Lucky California, Dublin

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lola42
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Lucky California, Dublin

Post by lola42 »

Save Mart is starting to hire for its new Lucky California in Dublin, slated to open this Spring. I can't remember the last time they built a store from ground up. And if memory serves me right, this is the 2nd Lucky California after Daly City.

http://www.independentnews.com/calendar ... b09f4.html
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Re: Lucky California, Dublin

Post by storewanderer »

The last ground up store was in around 2009 in Modesto, which replaced an older store.

Plus the new stores the past couple years that replaced existing stores/expanded (these stores are as good as new and I can't tell they were anything but new construction) in Los Banos, Ceres, and Oakdale.
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Re: Lucky California, Dublin

Post by storewanderer »

The new store is now open.

Lots of photos on Google.

Store looks good. Really good, actually. Pretty heavy over-use of the word "California" inside but the store looks good in any case. Hopefully this store does well and gets them some momentum... so they can have more than 2 modern Lucky Stores...

https://patch.com/california/dublin/luc ... pen-dublin
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Re: Lucky California, Dublin

Post by rwsandiego »

storewanderer wrote: March 17th, 2018, 11:04 pm The new store is now open.

Lots of photos on Google.

Store looks good. Really good, actually. Pretty heavy over-use of the word "California" inside but the store looks good in any case. Hopefully this store does well and gets them some momentum... so they can have more than 2 modern Lucky Stores...

https://patch.com/california/dublin/luc ... pen-dublin
It is a nice store, despite the word "California" everywhere. Perhaps they don't want shoppers thinking they slipped into a wormhole and ended up in Delaware.
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Re: Lucky California, Dublin

Post by timanny »

I don't like the logo. The whole purpose of resurrecting Lucky was the brand recognition. My understanding is that eventually they want to rebrand all Lucky stores as Lucky California. That's fine, but Lucky has had the same basic logo, though modernized, since 1946. This is a drastic change. Replace the "Lucky" part with the old script, and you have a winner.
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Re: Lucky California, Dublin

Post by rwsandiego »

timanny wrote: March 19th, 2018, 2:33 pm I don't like the logo. The whole purpose of resurrecting Lucky was the brand recognition. My understanding is that eventually they want to rebrand all Lucky stores as Lucky California. That's fine, but Lucky has had the same basic logo, though modernized, since 1946. This is a drastic change. Replace the "Lucky" part with the old script, and you have a winner.
I agree with you - and I moved to California after the rebranding to Albertsons. The logo is just odd.
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Re: Lucky California, Dublin

Post by storewanderer »

All of Save Mart's new logos look pretty terrible but the redesigned Save Mart logo and its colors have grown on me a bit. It is bright, vibrant, and happy looking. Maybe a copy of some Ahold logo but that is okay, they are far enough away.

Considering most of their stores are dreary, old, and depressing feeling, particularly the Nevada Stores, it is an interesting contrast to see that new logo (but you have to look hard for it up here in Nevada, all it shows up on are a few uniforms and labels).

I wonder if part of why they re-did the Lucky logo was to try to separate from Albertsons. Since Albertsons is still using the proper Lucky logo?

I think Save Mart would be wise to just go back to the classic, proper Lucky logo on these two new format stores and stop trying to have two logos. It is a pipe dream they will ever get the rest of the Luckys remodeled into this format unless they close 80% of them down and start from scratch with new buildings, which I don't think would be a cost effective move.

In one regard I am proud of them for doing such a good job on their new stores and remodels. On the other hand, I am pretty frustrated with their highest-in-market pricing and the ongoing lack of maintenance and investment in most of the former Albertsons Stores. They should sell some stores to raise cash to properly remodel a core group of stores and at least they would have a decent base of stores somewhere. Nevada Stores would be a logical sale, they have a lousy reputation up here and need a lot of money to get up to any sort of standard. Even then, their pricing is simply too high for this market and the job they have done killing what were strong performing Albertsons Stores has been second to only Haggen. Despite their efforts I also question if they really have a place in the Sacramento market either. Though I think their fortunes could reverse in Sacramento with the Lucky banner.
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Re: Lucky California, Dublin

Post by timanny »

storewanderer wrote: March 19th, 2018, 10:18 pm All of Save Mart's new logos look pretty terrible but the redesigned Save Mart logo and its colors have grown on me a bit. It is bright, vibrant, and happy looking. Maybe a copy of some Ahold logo but that is okay, they are far enough away.

Considering most of their stores are dreary, old, and depressing feeling, particularly the Nevada Stores, it is an interesting contrast to see that new logo (but you have to look hard for it up here in Nevada, all it shows up on are a few uniforms and labels).

I wonder if part of why they re-did the Lucky logo was to try to separate from Albertsons. Since Albertsons is still using the proper Lucky logo?

I think Save Mart would be wise to just go back to the classic, proper Lucky logo on these two new format stores and stop trying to have two logos. It is a pipe dream they will ever get the rest of the Luckys remodeled into this format unless they close 80% of them down and start from scratch with new buildings, which I don't think would be a cost effective move.

