New Grand Cypress Winn-Dixie opens with many festivities

Parent company Southeastern Grocers (SEG) opened its newest Winn-Dixie location on Wednesday, Dec. 14, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 7:30 a.m. The Grand Cypress store is the grocer’s first ground-up store build in more than a decade and is a continuation of Southeastern Grocers’ commitment to expansion throughout the Southeast and its home in North Florida.
The new Grand Cypress store, located in the Grand Cypress Marketplace at 100 Little Cypress Drive (southwest corner of Race Track Road and Philips Highway), is designed to provide customers with a unique, localized shopping experience. The grocer utilizes a specialized approach to provide a wide product selection, along with additional jobs and opportunities in this growing area for local St. Johns County community members.
The store boasts fresh concepts with extensive offerings, including:

• A wide range of specialty food selections for various dietary preferences throughout the store, including an expanded offering of organic, natural and gluten-free options.
• A farm-fresh produce department with a vast selection of signature categories, such as fresh and dried peppers, tomatoes and mushrooms and a unique assortment of tropical fruits and berries, along with more than 10 organic varieties.
• Enhanced deli department with convenient grab-and-go meal options, including take-and-bake pizzas, fresh sushi made daily and a sandwich station.
• The full-service meat department features Certified Angus Beef and prime beef with cuts carefully inspected for marbling, maturity, sizing, quality and tenderness with hand-carved meats cut to order, including pork loin, Certified Angus Beef roast beef, oven-roasted turkey breast and roasted eye round, as well as 12 traditional and trendy flavors of fresh-made sausages ranging from sweet Italian to habanero mango.
• Fresh bakery selections with more than 10 varieties of artisan-baked breads with eight varieties of take-and-bake options available, and pastries and desserts featured throughout the bakery department.
• New seafood department features whole fish showcased on ice beds, with selections such as snapper and salmon, as well as an expanded offering of fresh-caught fish, including tuna, tilapia and swordfish, along with locally caught selections, including Mayport shrimp, as well as seasonal favorites such as lobster tails, grouper and mahi mahi.
• New liquor store with a price-match guarantee on a wide selection of beer, wine and spirits. The grocery store also features an in-store wine chiller to chill customers’ wine while they shop. 

In celebration of the new store, Winn-Dixie hosted several days of activities, special appearances and giveaways for customers.
The opening ceremony on Wednesday, Dec. 14, included a check presentation for $1,000 to the Bartram Springs Elementary School to aid the school’s recycle programs and support Grand Cypress’ future leaders. Throughout the day, live entertainment was provided by the Party Ball Band and DJ EL.

Activities continued on Thursday, Dec. 15, and Friday, Dec. 16, with DJs, giveaways and samplings. Friday also featured an appearance by two of the World-Famous Budweiser Clydesdales for customers to take photos outside the store.

On Saturday, Dec. 17, and Sunday, Dec. 18, the store hosted a community celebration. On Saturday, a free interactive fan experience was held outside of the store with appearances by the Winn Win Twinns featured in Winn-Dixie commercials.

There were interactive family games, the return of the Party Ball Band and DJ EL, cooking demonstrations, store samplings, free raffle giveaways for $100 gift cards every 30 minutes and free big prize drawings.

On Sunday, Dec. 18, the DJ entertainment and additional giveaways continued.

The store is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Liquor store hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 1-8 p.m. Sunday.