Metropol

Critique wrote:What's the deal with the national Co-op chain having stores in areas where Scotmid, the EoE Co-op operates? There's one Co-operative in Norwich that I know of, otherwise I can't recall ever having seen one in our area - we used to have Co-operative travel stores here but the one local to me closed years ago now, with an EoE Co-op travel now inside a big co-op here.

The Co Op travel in my town was shut recently in favour of revamping the existing Thomas Cook a minutes walk away. Never understood why Cooks acquired them when they already had a massively bloated estate of travel agents (at one point we also had a Going Places so three Thomas Cook shops in a very small town!)

This...



...became this today...



Note the 'Co-operative food' sticker still in the front window. Still, a marked improvement - and interesting they replaced the white hanging sign you can just see in the first picture with a permanent, thicker blue one.

Do you have a bigger version of that photo? Looks really classy

One of the local Co-op's has finally finished it's transformation and opened this morning:





A lot more bright and pleasant on the inside with more open windows at the front of the store - I never did understand why the Co-operative Food refurbishments usually involved moving the kiosk right in front of the windows. New luxuries as well such as self service registers and pleasant staff. They seem to have taken on some new people, and there were what appeared to be a couple of senior managers in the store being quite forceful in ensuring all the staff were being extremely smiley and helpful. Time will tell how things turn out long term...

That White Lane one certainly looks a lot smarter now. But isn't the text on the Horn Lane one a little hard to read? I would've used white there too.

thecorrector wrote:This...



...became this today...



Note the 'Co-operative food' sticker still in the front window. Still, a marked improvement - and interesting they replaced the white hanging sign you can just see in the first picture with a permanent, thicker blue one.

Not sure I like this one to be honest. Nowhere near as eye-catching and just exposes the dirty brickwork underneath.

Pete wrote:Do you have a bigger version of that photo? Looks really classy

https://www.flickr.com/photos/143605116 ... Ak5-GMPN3G

Ooh, must say I agree with Phil. The image of the second store looks really nice with the black panelling, but the first one looks a bit dark - certainly white lettering would have been better IMO.

The Horn Lane Co-op's had even more changes in the last week - going from this...



...to this...



Lettering now in white, window/door frames repainted grey, opening hours sticker updated to reflect the new branding. If anything, though, the store stands out even less with that lack of white.

Interestingly, the hanging Co-op sign lights up at night in a neon blue, but the one over the door doesn't.

Critique wrote:certainly white lettering would have been better IMO.

Do you have some sort of influence in high places?

That's a lot better.