Retail Watchers

Gotta admit, when I heard the term "Shake Fries" I was thinking it was some sort of milkshake-flavored fries or something. Now that would be innovation

Vons has already done this and failed at it (at one time they had Vons, Hispanic formatted Tianguis, Food 4 Less like Expo and Pavilions/Pavilions Place and all had separate ads. Vons and Safeway have also experimented with two smaller formatted stores, one in Downtown San Jose and one near Belmont...

I've come to tend to like Albertsons/Safeway over Kroger because of a number of "little things" like lack of a card (at least in Albertsons), better bakeries (at least in Safeway), and market differentiation. The thing that I really don't like about the two chains and what probably put the...

We can go back to the 90's when Vons had Hispanic targeted Tianguis supermarkets. They were great but probably a bit before their time. The prices were the same as Vons, too. Probably another killer. The in-store tortilla factory and the cleanliness of their stores was great. FWIW... Tianguis was d...

If Roundy's was doing badly in Chicago despite a following, then what is Kroger going to do? They're not in the business of reviving failing companies, and they're not in the business of keeping unprofitable stores open for market/mind share reasons. They can and have pulled of markets if their mark...

It would be quite suspicious if Haggen was owned by Cerberus in some part...but they aren't. I believe the conflict between Haggen and Albertsons is genuine, as is the third party of the unions mad at both. (Besides, Albertsons got back only a quarter of their stores, and that was only because no on...

I don't think AWG has any corporate stores anymore after they ESOPed Homeland/United-OK. Of course, AWG did not exactly want Homeland but they saved it from a Chapter 7 bankruptcy and from the looks of it managed to stabilize it. Fun trivia is Homeland has NEVER built a store of its own. All are fo...

A recent Tampa Bay article confirmed that it is the Randalls DC in northwest Houston that is supplying the stores. However, I think it's mostly the non-perishables being shipped in, perishables may have smaller distributors...Florida didn't even have a DC itself until the early 1990s. I don't think...

Arizona was a mess after the Kroger / Fred Meyer merger. They has stores operating under the Fry's, Smith's, and Smitty's banners. Then Kroger decided to rebanner the Smith's stores as Fry's (except for the stores in NW Arizona) and the Smitty's stores as Fred Meyer Marketplace. Then about a year o...

I vacillate between nefarious motive and sheer incompetence. The fact they sold some of the properties out from under the stores immediately raises questions. What happened to that $? But it has nearly destroyed Haggen name and Comvest is not smelling like a rose. When they're losing 25 million in ...