Gelsons opening first of former Haggen locations January 14

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Gelsons opening first of former Haggen locations January 14

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Re: Gelsons opening first of former Haggen locations January 14

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Re: Gelsons opening first of former Haggen locations January 14

Post by storewanderer »

This is pretty interesting. They didn't seem to do a whole lot beyond put up their own wall signs. It looks to me like they even kept the old Haggen aisle hangers (didn't those have the Haggen logo though, maybe they got new slides). The key to their being successful is going to be execution.
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Re: Gelsons opening first of former Haggen locations January 14

Post by SamSpade »

More video inside the new Gelson's (wow, do many California female news anchors look like that lady?)
After about :50 in, you'll see some more panoramas of the store. Looks like they used the wood bookcase look for endcaps. I still miss that from 'fresh fare' Stadium Fred Meyer days.
Gelson’s Opens First San Diego Store
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Re: Gelsons opening first of former Haggen locations January 14

Post by klkla »

The Shelby report has more photos from the grand opening.
http://www.theshelbyreport.com/photo-ga ... d-opening/

It looks like they have painted the walls but not yet installed a signage/graphics package. They are using vinyl banners for now. A Peets Coffee is still under construction in the space where Starbucks used to be. They will also be adding a Gateway Wine Bar later this year when they do the full remodel.
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Re: Gelsons opening first of former Haggen locations January 14

Post by storewanderer »

I hope they do not have the same fate as Haggen - not doing enough to the stores, not enough promotion on center store, etc. To me the store still looks like Haggen? Though, Haggen got to take all the shots on those mistakes. I fully respect the decision to get the stores opened back up quickly so the employees can be put back to work again.

Gelson's has an Albertsons in Santa Barbara that they inherited in the 1999 ASC transaction and when you go in there, it has no trace left of Albertsons. You simply cannot even tell it was ever Albertsons. At least, I can't. The layout, floor, nothing is left.

This Del Mar was an interesting Albertsons. It was the only Albertsons I ever saw in SoCal that had a salad bar and wine steward.
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Re: Gelsons opening first of former Haggen locations January 14

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote:I hope they do not have the same fate as Haggen - not doing enough to the stores, not enough promotion on center store, etc. To me the store still looks like Haggen? Though, Haggen got to take all the shots on those mistakes. I fully respect the decision to get the stores opened back up quickly so the employees can be put back to work again.

Gelson's has an Albertsons in Santa Barbara that they inherited in the 1999 ASC transaction and when you go in there, it has no trace left of Albertsons. You simply cannot even tell it was ever Albertsons. At least, I can't. The layout, floor, nothing is left.

This Del Mar was an interesting Albertsons. It was the only Albertsons I ever saw in SoCal that had a salad bar and wine steward.
Haggen had bigger problems than just "not enough promotions" and "not enough renovations". Gelson's isn't dectupling their store base, taking on discontiguous territory where the name is unknown, or leveraging their property to finance the deal. Was the Del Mar store an LLC remodel? My last trip to an Albertsons in Louisiana had a salad bar, and that was an LLC remodel.
Last edited by pseudo3d on January 16th, 2016, 3:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Gelsons opening first of former Haggen locations January 14

Post by wnetmacman »

pseudo3d wrote:My last trip to an Albertsons in Louisiana had a salad bar, and that was an LLC remodel
That salad bar far predated LLC. It was in that store when it was built.
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Re: Gelsons opening first of former Haggen locations January 14

Post by klkla »

storewanderer wrote:Gelson's has an Albertsons in Santa Barbara that they inherited in the 1999 ASC transaction and when you go in there, it has no trace left of Albertsons. You simply cannot even tell it was ever Albertsons. At least, I can't. The layout, floor, nothing is left.
Funny you mention that store. The conversion of that store was very similar to the way they did Del Mar. After it closed as an Albertsons they just changed the sign outside and painted the walls. They completely remerchandised the store to Gelson's standards product-wise and put in a few new service cases and reopened a few weeks later. About a year after that they expanded the store a little (to add a kitchen for the Deli) and then did a complete remodel inside and out. The store has been very successful since.

As for Del Mar, I would expect it to look a lot like the store in La Canada-Flintridge when it is done. This store, which opened two years ago, was a Lifestyle Vons previously that was in fairly decent condition. They left the outside the same as when it was a Vons and kept some of the basic elements inside like aisle lighting and the general layout. The main changes were a new floor and décor package, the bakery was moved to where floral used to be and the deli was expanded to include all the space previously used by Von's Deli/Bakery. This store has been a huge success for them, as well.

There are some photos on Yelp:
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/gelsons- ... flintridge
pseudo3d wrote:Was the Del Mar store an LLC remodel? My last trip to an Albertsons in Louisiana had a salad bar, and that was an LLC remodel.
The Del Mar store did receive a half-ass LLC remodel. It also was remodeled by Supervalu. And it was enlarged and remodeled by the original Albertson's, as well, after they bought it from Big Bear Markets. A number of the stores bought by Haggen were originally Big Bears (Del Mar, Carlsbad, Tierrasanta, San Ysidro, Pacific Beach and Coronado come to mind off the top of my head). I worked at their corporate offices when I was in College. Del Mar was Big Bear's #1 store and San Ysidro was #2 in sales volume at the time.
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Re: Gelsons opening first of former Haggen locations January 14

Post by storewanderer »

That explains Santa Barbara. That was actually the first Gelson's I ever visited, unless counting Mayfairs when I was a little kid in the 80's before those disappeared in Nevada.

Del Mar looked better with its SuperValu remodel than it did after LLC worked on it, in my opinion. That was obviously a store that was someone's pet project to try to be upscale but I'm not sure how much traction Albertsons had in that location (I was in it quite a few times as Albertsons and it was always quiet, very quiet compared to the Ralphs at Del Mar Heights area which is a very congested location).

That La Canada store looks excellent. I hope they can get the volume in these former Haggen locations to support that type of a perimeter operation.

I don't think any work needs to be done to the outside of these stores other than maybe some sort of dining patio if they do a large prepared foods/coffee operation.
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