Jewel to buy remaining Strack & Van Til stores

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Re: Jewel to buy remaining Strack & Van Til stores

Post by buckguy »

Jewel has been in and out of Milwaukee more than once. The usual attribution was that they didn't like Chicago chains in Milwaukee, although National had a long run there. Jewel has a long history in NW Indiana but I don't think they ever had a huge presence. National had a similar history during their time. There's a long history of having a lot of local competition and because Chicago has sprawled to incorporate what used to be fairly independent towns, there always have been operators in the fringes that have had at least a good run for awhile--like Gromer's from Elgin which expanded into the NW suburbs.
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Re: Jewel to buy remaining Strack & Van Til stores

Post by pseudo3d »

buckguy wrote:Jewel has been in and out of Milwaukee more than once. The usual attribution was that they didn't like Chicago chains in Milwaukee, although National had a long run there. Jewel has a long history in NW Indiana but I don't think they ever had a huge presence. National had a similar history during their time. There's a long history of having a lot of local competition and because Chicago has sprawled to incorporate what used to be fairly independent towns, there always have been operators in the fringes that have had at least a good run for awhile--like Gromer's from Elgin which expanded into the NW suburbs.
National was, well, national at one time (well not true national, but definitely a number of spread-out divisions), with the divisions in St. Louis and New Orleans lasting into the 1990s. I don't really buy the "Chicago chains" excuse for the other reason being that the only thing I've read in regards to that are the same people who get angry when a Starbucks sets up shop in their neighborhood, but I would blame its failure on two reasons.

1) It really was too expensive, thinking back to one of storewanderer's posts from the Roundy's/Kroger thread:
storewanderer wrote:Metro Market was the prototype for Mariano's in Chicago but wasn't executed as well and wasn't nearly as popular as Mariano's. Part of what makes Mariano's tick is the urban dense locations and Milwaukee is not really the same as Chicago and not nearly as dense as Chicago. So while the stores sort of feel like Mariano's and have some similarities they are just in general lacking.
Obviously Jewel isn't like Mariano's, but given that the other main choice, Pick 'n Save, was said to be rather hit and miss (to put it likely) still dominated lends credence to that theory, not to mention the pricing problem that plagues Albertsons.

2) Albertsons just flat-out had them in the wrong locations.

Remember, when they pulled out in 2007, it wasn't 5 it was 15 (they entered the market with the purchase of four Cub Foods and a Pick 'n Save, though they had Osco Drug in the area), though ASC had done the task of buying 5 with the intent of building 5 more soon after. (Their earlier attempt at Milwaukee ended in 1978, but never had more than 13 stores). Since ASC built the other five they were going to in late 1998 and early 1999, Albertsons built more on top of that, possibly also within the time period of 2-3 years (since Albertsons' store growth was dramatically stunted from 2002 on), and that's assuming no stores closed around that time as well, then when SuperValu pulled the plug, nearly two-thirds of the stores went without owners! Compare to that to the Houston Division, which had its share of bad locations but they were able to sell off a majority of the stores (between Kroger, H-E-B, and Randalls, about 60% of the stores were purchased, not even counting purchases by independents). In Milwaukee, no store was older than 10 years, and the oldest stores had been remodeled before becoming Jewel-Osco. So clearly something stank in Milwaukee and it wasn't just "We don't like Chicago chains".

It was probably for the best in the case of Milwaukee. During the SuperValu era I remember reading how bad Jewel-Osco was but SuperValu could get away with it because it had a big market share, Mariano's was not yet a thing, and Lifestyle was not going to help Dominick's. I doubt that since Milwaukee was only 10 years ago and is now much harder due to a larger and better organized Pick 'n Save, Jewel-Osco could gain a meaningful grip in Milwaukee. But they aren't entering Milwaukee. They're expanding in northwest Indiana, which can mean anything. In between the "mystery buyer" and "surprise, surprise, it's Jewel", Jewel-Osco got a new president, and I assume that he's going to try to prevent the new stores from crashing and burning, possibly with a semi-separate management group.
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Re: Jewel to buy remaining Strack & Van Til stores

Post by rwsandiego »

pseudo3d wrote:
buckguy wrote:Jewel has been in and out of Milwaukee more than once. The usual attribution was that they didn't like Chicago chains in Milwaukee, although National had a long run there. Jewel has a long history in NW Indiana but I don't think they ever had a huge presence. National had a similar history during their time. There's a long history of having a lot of local competition and because Chicago has sprawled to incorporate what used to be fairly independent towns, there always have been operators in the fringes that have had at least a good run for awhile--like Gromer's from Elgin which expanded into the NW suburbs.
National was, well, national at one time (well not true national, but definitely a number of spread-out divisions), with the divisions in St. Louis and New Orleans lasting into the 1990s. I don't really buy the "Chicago chains" excuse for the other reason being that the only thing I've read in regards to that are the same people who get angry when a Starbucks sets up shop in their neighborhood, but I would blame its failure on two reasons.

