TOUR: Harris Teeter - West Ocean View, Norfolk, VA

Harris Teeter

Opened: 2019

Previous Tenants: Farm Fresh (closed 2018)

Location: 179 W Ocean View Ave, Norfolk, VA

Photographed: December 2019

We are visiting Norfolk moving roughly north to south, and so we begin with what I believe to be the farthest-north supermarket in the city. This store is in the West Ocean View neighborhood, all the way up near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (although slightly inland from that). This was also the first store I visited, as the house we rented when staying in this area was in this neighborhood and we didn't have the time or energy to explore other supermarkets the first night here. I got some surprises with this Harris Teeter, which due to its small size of only about 26,000 square feet, I assumed to be a much older Harris Teeter. Turns out that my knowledge of Norfolk supermarkets was terrible and this was a Farm Fresh until 2018, when that chain went under (mostly; I believe there are two stores that still use the Farm Fresh name but are independent). Harris Teeter did some renovations and reopened the place in May 2019. I was not aware how soon after that I visited (December 2019), because again the fact that the store is obviously an older supermarket and smaller than many of Harris Teeter's newer stores made me think it had been a Harris Teeter for much longer.

Harris Teeter's renovations upon moving in were, as far as I could tell, exclusively cosmetic. The layout and most of the fixtures remain from Farm Fresh, but the decor does not. (Incidentally, we've seen those aisle markers before.)

We enter to produce in the front right corner, with bakery/deli in an island facing the first aisle. Packaged meat lines the right-side wall, with service butcher/seafood on the back wall and dairy to the left. Beer and wine are in the back left corner, with frozen foods and a Starbucks (another Farm Fresh holdover) in the front left corner.

Interestingly, the layout here is extremely similar to various Supremo stores back in NJ and PA (see Super Food in Trenton). The Supremo stores were designed by DY Design from NY, but did they also do work for Farm Fresh? Or is it just a coincidence, which I assume is the more likely explanation?

This was the first Harris Teeter I'd been to in quite some time, and I must say I was not overly impressed. For one, the bakery department is not at all impressive here. I do think some of my complains, such as that, were more inherited from Farm Fresh since HT did so little to the interior before opening. I do find the decor quite attractive.

I do also find it interesting that HT does not use the same decor packages as the rest of the Kroger banners, although it seems Kroger has tried to distinguish HT from the rest of its brands and possibly position it more upscale (can any locals help me with that?). Similarly, they've kept a lot of the Harris Teeter branded items since the acquisition in 2013.

Seafood and meat at the back of the first aisle. Dairy continues along the back wall...

It's possible HT also replaced the grocery shelving, since this looks a little more like what I've seen in other HTs. But then again, I'm not too familiar with what Farm Fresh's grocery shelving looked like.

Interesting thing to note here: they actually have three aisle markers in each aisle: one each at the front and back, running parallel to the aisle, and one in the middle perpendicular. I mean, it makes the store much easier to navigate but it also seems like a little bit of overkill.

The beer cooler, again a feature I assume is left over from Farm Fresh, is in the back left corner. A very attractive wine department is up next...

And in front of the wine department is the frozen foods department. While I like the decor here, I do think it falls flat just a little bit compared to the rest of the store because of the boring lighting.

And in the front left corner of the store, we have a Starbucks facing the registers, of which there are only four. It's quite a small store, and I assume it's not a very high-volume store because even small stores that do a lot of volume will have more registers.

That said, I do like the register lane markers.

That wraps up our first Norfolk store tour! This store is right where route 460 intersects route 60 (Ocean View Ave) at the coast -- and yes, the waterfront is directly across the street -- and for tomorrow's stores, we're going about three miles south on 460 at the corner of Granby and Little Creek. We'll have one store here on The Market Report and one over on Grocery Archaeology, so stay tuned!