Save Mart Ceres, CA Photos

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storewanderer
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Save Mart Ceres, CA Photos

Post by storewanderer »

From the construction website: http://www.huffcon.com/projects/save-ma ... ets-ceres/

This actually came out really good. While I do not like the decor colors, the fonts, etc. the physical store looks really good, departments look very nicely sized, good spacing throughout the place, and product displays look great. The cement floor also looks good, the store feels bright, light, and open.

I do find the ceiling really interesting, looks exposed, but actually isn't... I am surprised it isn't exposed with skylights. I do not recall seeing this sort of ceiling before in any other retail store besides Costco. While it looks bad, it does not seem to really impact the overall look and feel of the store since it is so high up.

The deli looks a lot like a Supervalu Albertsons interior - the round lights below the fixture, the area above the fixtures, even the tile job behind the counter.

Based on my (terrible) experiences with Save Mart in Reno/Sparks/Carson City, it is difficult to believe they will be able to execute the perimeter in this store, but maybe this store does enough volume that they can actually afford the labor needed to do it, and have enough product movement to keep these perimeters fresh and full looking. I hope they can do it.

So they still have what about 120 stores left that need $5-10 million+ in remodel money that haven't seen capital for 10-30 years. The longer they wait to remodel, the more it will cost... time to ramp up the pace of the remodels.
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Re: Save Mart Ceres, CA Photos

Post by architect »

storewanderer wrote:I do find the ceiling really interesting, looks exposed, but actually isn't... I am surprised it isn't exposed with skylights. I do not recall seeing this sort of ceiling before in any other retail store besides Costco. While it looks bad, it does not seem to really impact the overall look and feel of the store since it is so high up.
This ceiling is actually exposed, but with the roof deck covered by insulation (the shiny surface is the underside of the insulation). In California, energy standards are even more strict than most other areas of the US, so exposed insulation such as this may start to become more commonplace. I do agree that it looks awful. Most grocery stores have flat roofs (which in reality slope 1/4" per foot minimum for water runoff), and as a result, the insulation is placed on top of the roof deck. This location is an odd situation, likely due to the fact that the store was a renovation.
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Re: Save Mart Ceres, CA Photos

Post by klkla »

I guess I'm in the minority here but I actually like the colors. The green and orange from the logo is integrated throughout the store and gives a unified appearance. It's somewhat similar to Kroger's Local décor which I hate because there's no color scheme or continuity to it. It's just a mix-and-match jumble of different styles, color and textures.

The exposed insulation doesn't bother me, either.

The food service area looks great. Hopefully they will be able to execute all these different elements.

Produce presentation looks like the weakest link. There are items in the upright refrigeration that should be displayed in the orchard bins like apples and oranges. Produce just doesn't pop like the rest of the store.
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Re: Save Mart Ceres, CA Photos

Post by storewanderer »

I didn't notice but you are right about the logo color being unified throughout the store and you are right that is a good touch and shows nice attention to detail.

Kroger's "local" Decor is not good. Kroger's Decor packages in general look terrible the past 4-5 years and keep getting worse right when I thought they could not get any worse (though I do like how Harris Teeter looks... really like how they look...).

Maybe they can execute the food service since this is a legacy Save Mart run by legacy Save Mart people...
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Re: Save Mart Ceres, CA Photos

Post by storewanderer »

Went to a couple Save Marts in Carson City and one in Reno this week. They have made some changes. Whoever makes the large stickers that operators like Food Lion or Winn Dixie put over un-used service cases appears to be the main beneficiary. Nice to see those large full well stocked perimeters in Save Mart's new central valley stores. Disappointing to see the operation in Nevada is being continually scaled back.

Also funny the stores in Carson City have higher prices than the ones in Reno. Carson City is not exactly a market that one would expect to have higher pricing; actually, I would expect the opposite based on incomes there. 3.15 for a can of Campbell Chunky Soup that is 2.99 in Reno (or 2.19 at Smiths, any Smiths). 1.39 for single candy bars that are 1.29 in Reno... (or .99 at Smiths), 3.69 for the cheapest gallon of milk which is 3.59 in Reno (or 2.69 at any Smiths), 65 cents for the Friskies Cat Food that is 60 cents in Reno (or .50 at Smiths).

It is pretty sad to see they can't even fill up perimeters in 20-25 year old Albertsons stores... those stores weren't built with perimeters that are large by today's standards. I would call them about right size. The newer Carson City Store does have perimeters on the larger side since it is newer, but still...