In one regard I am proud of them for doing such a good job on their new stores and remodels. On the other hand, I am pretty frustrated with their highest-in-market pricing and the ongoing lack of maintenance and investment in most of the former Albertsons Stores. They should sell some stores to raise cash to properly remodel a core group of stores and at least they would have a decent base of stores somewhere. Nevada Stores would be a logical sale, they have a lousy reputation up here and need a lot of money to get up to any sort of standard. Even then, their pricing is simply too high for this market and the job they have done killing what were strong performing Albertsons Stores has been second to only Haggen. Despite their efforts I also question if they really have a place in the Sacramento market either. Though I think their fortunes could reverse in Sacramento with the Lucky banner.
The new Save Mart logo reminds me of the 1960s Save Mart logo. I don't know where or if online you can find it, but it was somewhat similar. The first Tracy Save Mart, which was in the furniture store building next to the empty Save Mart building on N Tracy Blvd that closed a few years ago, had this logo.

They obviously branded as Save Mart in Sacramento to keep in line with the San Joaquin Valley; for media advertising reasons I'm sure. The problem is that Save Mart had zero history in Sacramento. There were no Save Marts north of Galt. In addition to that, Lucky was very popular in Tracy, Stockton, and Sacramento. When Save Mart bought all the San Joaquin Valley Luckys in the late 90s, Tracy and Lodi were kept, and at least one Stockton store (Miracle Mile) Lucky was forced to give up to get rid of the others. Despite Save Mart adding stores buying their way in, I think their popularity was moreso in their hometown of Modesto and South.

Kroger botched in with Ralphs in Norcal. Safeway and Albertsons overwhelmed them. I would love to see Kroger buy Save Mart, along with the Lucky name, and rebrand everything from Turlock and north as Lucky, while from Merced south would take the Ralphs name. That's pretty much how Safeway does it; Safeway has no stores in Merced County, but considering they are in the Fresno TV market, if they ever returned there it would possibly be with the Vons branding.

Of course, that's all a pipe dream.
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Re: Lucky California, Dublin

Post by storewanderer »

I've seen that 60's logo and you are right, the new logo is similar to that, but with brighter accents and a more vibrant look.

Save Mart (S-Mart) was quite a bomb in Stockton after trying to buy all the competition out in the 80's and 90's. Operating a collection of former Frys, former Lucky, and former 70's or 80's era Albertsons Stores they once had a store count of at least 8 or 9 and they are left now with what, 3 stores? Their Stockton Food Maxx in a former Pak N Save also failed.

NorCal Ralphs was something that shouldn't have failed but I think the Los Angeles-based Ralphs management wanted nothing to do with NorCal. Given how many of those stores are now other full service or ethnic grocery stores (and good ones at that in a number of cases like Nugget, Safeway, or Whole Foods), I believe it was a pretty viable group of stores. Their pricing was terrible. Given the amount of money they threw around the first few years in NorCal, they really should have tried to make it work.

Fresno Vons are NorCal Safeway Division now... they are Vons in name only. Albertsons split up Vons so the Fresno Stores are NorCal, the Las Vegas Stores are Southwest (Phoenix), and the SoCal ones are still SoCal.

I think the Lucky name would play fine in Fresno, assuming Save Mart has the rights to use it there... somewhere down in SoCal there has to be some kind of "line" where they lose rights to the name. When Albertsons split up, there was a bit of an odd situation down in the valley south of Fresno. The store in Visalia was a NorCal Store (it or Vallejo was NorCal's newest store...) and sold to Save Mart. The store in Hanford (a Monte Mart) was a SoCal Store and sold to Supervalu. There was also a store in Hanford which was SoCal.
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Re: Lucky California, Dublin

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: March 20th, 2018, 9:41 pm Fresno Vons are NorCal Safeway Division now... they are Vons in name only. Albertsons split up Vons so the Fresno Stores are NorCal, the Las Vegas Stores are Southwest (Phoenix), and the SoCal ones are still SoCal.

I think the Lucky name would play fine in Fresno, assuming Save Mart has the rights to use it there... somewhere down in SoCal there has to be some kind of "line" where they lose rights to the name. When Albertsons split up, there was a bit of an odd situation down in the valley south of Fresno. The store in Visalia was a NorCal Store (it or Vallejo was NorCal's newest store...) and sold to Save Mart. The store in Hanford (a Monte Mart) was a SoCal Store and sold to Supervalu. There was also a store in Hanford which was SoCal.
I assumed that the Lucky name was no good in SoCal at all. Presumably, when Albertsons LLC sold NorCal to Save Mart, they could use the Lucky name there, but not in SoCal, where SuperValu used it as an attempt at a lower-priced store (which there are now, what, two?). The Fresno split-up may have been one of those LLC oddities, like how I've read LLC ended up getting two Jewel-Osco stores, or something. In any case, Albertsons probably has a fairly tight reign on how Save Mart can use the Lucky brand, considering they waged a lawsuit against Grocery Outlet from using the name.
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