Ingredients for Survival: Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Safeway’s Lifestyle Concept

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston.  Many thanks go to Northwest Retail of the Northwest Retail Blog and to Mike from HHR for supplying the photos for this post.

Last year, during The Year of Kroger series here at Houston Historic Retail, we celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Kroger Signature format. The Kroger Signature format dramatically improved Kroger’s position in the Houston market. In this HHR post, we will be taking a look at another pioneering store design, Safeway’s Lifestyle, which, 20 years after it debuted, is still being used in various iterations and updates at all but one of Houston’s Randalls locations. While it is safe to say that Lifestyle didn’t dramatically improve Randalls’ position in the Houston market the way Signature did for Kroger, Lifestyle represented a dramatic shift in not only how Safeway customers experienced their stores, but it also re-focused Safeway’s market position especially in the years before Safeway’s merger with Albertsons in 2015.

Although Safeway formally launched the Lifestyle format and the related Ingredients for Life marketing campaign in 2005, Safeway started prototyping the experimental Lifestyle format in 2003 and had 20 Lifestyle stores by the end of 2003.  In 2004, Safeway started aggressively rolling out the Lifestyle format via both new construction and especially via renovations of existing stores. By the end of 2004, 142 Safeway stores across the chain carried the Lifestyle format. Furthermore, by the end of 2005, Safeway had already started using the updated Lifestyle v2 décor package.

Safeway’s Lifestyle design significantly changed the look of their stores. Prior to Lifestyle, Safeway’s stores featured a hodgepodge of designs ranging from severely outdated stores with 1970s décor (though that didn’t stop Safeway from blending 1970s Super Store décor with Lifestyle in rare cases!) to stores with newer pre-Lifestyle décor which is often referred to in retail enthusiast circles as the Proto-Lifestyle décor package due to it having some similarities, especially in terms of oval-shaped department graphics, to what would become Lifestyle v1 (though Lifestyle did not incorporate Proto-Lifestyle’s famous floor graphics). On top of that, Safeway had acquired a number of stores, such as Randalls and Tom Thumb stores in Texas, Genuardi’s stores in the Northeast, and Dominick’s stores in the Chicago area. These stores often had décor which was completely outside of the Safeway world.

In addition to the challenge of giving all Safeway stores a more unified look, the mid-tier supermarket was considered to be an outdated format in the early 2000s. Discount supermarkets and warehouse membership stores, including Costco and Wal-Mart’s Supercenters and Sam’s Club stores especially, made it difficult for the established mid-tier supermarkets to compete on price. Conversely, newer upscale supermarkets focused on quality perishables and service departments, such as Whole Foods Market, were challenging the mid-tier supermarket’s most profitable departments. Mid-tier supermarkets took different approaches towards challenging these issues. Locally in Houston, HEB took a mostly austerity-based approach towards their stores by focusing on large regional ‘stack ’em high and sell it cheap’ locations instead of neighborhood stores. These stores used low-cost industrial warehouse designs including open ceilings, open stock rooms, and concrete floors, all features that the likes of Costco and Home Depot had been using to lower costs. HEB also started to emphasize store brands over national brands. While mid-tier HEB stores had some higher-end service department displays and items to separate themselves from HEB’s even deeper discount Joe V’s Smart Shop stores and earlier Pantry Foods stores, the focus was still undoubtedly on cost-cutting.

Safeway, on the other hand, took a very different approach. Safeway seemingly ceded the low-price end of the market to the Costcos and Wal-Marts of the world while emphasizing higher-end stores with improved customer service, increased staffing, fancier and more numerous service departments, new store brand items focusing on gourmet tastes such as O Organics, and improved quality perishables. This was a major change for Safeway, a chain that was known for running very middle-of-the-road stores which often lacked defining features or service. Part of the reason why Safeway may have taken this approach was that the stores Safeway had acquired, like Randalls, were historically higher-end stores and Safeway saw significant sales declines at these stores as they became Safeway-ized in the early 2000s. With Lifestyle, perhaps it was Safeway’s thought that they could regain the shoppers who left by giving them higher-end stores once again.