The first store is a really low volume operation and it is a mystery to me how it stays open. This one for some reason closed its service bakery a few years ago, but has even less thaw and sell bakery out in the old bakery space than before. This store also had some of its deli case covered up previously but has now doubled how much of it is covered up. This store also now has some of its seafood/meat case covered up which it did not before.
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Now the most sad is the second store in Carson City which in the past was not a party to any of this stuff. Historically they have maintained this store fairly well and kept its perimeter fairly attractive. This is also one of the newest stores they have, a late model Albertsons. Now this one has about 1/3 of its large deli covered, produce has been cut back, but so far the fairly large service meat/seafood area is still fully merchandised. It is odd how two tables from the long-closed Starbucks made their way to the back of the store by produce.
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Also not surprising is a Reno Store with a great location that is poorly run and based on the location seems to be doing way less business than I'd expect it to. This store has now re-covered 1/3 of its deli service case. What is weird is they covered the middle case which is between hot food and the rest of the stuff. Previously, they covered a far side case but opened it back up a year ago for some reason (maybe they were trying to try... so much for that). This store also removed most of its self serve bakery years ago and in an effort to display even less product than they already display, they now are using spaces on the left side of the case that should have trays of single baked goods to put bags and boxes (see far left of photo). I have not noticed any of their other locations with that lousy "idea." This store also previously expanded some of its produce juices and dairy (soy milk and such, new SKUs that were not really present a decade ago) into a space at the end of dairy where Albertsons had been housing a large variety of "cold drinks" (this store also was not doing too well as Albertsons). Well now they took a chunk of that space and filled it with cold bottled water.
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Re: Save Mart Ceres, CA Photos

Post by storewanderer »

I finally got to see the Save Mart new (remodeled? both seemed brand new) stores in Ceres (and Oakdale). I am very impressed. These stores look great. I especially liked Oakdale since it does not have a cement floor, the store is bright, light, and airy from floor to ceiling. The perimeters look great. Execution seems very good. Far better execution than in Nevada, despite that they are basically working with the same products. The departments are full, items look fresh and well prepared, staffing levels look just right.

Was interesting in Ceres on a weekend in the afternoon, bakery/deli/hot Mexican food area was totally deserted and I observed it for 5-10 minutes. The store was relatively busy but those departments were not. I am afraid their reputation for doing so poor with perimeters for the past 5-7 years may be holding them back.

My favorite feature in these two stores was the meat grill back in the meat/seafood department. In both stores this feature was very busy during both afternoon and evening visits with a 30 minute or so wait for an order. They may need to consider larger grills. Simple program: pick any meat, they grill it to order (pay retail price for meat+ sales tax since you receive it hot). They have various seasonings. Some meats are sitting there in marinade also. They also have prepackaged meals at a $6 price point (both hot/cooked or cold/raw). Their grill also offers "skillet" vegetables including corn, asparagus, potatoes, and some others as side items; I am not sure how those are priced but it appeared to be by the pound.

As for the bad: everyday pricing is above Safeway and Raleys on numerous items, including key items like milk and butter. This is really bad. The Oakdale Store was actually matching Raleys 2.98 milk price but the others I went into in Atwater, Jackson, and Sonora are all at a 3.59 price point on milk (Safeway is 3.00 and Raleys is 2.98).

Also Save Mart is charging 25cents for plastic bags and plastic bags are sold in a display near checkout (not at the checkstand), so the only option at 10 cents is a paper bag, and by default what is sold directly at the checkstand is the paper bag. This is again out of line with the competitors both of whom offer plastic bags for 10 cents. Then again, Save Mart was the one grocer who did not donate thousands of dollars to directly support the ballot initiative in favor of the "bag ban" law so maybe they are just trying to implement the spirit of the law (actually discouraging use of plastic bags...) vs. just pushing the sale of thicker plastic bags to customers as the other stores are all doing.

I also went into a number of other Save Marts and while they definitely look healthier down in the central valley than they look in Sacramento/surburbs (where they look... marginal) or Reno and Carson City (poor), when they are operating in competition with Safeway, which is not in too many locations, they seem to be underperforming even in the central valley.

The one constant I noticed in the central valley Save Marts was the meat and produce departments looked great at worst. I saw some rough looking bakery/deli departments but meat and produce looked great to excellent in every single location. This is just such a contrast from the Save Marts up here in Nevada...

Based on what I am seeing here I think what is happening is they are putting a significant amount of their resources into these few remodeled stores and letting the existing stores (especially in Nevada) just run more and more into a decline (as evidenced by all the covered up perimeter cases in the photos I took a couple months ago above).

This would be fine if they could remodel stores rapidly but it seems the remodels are happening slowly. They need to do something to get the pace of the remodels up in the locations where it makes sense, and they need to get rid of stores that they have run so far into the ground that it is not worth even trying to revive because their reputation is shot in certain neighborhoods, be it either by selling the stores, trading the stores, maybe trying to convert to Food Maxx which seems to have been successful for them in some spots (that has been another flop up here in Nevada and run so poorly...) or closing the stores.
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Re: Save Mart Ceres, CA Photos

Post by lola42 »

Speaking of Ceres, wasn’t Walmart going to build a Supercenter here? Wonder if they’ll just stick with what they got considering their shift towards online.
http://www.cerescourier.com/m/section/11/article/9679/
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Re: Save Mart Ceres, CA Photos

Post by storewanderer »

Similar sort of situation in Auburn and last I heard, Wal Mart was finally approved... but silence from them regarding when they plan to build.
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