Thursday, March 9, 2017

Cincinnati's last "greenhouse" Kroger

I forget exactly how I stumbled upon this, but in the Walnut Hills area of Cincinnati stands a "greenhouse" style Kroger, so named by us retail fanatics because the overhang looks like a greenhouse.  I don't know if that's the official term, but it works.

Of all of the styles of Kroger buildings I've seen, this is my favorite.  A lot of these were white brick, but I know of at least one that is more of a yellowish color.  They tended to be on the smaller side of things, but still managed to have a florist, bakery, and deli, along with standard grocery offerings.  One I know of even has a pharmacy!

In any case, I headed down toward downtown Cincinnati one April 2016 afternoon after scoping out all of the Krogers in the greater Cincinnati area and seeing that this one was very likely the last of its kind (full disclosure: there is/was at least one in Northern Kentucky; my focus is on the Ohio side of the river).

I say WAS because as of March 8, 2017, the store had closed for good.  Kroger completed a rebuild of its Corryville store, which opened on March 9, 2017.  The fact that this new store was around a mile away from the Walnut Hills store, coupled with the fact that Walnut Hills hadn't turned a profit since 1991, pretty much sealed the fate of Cincinnati's last greenhouse store.

I got a handful of exterior photos of the store, but only about 3 inside, as there was a fair amount of people and I hadn't quite perfected my art of store photography.  My plan was to make it down another time, but that never materialized.  Once I caught wind of the closing, I knew I had until sometime in March to make it down there, but by the time I realized when the last day was, I couldn't make it work.  Something is better than nothing, right?

R.I.P. Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, Kroger - 1983(ish)-2017










Further reading:
Kroger closing Cincinnati store
Take an early tour of Kroger’s new Corryville store