1) It really was too expensive, thinking back to one of storewanderer's posts from the Roundy's/Kroger thread:
storewanderer wrote:Metro Market was the prototype for Mariano's in Chicago but wasn't executed as well and wasn't nearly as popular as Mariano's. Part of what makes Mariano's tick is the urban dense locations and Milwaukee is not really the same as Chicago and not nearly as dense as Chicago. So while the stores sort of feel like Mariano's and have some similarities they are just in general lacking.
Obviously Jewel isn't like Mariano's, but given that the other main choice, Pick 'n Save, was said to be rather hit and miss (to put it likely) still dominated lends credence to that theory, not to mention the pricing problem that plagues Albertsons.

2) Albertsons just flat-out had them in the wrong locations.

Remember, when they pulled out in 2007, it wasn't 5 it was 15 (they entered the market with the purchase of four Cub Foods and a Pick 'n Save, though they had Osco Drug in the area), though ASC had done the task of buying 5 with the intent of building 5 more soon after. (Their earlier attempt at Milwaukee ended in 1978, but never had more than 13 stores). Since ASC built the other five they were going to in late 1998 and early 1999, Albertsons built more on top of that, possibly also within the time period of 2-3 years (since Albertsons' store growth was dramatically stunted from 2002 on), and that's assuming no stores closed around that time as well, then when SuperValu pulled the plug, nearly two-thirds of the stores went without owners! Compare to that to the Houston Division, which had its share of bad locations but they were able to sell off a majority of the stores (between Kroger, H-E-B, and Randalls, about 60% of the stores were purchased, not even counting purchases by independents). In Milwaukee, no store was older than 10 years, and the oldest stores had been remodeled before becoming Jewel-Osco. So clearly something stank in Milwaukee and it wasn't just "We don't like Chicago chains".

It was probably for the best in the case of Milwaukee. During the SuperValu era I remember reading how bad Jewel-Osco was but SuperValu could get away with it because it had a big market share, Mariano's was not yet a thing, and Lifestyle was not going to help Dominick's. I doubt that since Milwaukee was only 10 years ago and is now much harder due to a larger and better organized Pick 'n Save, Jewel-Osco could gain a meaningful grip in Milwaukee. But they aren't entering Milwaukee. They're expanding in northwest Indiana, which can mean anything. In between the "mystery buyer" and "surprise, surprise, it's Jewel", Jewel-Osco got a new president, and I assume that he's going to try to prevent the new stores from crashing and burning, possibly with a semi-separate management group.
I forgot that Jewel opened additional stores in Milwaukee, which is funny because I visited several of them. I told you it was late when I was posting. I think your observations about why J-O was able to do well in Chicago while failing in Milwaukee are correct - they had a history, market share, and volume in Chicago that they did not have in Milwaukee.

Jewel doesn't have any stores in NE Indiana. Dyer, Munster, Crown Point, and Chesterton are all in NW Indiana.
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Re: Jewel to buy remaining Strack & Van Til stores

Post by pseudo3d »

rwsandiego wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:
buckguy wrote:Jewel has been in and out of Milwaukee more than once. The usual attribution was that they didn't like Chicago chains in Milwaukee, although National had a long run there. Jewel has a long history in NW Indiana but I don't think they ever had a huge presence. National had a similar history during their time. There's a long history of having a lot of local competition and because Chicago has sprawled to incorporate what used to be fairly independent towns, there always have been operators in the fringes that have had at least a good run for awhile--like Gromer's from Elgin which expanded into the NW suburbs.
National was, well, national at one time (well not true national, but definitely a number of spread-out divisions), with the divisions in St. Louis and New Orleans lasting into the 1990s. I don't really buy the "Chicago chains" excuse for the other reason being that the only thing I've read in regards to that are the same people who get angry when a Starbucks sets up shop in their neighborhood, but I would blame its failure on two reasons.

1) It really was too expensive, thinking back to one of storewanderer's posts from the Roundy's/Kroger thread:
storewanderer wrote:Metro Market was the prototype for Mariano's in Chicago but wasn't executed as well and wasn't nearly as popular as Mariano's. Part of what makes Mariano's tick is the urban dense locations and Milwaukee is not really the same as Chicago and not nearly as dense as Chicago. So while the stores sort of feel like Mariano's and have some similarities they are just in general lacking.
Obviously Jewel isn't like Mariano's, but given that the other main choice, Pick 'n Save, was said to be rather hit and miss (to put it likely) still dominated lends credence to that theory, not to mention the pricing problem that plagues Albertsons.