Ultimately, Safeway was not successful in winning back Dominick’s and Genuardi’s shoppers with Lifestyle. In a strange case of coincidence, the now-defunct Marsh supermarket chain also launched a new upscale format called Lifestyle that they hoped would help them enter Chicago in 2004-5 to take advantage of Dominick’s slipping sales at the time, but Marsh lasted less than a year in Chicago. Safeway’s story is more mixed in Texas. Tom Thumb remains a viable and growing chain in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex. In Randalls markets, Austin and Houston, it is more difficult to assess the success of Lifestyle. Indeed, in 2005 when Safeway was in the middle of their significant Lifestyle remodeling schedule, Safeway closed a number of low-performing Houston locations. The idea was to cut the low-performing stores so the stores deemed to be viable would get the substantial Lifestyle investment. There was even some thought that Safeway might sell some or all of their Texas stores, but Safeway ended up holding on to their Texas stores. Indeed, by 2009, around 70% of the remaining Houston stores had received a Lifestyle renovation. That said, Randalls continued to close stores in Austin and Houston in the 2000s, 2010s, and early 2020s. At least in Houston, it does seem that Randalls has a core number of stores in mostly older, built-out, and higher-income areas which are probably profitable even if Randalls is more of a niche grocer in Houston these days than one of the major grocery powers. The higher-end features and design of Lifestyle may have helped keep these stores viable with more the discriminating shoppers who live in areas with remaining Randalls stores.

In terms of higher-end features, Lifestyle stores were a dramatic rethinking of supermarket design. Two of the most visible features of Lifestyle v1 and early v2 stores are the rustic beige, grey, and brown color schemes and dark general lighting with halide spotlights on specific products. This, combined with unique display fixtures and warm faux wood and beige flooring, created a very ‘warm’ feeling store which was designed to feel upscale and comfortable so that shoppers would spend more time shopping and eating in the store. While Safeway wasn’t the only grocer who moved to a more warmer, more serious looking décor package in the 2000s, Kroger’s slower shift from the rather cartoonish Millennium décor package to the long-discontinued Script and Fresh Fare décor packages comes to mind, Safeway took the warm, comfortable, and upscale theme well beyond what most other grocers, including Kroger, were doing at the time. Unfortunately, a common complaint early in the Lifestyle era was that the lighting was simply too dark. Safeway was compelled to redesign the lighting in remodeled stores in order to bring back what was deemed to be an acceptable level of lighting.  This meant that the unique spotlight design was often abandoned in favor of strip fluorescent lighting similar to what the spotlights replaced originally.

It should be noted that Safeway used four general tiers of Lifestyle stores: Light, Core, Plus, and Elite.  Core stores were by far the most common Lifestyle format and they still had some fancier touches than the older Safeway designs.  The Lifestyle stores in the upper tiers had a greater number of specialty service departments than the Core stores.  At least in the early days of Lifestyle, many Safeway stores had nut bars, olive bars, and gelato bars.  The former Westchase Randalls, which was closed in 2014 and turned into a Whole Foods Market, even had a tortilleria at a time when such things were just becoming more common at higher-end Houston supermarkets.

Although Safeway was generally pretty detailed in their early Lifestyle renovations, there were some cheap Lifestyle renovations.  In the Houston area, the former Stafford Randalls on W. Bellfort, which is now an El Rancho, is probably the best example of a sloppy renovation where Safeway merely put Lifestyle’s beige paint over older decor and Safeway recycled older pre-Lifestyle aisle markers from other stores at the Stafford location.  At least the Houston area never saw the uncommon, very unpopular, and likely cheap flat versions of Lifestyle decor.  For those who are curious as to what Houston’s 1970s-1980s Safeways would have looked like if they lasted until the Lifestyle era, Mike did a post here at HHR showing what Colorful Lifestyle v2 looks like at an Austin Randalls which used to be a Safeway like the ones we had in Houston.  Also, the Safeway on George Washington Way in Richland, WA has an interior very similar to the circa 1980 Houston Safeway design.  That said, the Lifestyle renovation and the opening of the produce department wall, which was likely a part of the store’s Lifestyle-era renovation, gives the Richland store a more modern, upscale look while still having a classic Houston-like circa 1980 Safeway Super Store layout.

Although the fragments of what was left of the Ingredients for Life marketing campaign ended not long after the Albertsons merger, Lifestyle remains an active décor package for Safeway and Albertsons twenty years after it initially debuted. In certain markets, including Texas, Albertsons continues to renovate stores using the Colorful Lifestyle v2 décor format. With Colorful Lifestyle v2, Albertsons has switched from using beige and brown wall paint to using colorful wall paint color-coded by department with local flair design elements. Colorful Lifestyle v2 renovations also generally include new faux wood vinyl flooring, though some stores, such as Pearland’s Randalls, have received concrete floors. Shortly after the Albertsons merger, some Houston Randalls stores received the Lifestyle v3 décor package which also uses brighter colors, but it uses décor elements which mix in some Albertsons-side décor design elements. The Midtown Randalls is the only Houston Randalls location which no longer has a Lifestyle design variant as it was remodeled a few years ago to carry Safeway’s Modern décor package. In recent months, Albertsons has been renovating some Dallas-area Tom Thumbs to use a décor package typically used at Safeway’s higher-end Pavilions stores in California (though at one time, Pavilions had their own variation of the Lifestyle décor package). We’ve yet to see that décor package in Houston as Albertsons continues to use Colorful Lifestyle v2 with their 2023-4 renovations such as the recent S. Fry & I-10 Randalbertsons renovation.

