Raley's to build Nob Hill Foods store in Santa Clara

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lake
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Raley's to build Nob Hill Foods store in Santa Clara

Post by lake »

Seems like a good location with little competition. I'm honestly surprised Safeway didn't take it, but maybe the 24,000 sq ft was not a risk they were willing to take. Also the hundreds of apartments literally attached to the store should add a good backbone of customers. If I recall this will also be Raley's first urban style store assuming it beats the Market 5-4-1 in Sacramento.

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/21/n ... nta-clara/
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Re: Raley's to build Nob Hill Foods store in Santa Clara

Post by pseudo3d »

Late last year, Safeway opened a ~20k square foot store in a former Alpha Beta/Lucky/Albertsons that they had closed in 2006 (later serving mostly as a Fresh & Easy) not really too far away (Bird Avenue at Minnesota Avenue) so I doubt size was the issue.
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Re: Raley's to build Nob Hill Foods store in Santa Clara

Post by storewanderer »

Maybe the developer did not want Safeway. Their reputation in the bay area isn't exactly great. More of a saturation/store because it is the only option situation.

But in all seriousness, money typically talks when it comes to developers so maybe Raleys actually outbid Safeway for the site, or Safeway did not want the site... who knows, maybe they have another site nearby. I also wonder if this could have been a Whole Foods site but in light of recent events at Whole Foods they were able to get out of this site and Raleys was the second choice.

Nob Hill has closed quite a few stores, always very small locations in some cases located in neighborhoods where demographics have changed and Raleys marketing plan simply does not work. I don't think Nob Hill was a great acquisition for Raleys, as it was mostly smaller older stores that were quite unlike Raleys namesake stores. Raleys did not spend enough money on Nob Hill at a critical time in the early 2000's when they were blowing money in Las Vegas and New Mexico.

Still this is great news for Raleys to be adding a store in the bay area.

Also that 5-4-1 Store or whatever it is in Sacramento is not owned by Raleys chain, it is owned under some sort of separate holding company by Mike Teel. My understanding is it will be managed completely independently from Raleys; I am not even expecting it to use their systems or distribution. I do not quite understand that arrangement.
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Re: Raley's to build Nob Hill Foods store in Santa Clara

Post by lake »

storewanderer wrote: Also that 5-4-1 Store or whatever it is in Sacramento is not owned by Raleys chain, it is owned under some sort of separate holding company by Mike Teel. My understanding is it will be managed completely independently from Raleys; I am not even expecting it to use their systems or distribution. I do not quite understand that arrangement.
And the day after you say that, Mike Teel steps down to focus on promoting healthy food. Keith Knopf is the new president of Raley's with Teel staying on as the CEO and Owner, but in a lesser roll. Knopf is a retail veteran but with no grocery experience before Raley's so it should be interesting to see how he changes the company. He has been the head of real estate prior and has shown a ton of aggression in the rapid expansion Raley's has started recently. Hopefully he can take this aggression and help improve the company's weaknesses as I believe it is very close to surpassing Safeway and SaveMart as top dog in the Northern California/Northern Nevada region.
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Re: Raley's to build Nob Hill Foods store in Santa Clara

Post by storewanderer »

Interesting Teel is stepping down. This makes me wonder how many stores may ultimately be in this new venture he is doing. I think Raleys is on the right path; it isn't that difficult when your competitors are so poor but it also helps that Raleys has a well maintained, above average size store base to work with and typically allocates proper labor to its stores. Raleys has also been copying a lot of Kroger ideas (their management spends lots of time in Smiths up here in NV); right down to the Dunhumby loyalty program, Que Vision screens at checkout, and coupons that look identical to the ones Smiths sends out. If I didn't know better looking at the coupons I'd think Raleys was another Kroger division.

It will take a lot for Raleys to surpass Safeway in NorCal due to Safeway's penetration in the bay area and also thicker penetration in some of the rural areas than Raleys has. It won't take much more for them to surpass Save Mart but I am guessing the Food Maxx locations that do good volume help get Save Mart's overall tonnage up.

Raleys is already well past Safeway in NV/Tahoe due to Safeway's low presence in NV, though. Raleys is also well past Save Mart in NV/Tahoe. Save Mart continues to flounder in NV; the Food Maxx conversions in Sparks and Carson City (especially Sparks) have been a flop; dirty stores with terrible quality perishables, are disliked by customers, poorly run, and have higher prices than WinCo, Smiths, or Wal Mart. These are nothing like the Food Maxx remodels or conversions done in CA over the past few years; they are full pallet shelving up to the ceiling and have the layout of a 1995 F4L with produce departments the size of a 1960's Safeway (never seen such small produce areas in a price impact store). I am not sure why they did what they did here but maybe it will become more clear at some point. At this point, after what has happened with these Food Maxx conversions, Save Mart really needs to get out of Nevada; 2-3 of the stores need to close outright and the few viable ones, they should just sell back to Albertsons who is probably the only one who would be interested in buying them as a going concern due to their union structure, and be done with it up here.

Save Mart also does quite poorly compared to Safeway in places like Truckee. Last weekend I was in the Truckee Safeway and the store was a mob scene; lines stretching down the aisles, all 9 registers plus 6 self checkouts going, and so many customers in the store that it was hard to move through. I went over to Save Mart which is a couple minutes away immediately after and they had 4 checkouts open, moderate lines, and little traffic in the store itself. The store looked pretty good (better than the Reno ones which are trash). The sad thing is, for a Save Mart, that was a really high customer count (higher than you'd see in almost any of the NV Save Marts except for the one left in Sparks which has no competition for a few miles, at any given time), but compared to the Safeway, it was a ghost town. There will be more blood in Nevada and Save Mart at this point is the lowest hanging fruit after Scolaris closed its poor performers over the past few years. Most of the stores Scolaris closed were far better performers and far nicer stores than what Save Mart has left which are piss poor operations with deteriorating conditions since there has been no real capital ever since Albertsons built the stores which range in age from 1992-2005; floors busted, dirty ceilings, old refrigeration, etc.

I will be interested to see how Raleys does in Truckee. I expect they will do very well. Their current site location is isolated from Safeway and Save Mart and I don't think it will impact either of them too much (the Safeway has more business than it can handle; the Save Mart probably could lose half of its business and still be an above average Save Mart); I also expect it will have a little impact on the Kings Beach Safeway. Remember, a decade ago they planned two stores in Truckee, one Raleys and one Bel Air. Based on the location of the one store they are building, they could still go after that second store (which would be a lot closer to the current Truckee Safeway). Also Whole Foods is looking to open a 365 Store in South Lake Tahoe so there will be some impacts on that too. Smart & Final Extra also just opened in South Lake Tahoe in the former Staples.
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Re: Raley's to build Nob Hill Foods store in Santa Clara

Post by brandonmetal »

It appears the Monticello (Santa Clara) Nob Hill store is going to be opening in January as they have a Craiglist post up ramping up hiring.
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Re: Raley's to build Nob Hill Foods store in Santa Clara

Post by lola42 »

Looks like Nob Hill opened in early January.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/nob-hill-foods ... =date_desc
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