2) Albertsons just flat-out had them in the wrong locations.

Remember, when they pulled out in 2007, it wasn't 5 it was 15 (they entered the market with the purchase of four Cub Foods and a Pick 'n Save, though they had Osco Drug in the area), though ASC had done the task of buying 5 with the intent of building 5 more soon after. (Their earlier attempt at Milwaukee ended in 1978, but never had more than 13 stores). Since ASC built the other five they were going to in late 1998 and early 1999, Albertsons built more on top of that, possibly also within the time period of 2-3 years (since Albertsons' store growth was dramatically stunted from 2002 on), and that's assuming no stores closed around that time as well, then when SuperValu pulled the plug, nearly two-thirds of the stores went without owners! Compare to that to the Houston Division, which had its share of bad locations but they were able to sell off a majority of the stores (between Kroger, H-E-B, and Randalls, about 60% of the stores were purchased, not even counting purchases by independents). In Milwaukee, no store was older than 10 years, and the oldest stores had been remodeled before becoming Jewel-Osco. So clearly something stank in Milwaukee and it wasn't just "We don't like Chicago chains".

It was probably for the best in the case of Milwaukee. During the SuperValu era I remember reading how bad Jewel-Osco was but SuperValu could get away with it because it had a big market share, Mariano's was not yet a thing, and Lifestyle was not going to help Dominick's. I doubt that since Milwaukee was only 10 years ago and is now much harder due to a larger and better organized Pick 'n Save, Jewel-Osco could gain a meaningful grip in Milwaukee. But they aren't entering Milwaukee. They're expanding in northwest Indiana, which can mean anything. In between the "mystery buyer" and "surprise, surprise, it's Jewel", Jewel-Osco got a new president, and I assume that he's going to try to prevent the new stores from crashing and burning, possibly with a semi-separate management group.
I forgot that Jewel opened additional stores in Milwaukee, which is funny because I visited several of them. I told you it was late when I was posting. I think your observations about why J-O was able to do well in Chicago while failing in Milwaukee are correct - they had a history, market share, and volume in Chicago that they did not have in Milwaukee.

Jewel doesn't have any stores in NE Indiana. Dyer, Munster, Crown Point, and Chesterton are all in NW Indiana.
For some reason I thought Chesterton was NE. The curvature of Lake Michigan towards Michigan threw me off. Probably for the best, around NE Indiana is heavy Kroger territory (not to mention Giant Eagle), in case Albertsons ever wanted to connect ACME (not to be confused with the Ohio Acme) and Jewel-Osco together. And of course, my scale is thrown off--even Chesterton is only about an hour away...comparatively far closer than the Galveston Randalls was to the distribution center off Telge Road (probably why it closed--servicing less than 70 stores in the stretched-out market areas of 150-300 miles must have been inefficient). I wonder if they'll get some sort of third party to help with distribution of the stores...the 1998 article where they entered Milwaukee says they enlisted SuperValu as a secondary supplier, despite their massive (and relatively close by) Melrose Park facility at the time.
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Re: Jewel to buy remaining Strack & Van Til stores

Post by storewanderer »

Customer tastes in Chicago are very different from those just over the border in WI. They may be close markets geographically, but they are not so similar in many other regards. You'd have to walk a few stores in each and look at merchandising to completely get a feel for it.

However my understanding was the real reason Supervalu exited Jewel from WI was due to some sort of non-compete agreement with some operators up there... second hand information that may or may not be correct.
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Re: Jewel to buy remaining Strack & Van Til stores

Post by rwsandiego »

storewanderer wrote:Customer tastes in Chicago are very different from those just over the border in WI. They may be close markets geographically, but they are not so similar in many other regards. You'd have to walk a few stores in each and look at merchandising to completely get a feel for it.
Excellent point. There's also the Wisconsin vs Chicago rivalry. They really don't like Chicagoans.

NW Indiana is somewhat similar to Chicago. Munster, Whiting, and East Chicago are essentially Chicago suburbs and are considered part of the metro area. Should they venture further east, they would need to change the merchandise mix. However, they must have done that in Bloomington, IL and the Quad Cities in order to remain successful.
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Re: Jewel to buy remaining Strack & Van Til stores

