice that there are no air vents in the taller portion of the ceiling . . .
This transition also required the remodel crew to get creative with the aisle markers. We go from having six categories listed on aisle marker #6 to only having four on marker #7. That count rises again to six once we reach the iconic aisle #12.
I doubt many other stores have the low clearance version of the Winn Win markers, but I feel confident that #104 is on the very short list of stores having both the standard six and abbreviated four-card category signs.
Even in a hermit-crabbed store, aisles 9 & 10 are still home to the familiar frozen foods setup. Surprisingly, the Hussmann bunker freezers shown above are just reskinned 1996 models from when the store opened. The same goes for the Hussmann upright freezers on either side of the aisle.
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| Courtesy of Ryan Brotherston (Flickr) - May 2019 |
Isn't it crazy to see what some new metal panels can do to modernize the space?! Heck, they may have even just painted the old ones.
Let's take a quick gander toward the left wall of the store before continuing on. In addition to the aisle sign transition between #11 and #12, notice how the endcap between #10 and #11 is the only one to feature an advertisement: that is due to the lower gondola shelves in the rest of the store.
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| March 2023 |
Transitioning to the back wall reveals where the 1997 Hill/Phoenix meat department upright cases give way to the bank of Kysor frozen food fixtures from 2000. I've seen plans for other stores which indicated the freezer space was originally home to fresh poultry; however, Winn-Dixie began a surprisingly expansive remodel campaign to repurpose this space for frozen meat. I suppose that was another cost-saving measure of the circa 2001 remodel this store seemingly received.
Looking toward the corner, we find some Kysor Dairy cases on back wall that are also from 2001 despite the Hussmann refrigerators on the far wall that are original to 1996. I'll also point out that the rooftop condensers for all of these units are only from 2014. (I typically don't care about a store's refrigerators, but I couldn't resist including these details when the fixture auction coincided with my post research.)
On aisles 16 & 17, things begin to get weird. Not only was this store already beginning to use the space behind the Dollar Shop for fixture storage, but this double-wide aisle also had a plethora of columns scattered throughout.
I believe this marks the dividing line between the former Kmart and the roughly 9,000 square foot expansion Winn-Dixie made before they moved in. Both the old WD and the original Kmart spaces were just shy of 40,000 square feet, so it makes sense that The Beef People would enlarge the new building if they were making the effort to move storefronts.
The bakery counter currently stands where Kmart's old garden center was, and I'd imagine that the old plant palace was torn down completely.
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| March 2023 |
The other thing I would like to point out is how many different colors of flooring are found over here. The darker tiles are probably a remnant from the Marketplace days.
Moving toward the left wall of the store, we learn that aisle 19 was home to dairy products, peanut butter, jelly, and bread.
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| March 2023 |
The Flowers bread also happens to be directly adjacent to the fancy bread from Winn-Dixie. Is it just me, or does it seem like supermarkets often put more space between the store's bakery and the name-brand bread these days?
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| March 2023 |
Looking back, we see this store's other dairy department sign above cheese. The designers were able to make Winn Win work quite well with the low ceilings, weren't they!
Look at how the installers had to notch the bakery sign to fit it around that air vent. Anyhow, all of the bakery fixtures were (obviously) 2021 models, including the unpictured Hill/Phoenix refrigerated cases off to my right. This space looks so sad without the free-standing racks in place.
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| Courtesy of Ryan Brotherston (Flickr) - May 2019 |
Oof, what a dramatic change! I love seeing a nostalgic supermarket interior as much as the next guy, but I have to say, it is time for the Marketplace package to sail off into the sunset.
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| March 2023 |
Continuing our looks toward a bygone era, we find the adjacent pharmacy space while it was still occupied in 2023. Little did I know that matters for Southeastern Grocers would change for the worse in the very near future.
Fast forward two years, and we find that space in a much more depressing state.
Continuing our procession, we find ourselves back at the front of the store in the presence of the banana stand that I mentioned earlier. Note that at this supermarket banana stand, Lucille Bluth is conspicuously absent . . . I guess she didn't have time for this!
Oddly enough, this store never received self-checkout lines during its remodel. I wonder why that is.
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| March 2023 |
The store was a bit more stocked back in 2023, wouldn't you say?
It is a bit sad that Winn-Dixie is going through such madness all while the company attempts to celebrate its centennial. I suppose we have at least seen more recognition of the achievement than Harveys got last year . . .
Let's check out one last time before we say goodbye to this store for good.
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| March 2023 |
Our last look inside the store shows the customer service counter next to the exit doors.
