Norwich Landing

The old KFC/Taco Bell Sign a few months before renovation. This was taken on May 14th, 2018. As of 2019, the sign is surprisingly still up after renovation, despite both logos on the sign being dated.

Welcome to another installation of Retail on the Thames! today, we'll be focusing on on the Norwich Landing plaza in Norwich, CT.

INFO: Norwich Landing, also known as "The Staples Plaza", is one of the many outdoor strip malls on Route 82 in Westside Norwich, Connecticut. This mall has a few stores that are in a strip building, as well as a stand-alone KFC/Taco Bell that was drastically renovated in the fall of 2018. The plaza gained the moniker "Norwich Landing" within the past couple years. The plaza also now has a green sign with a clock on it, that sits on top of the store directory.

PICTURES:

River Valley Ambulatory Surgery Center, Sprint, and Great Scot! Car Stereo. These are 3 of the 5 stores that make up the strip building (6, if you include UPS.) I don't know how long any of these have been open for, but They've all been around for a while.

Staples, the main attraction (as seen in the former plaza name or nickname), and Steals and Deals, a discount store which opened in August of 2019. I was actually there for it's opening weekend, which is pretty cool.

Staples sign.

Inside Staples. I took a few interior shots, but this was the only good one. The store manager actually questioned what I was doing, but when I explained myself, he was cool with what I was doing.

KFC/Taco Bell, the other main attraction. As previously mentioned, this place went through an extreme renovation between July and October of 2018. The exterior used to be tan, with a bit of it having touches of red, white, and blue, in honor of KFC. Believe it or not, I actually kind of like this renovation. The last time I visited this place pre-renovation was July 23rd, 2018, and the first time I went to it after the renovation was in late November of that same year.

The KFC side of the restaurant.

An awesome KFC light fixture that was added during the renovation. I'd say that the interior went through the most drastic changes. Originally, the interior was Taco Bell themed, and had a lot of tans in it. After the renovation, the restaurant mainly focused on KFC. The interior gained an old- fashioned southern look to it. The Taco Bell themes are now limited to one corner of the restaurant, making it feel more like a stand-alone KFC. On the other hand, it felt more like a sole Taco Bell. I feel like a 50/50 mix would be the best for this place, because it's two restaurants in one, and one place shouldn't overtake the other.

That's it for this blog, I hope to see you all soon!

-Simpsonfan311