Post by rwsandiego »

pseudo3d wrote:...For some reason I thought Chesterton was NE. The curvature of Lake Michigan towards Michigan threw me off....
Yeah, the lake curvature throws many things off. Plus, "Chesterton" sounds like it should be further from Chicago. However, I'm not sure I'd consider Chesterton to be part of metro Chicago, although the South Shore train does operate to downtown Chicago and people do use to commute.
pseudo3d wrote:...And of course, my scale is thrown off--even Chesterton is only about an hour away...comparatively far closer than the Galveston Randalls was to the distribution center off Telge Road ...I wonder if they'll get some sort of third party to help with distribution of the stores...the 1998 article where they entered Milwaukee says they enlisted SuperValu as a secondary supplier, despite their massive (and relatively close by) Melrose Park facility at the time.
That's an interesting question. The furthest store from Melrose Park is Rensselaer, but MP is still closer than Grand Rapids (the closest SpartanNash facility), Indy (C&S), or Urbana-Champaign (SVU).Of course, if Jewel bought stores and a distribution center from Marsh...
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Re: Jewel to buy remaining Strack & Van Til stores

Post by buckguy »

Chicago is filled with expatriate Cheeseheads, Hoosiers not so much. Indiana (I've lived there, btw) is probably the most insular of the Midwest states and has a very defensive pride--the Chicago-Wisconsin rivalry is much more good natured. Hoosiers are more easily offended if you tire of their boosterism; you always know when you cross a border into/out of Indiana and many people (including most expatriate Hoosiers) are happiest leaving the state. There's a reason that Chicagoans go to Michigan for weekends on Lake Michigan rather than Indiana.

Jewel's long tenure in NW Indiana is a plus for this acquisition--they probably go back to the 50s--I can recall an old tile front Jewel in Hobart. Carsons is the one other Chicago chain that has a had a long successful presence. Goldblatt's was there, but those stores closed along with their downstate Illinois locations. The larger NW Indiana towns had strong, distinct identities in their heyday and probably carries over to the Hobart-Merrilville sprawlburg.
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Re: Jewel to buy remaining Strack & Van Til stores

Post by pseudo3d »

rwsandiego wrote: That's an interesting question. The furthest store from Melrose Park is Rensselaer, but MP is still closer than Grand Rapids (the closest SpartanNash facility), Indy (C&S), or Urbana-Champaign (SVU).Of course, if Jewel bought stores and a distribution center from Marsh...
I don't think that Marsh has any distribution centers, they were all done by SuperValu (and C&S before that).
storewanderer wrote: However my understanding was the real reason Supervalu exited Jewel from WI was due to some sort of non-compete agreement with some operators up there... second hand information that may or may not be correct.
I don't doubt the existence of hidden non-compete agreements (I heard this is the real reason H-E-B doesn't open stores in Dallas but I don't have any hard proof of that) but I feel that if that were really the case, they would've gone in 2006. I read that Cerberus (not Albertsons LLC) acquired some 26 Cub Foods stores divested from SuperValu and closed four of them (not sure what they did with the others).

My own guess is that because Jewel-Osco was one of the "good" divisions it went with SuperValu but was a bad enough market that SuperValu pulled the plug on it fairly early on.

Regarding S&VT, if the new stores are a strain on Melrose Park, they could probably talk SuperValu into doing a secondary distribution system since they're about to lose the Marsh account. The reason Jewel used SuperValu in 1998 was not only due to the fact that Melrose Park was farther away but it was also probably part of the deal since they acquired several Cub Foods stores.
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Re: Jewel to buy remaining Strack & Van Til stores

Post by rwsandiego »

buckguy wrote:Chicago is filled with expatriate Cheeseheads...
Yes, but they had the good sense to leave. And they shop at Jewel. (Ducks as someone begins throwing half-rotten tomatoes from a dingy Safeway produce display)
buckguy wrote:... Hoosiers not so much. Indiana (I've lived there, btw) is probably the most insular of the Midwest states and has a very defensive pride--the Chicago-Wisconsin rivalry is much more good natured. Hoosiers are more easily offended if you tire of their boosterism; you always know when you cross a border into/out of Indiana and many people (including most expatriate Hoosiers) are happiest leaving the state. There's a reason that Chicagoans go to Michigan for weekends on Lake Michigan rather than Indiana. ...
I grew up and lived in Chicago until my late thirties and am aware of Hoosier pride, but it never struck me as being a rivalry with Chicago. I always thought Chicagoans had lake houses in Michigan because Indiana had the good sense to turn a significant portion of lake shore into state beaches, making them unavailable for private development.
buckguy wrote:... Jewel's long tenure in NW Indiana is a plus for this acquisition--they probably go back to the 50s--I can recall an old tile front Jewel in Hobart. Carsons is the one other Chicago chain that has a had a long successful presence. Goldblatt's was there, but those stores closed along with their downstate Illinois locations. The larger NW Indiana towns had strong, distinct identities in their heyday and probably carries over to the Hobart-Merrilville sprawlburg.
My recollection might be incorrect, but didn't Jewel have several NW Indiana stores back in the day?
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