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| Courtesy of Jason Varnadore (Facebook / via pawnee_jeffersonian) - August 14, 2025 |
Well, not quite our last look. This is why I am glad I ended up delaying this post!
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| Courtesy of Jason Varnadore (Facebook / via pawnee_jeffersonian) - August 14, 2025 |
Thanks to some photos shared by Jason Varnadore, we can see how things were shaping up in Perry following the store's fixture auction.
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| Courtesy of Jason Varnadore (Facebook / via pawnee_jeffersonian) - August 14, 2025 |
I also have to thank user pawnee_jeffersonian for sharing these photos with me since I don't have a Facebook account.
Let's head back outside to wrap up our adventure.
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| March 2023 |
While it is hard to tell from this angle, the shot above shows us how the road signs looked before either of the two major hurricanes had struck Taylor County. The Taylor Square shopping center sign was still on full display, and the Winn-Dixie +Pharmacy sign had yet to meet its demise courtesy of Hurricane Idalia.
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| Courtesy of Charles Burgess (Flickr) - April 2025 |
My friend, Charles Burgess, also photographed this store back in April if you would like to see a different perspective on it.
Following Hurricane Helene, Winn-Dixie went through the effort to replace the sign with a version that just read "Supermarket" along with fixing the blown out check mark above the door. I thought that both of these were signs that #104 was a "go forward" location; however, I was proven wrong.
I hope that you enjoyed our in-depth look at the now-closed Winn-Dixie #104. Furthermore, this story wouldn't be complete without visiting Perry's third Winn-Dixie located just across the parking lot.
This particular store opened in 1980, along with the rest of Taylor Square, and operated until #104 was constructed in 1996.
While I initially didn't think much of this space, I saw some photos from my friend, Ryan Brotherston, which made me think otherwise.
At least from the outside, we still see WD's original brick exterior and recognizable green sidewalks. I've come across so many Winn-Dixie stores from the '50s, '60s, and '70s which have this green painted concrete out front, but I have yet to figure out why that was a trend. Does the coating make the smooth concrete surface less slippery?
Turning toward the left, it looks like vestibule was shrunk at some point, leaving behind the scarring on the concrete. It seems that the entryway was reconfigured during one of this store's remodels.
Not a bad view, is it? Since we are here, why don't we take a peek through the window?
Eww, that looks like a mess! Most of the windows were covered in paper, but this door on the side had a tiny slit that I could see through. It's hard to tell, but I believe the shopping carts would have been stored right in front of us, while the area under that green trellis was likely the seasonal section. I also have no clue why there is a Hardee's (?) menu board sitting on the floor.
The two doors on the front were also covered over, but it is neat to see the old radar sensor still up top.
Well, I guess one of the doors had a bit of an opening in it. Why is there a random chair sitting up here?
The real magic appears once we move to the right. We see that the trellis continues across this side of the vestibule and presumably was left behind by The Beef People. I believe this space has remained vacant ever since 1996.
Oh, but what is that in the hazy distance? Well, folks, that is the old meat department.
It wouldn't be a Winn-Dixie meat department in the late-1980's without some chrome accents to go with it. I can even see the old cowboy neon hanging, to boot!
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| 50 mm focal length |
While these two photos were taken merely seconds apart, it is shocking to see the vast image quality improvement that a different camera can make. The significantly larger image sensor on my Canon no doubt helped to improve the low light conditions of the space
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| 140 mm focal length |
I remember it being very hard to get my camera to focus on the dark space, but we can nonetheless get an idea for the colors inside the old store.
Ryan's 2019 photos may not have accurately captured the colors on the wall (he thought they were yellow, orange, and pink, when they are in fact yellow, orange, and red), but he did manage to do a better job of framing the "Beef People" neon sign.
I'm also glad that I photographed the old store in 2023 because Hurricane Helene did significant damage to the exterior of the building in 2024. Crews were seen making repairs in the following months, but I'm certain there was some sort of water intrusion which required remediation. Now I just wonder whether or not they gutted the interior.
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| Courtesy of JT D. (Yelp) - September 2012 |
As for the "new" Kmart, #7643, that store closed around 2014, if my memory serves me correctly.
The building now serves as the distribution center for Super-Pufft Snacks, a private-label co-packer which produces an assortment of potato chips, including Utz products. The Perry Super-Pufft plant across the highway used to manufacture Lance snacks; however, Snyder-Lance closed the facility back in 2018.
The Kmart road sign was recently exposed following the hurricanes, reminding residents of what the building once housed long ago.
I have to admit that this post was delayed twice, but I hope that the extra tidbits made it worth the wait. We'll see what I get up to next time, but until then, remember to make the most of the time you are given.
See you next time,
- The Sing Oil Blogger
