The owners of the chinese place are great, I love that lady! From what I can see they are still very popular in the new location.Barstow2Needles wrote:ieguy441 : thank you for the great history of the Albertson's shopping center. My buddy knew the owners of the Chinese restaurant inside so we took a drive to Hemet two weeks ago and were both shocked when we saw the entire store closing. I've never seen a major supermarket with empty shelves before, very surreal. We also spotted plastic green Lucky's packaging boxes in one corner of the store!
By the way, do you know if the center was used prior to the early 1990s? The lamp fixtures in the parking lot suggest that it may have been built earlier. I'm not from Hemet so I'm not savvy on the dates.
Here are two photos we took inside the Albertson's during our visit. I'm not sure if any of the Lucky's-era signage or layout inside still remain, but I found some of the typography to be reminiscent of the mid-90's.
The center was originally home to the popular Farmer's Fair which moved to the Perris fairgrounds shortly before Smiths bought the land. A few buildings scattered around the property are all that's left of the old fairgrounds. The Smiths building sat by itself for 5 years before Kragan Auto Parts built a store at the front of the property, and it was almost another 5 or 6 years before a drivethrough Starbucks joined on the corner. The lighting in the parking lot was actually installed when Smiths built the store.
In your photo of the pharmacy, you can see the area to the left of the photo where the Bank of America was once housed.