Lifestyle has received a mixed response with retail enthusiasts. Many retail enthusiasts did not like Lifestyle when it was first rolled out because it made Safeway a much more consistent looking chain. Retail enthusiasts liked the number of very vintage and unique looking Safeway stores which were heavily renovated and harmonized during the extensive Lifestyle renovation era. On the other hand, the Lifestyle renovations were badly needed in many locations including some Houston Randalls locations which were probably due for a renovation at around the time Safeway bought Randalls. Due to the wide variety of eras in which Safeway stores were built, not to mention the wide variety of Safeway store sizes, Lifestyle implementations are often a little different at each location. In Houston, for example, many Randalls stores have low wall heights due to pre-merger Randalls’ preference for ‘wedding cake’ multi-tiered ceiling heights and also because of the former Handy Andy Randalls locations which use a pitched gable roof. Thus, Houston Randalls locations often use a low-height version of Lifestyle which is noticeably different than what is used at more common Safeway stores.

Pseudo3D, friend of HHR and author of Carbon-izer.com, has these thoughts about Safeway’s Lifestyle as someone who once worked at Lifestyle Randalls stores and who still shops at Randalls when he is near one:

“My overall thought about Lifestyle was that it was more bland than anything else.

In a way, blander than H-E-B’s warehouse stores. I had actually first read about Lifestyle when I subscribed to BusinessWeek. It showed the checkouts and the dim lighting. I remember thinking even back then it looked fancy but not very visually interesting.

The problem was that the “fancy” stores were only in the “first generation” stores and by the time it came around to renovations in, say, 2012, they had cheapened the decor dramatically and was looking outdated. The problem is that store decor only works in certain stores. It’s like how Winn-Dixie’s Down Down looked dramatic and bold in some stores but incredibly ugly in most of them.”

Pseudo3D also chronicled a handful of Lifestyle Randalls stores on his Safeway and Albertsons in Texas blog.

Mike, HHR’s editor, is also a Randalls shopper and has spent a considerable amount of time in various Houston-area Randalls stores which have Lifestyle installations.  In reference to early Lifestyle stores, Mike has these comments: “Safeway’s Lifestyle decor was simply dark. It was from a time when Earth Tones, soft lighting, a laminate floor, and a nice fireplace all felt right in a grocery store. Some stores fared better with large amounts of natural light pouring in. Stores with open ceilings also did alright because the dark gray ceiling tiles of Lifestyle V1 felt like they soaked up what little light was in the store.

The signage was all nice, and the displays were all functional. I also did like the “audio upgrades” that came with Lifestyle, specifically a speaker that wasn’t blown out 40 years ago. However, no other aspect of Lifestyle V1 will top my memory of how dark those stores were.”

As for me, I have mostly been a fan of Lifestyle since the beginning. I remember pre-merger Randalls being a higher-end chain and Lifestyle was at least somewhat of a return to that history. Yes, Randalls is a more expensive store than HEB and Kroger, but to me at least, it also feels like a more upscale store. I enjoy shopping in stores with nice, soothing wall colors, nice floors, and proper ceilings. Unfortunately, since the Albertsons merger, some of the nicer Lifestyle service department and staffing offerings have been cut. That said, the cuts have not been as deep in Houston as they have been in other markets. For example, some Houston Randalls locations are still using the open gas bakery ovens and still have larger floral departments. In some other Safeway markets, such as Seattle, these features have become rare based on reports from the Northwest Retail Blog, the leading retail blog covering Safeway developments. Of course, Lifestyle has mainly been replaced by Safeway Modern in Seattle so perhaps we’re back to the pre-Lifestyle era where Safeway’s stores look and feel different in the various Albertsons divisions.

On the great Lifestyle v1 and early v2 lighting debate, it is my opinion that some Randalls stores were simply too dark prior to the revisions which replaced the spotlighting with traditional strip lighting.  While some stores were never too bad with the spotlighting, there were certain stores, the now-closed W. 34th St. Randalls comes to mind, where it felt that I was shopping during a power outage with the store operating with emergency lighting.  The rustic colors almost looked dingy with the dark lighting.  When Randalls started putting traditional lights back into most of their stores in the 2010s, I started to gain a new appreciation for the soothing rustic beige and brown color scheme used by Lifestyle v2, the most common Lifestyle package at the time.  Lifestyle v2, both in regular form and Colorful form, remains as one of my favorite supermarket décor packages as long as it is combined with regular lighting.

Do you have any thoughts or memories about Safeway’s Lifestyle stores? If so, feel free to leave a comment in the comments section below. We love to hear from our readers! Also, stay tuned to HHR for an upcoming blog post about another significant anniversary involving Randalls and Safeway.