Schizo Kroger

I love the Kroger logo. Well, one of the Kroger logos anyway, what I affectionately call the "Loopy K" (it would be "Big K", but Big K is a nickname for Big Kmart, a defunct discounter, and of course, the Kroger soft drink name. The Loopy K, something like this is what appeared on all stores save the really old Krogers from the early 1970s (and before). It was iconic, bold, and different.

But ever since about 10 years ago or so, I'd say 2000 since that's when I first saw it, they switched to a non "Loopy K" logo. My local Kroger dumped the "Loopy K" for a bland KROGER in block letters. An example that I could find on Flickr is this. They renovated my local Kroger in circa 2001-2002 to include that logo, and later in the 2000s, changed some of the older Krogers that still had the Loopy K (even in slightly different hues, I think I remember white-on-brown) to the block letter KROGER.

This specimen is what my local Kroger used to look like, and they changed the lettering in the mid-2000s, though the Greenhouse exterior stays (Huntsville, Texas).


But the reason I call this schizophrenic is the way they do logos. The Loopy K remains as the corporate logo, and in 2006, they renovated Tanglewood Mall's Kroger (no, it's not connected, don't get too excited there) and kept Loopy K intact. In Houston, the notorious Montrose "Disco" Kroger had the block letter Kroger (with the Signature tagline, even though it was older and missing niceties) and gave it a rehab, including yet another logo which is narrower than the block letter Kroger (now, if they could only give something like that to my local "Krappy Kroger". I guess we don't have enough yuppies). Elsewhere in Houston (well, Hedwig Village, anyway), the lovely "Kroger of the Villages" was built/remodeled in the 1990s, and has an awesome front, even in 2011. It looks like it even tailors to the local tastes. In Conroe, north of Houston, a former Albertsons (must have gone out in the 2000s, as records on the Internet obviously show it exists, plus it has the old Food/Drug logos of Albertsons) had the Loopy K, but discarded it later in the 2000s, leaving a possibility that it was put up in the late 1990s or early 2000s and lasted less than 10 years. In southwest Houston, two Kroger Marketplaces opened up, reportedly nice stores on par with H-E-B Plus, which do have Loopy K, sort of, but it's not the same and I just can't get over how cheap the "Marketplace" logo looks.

Or was it always, in fact, just a twist of fate that had the Loopy K get on stores themselves? Kroger had the logo since 1961 and a similar logo (thinner) since the mid-1940s, but even by the 1970s, the Kroger logo remained on a lighted box by the street, but not on the storefronts themselves.