3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

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3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by wnetmacman »

Winn-Dixie to close 3 stores in south Louisiana

Three stores:

New Orleans: 4600 Chef Menteur
Slidell: 851 Brownswitch Road (A former Delchamps; has been WD since 2000 or 2001)
Lafayette: 3803 Moss (and my closest WD)

The New Orleans and Slidell stores aren't very surprising. In NO, a Walmart Supercenter opened across the street, and it's just generally a rough neighborhood. Slidell is just too far out of the way.

Lafayette's closure takes WD out of Lafayette completely. Stores still operate in Abbeville, Rayne, Breaux Bridge, Franklin, Eunice, Crowley and New Iberia, but I suspect none of those will last long with the last Lafayette store going.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by wnetmacman »

I normally don't post my own replies, but I found another story about 2 Baton Rouge area stores that won't be reopening after floods, or at least not reopening as Winn Dixie:

Flooded Winn-Dixie stores to reopen as Shoppers Value Foods on Old Hammond Highway and in Walker

They're getting rid of the Louisiana stores as fast as they can dump them.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by pseudo3d »

wnetmacman wrote:Winn-Dixie to close 3 stores in south Louisiana

Three stores:

New Orleans: 4600 Chef Menteur
Slidell: 851 Brownswitch Road (A former Delchamps; has been WD since 2000 or 2001)
Lafayette: 3803 Moss (and my closest WD)

The New Orleans and Slidell stores aren't very surprising. In NO, a Walmart Supercenter opened across the street, and it's just generally a rough neighborhood. Slidell is just too far out of the way.

Lafayette's closure takes WD out of Lafayette completely. Stores still operate in Abbeville, Rayne, Breaux Bridge, Franklin, Eunice, Crowley and New Iberia, but I suspect none of those will last long with the last Lafayette store going.
This is fairly significant news, and comes just a few weeks after a closure of W-D in Gulfport (there are about a dozen Winn-Dixies total in MS now). I wouldn't be surprised if SVF took Crowley, that none of the three that are closing were offered to Albertsons or Rouses.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by wnetmacman »

pseudo3d wrote:
wnetmacman wrote:Winn-Dixie to close 3 stores in south Louisiana

Three stores:

New Orleans: 4600 Chef Menteur
Slidell: 851 Brownswitch Road (A former Delchamps; has been WD since 2000 or 2001)
Lafayette: 3803 Moss (and my closest WD)

The New Orleans and Slidell stores aren't very surprising. In NO, a Walmart Supercenter opened across the street, and it's just generally a rough neighborhood. Slidell is just too far out of the way.

Lafayette's closure takes WD out of Lafayette completely. Stores still operate in Abbeville, Rayne, Breaux Bridge, Franklin, Eunice, Crowley and New Iberia, but I suspect none of those will last long with the last Lafayette store going.
This is fairly significant news, and comes just a few weeks after a closure of W-D in Gulfport (there are about a dozen Winn-Dixies total in MS now). I wouldn't be surprised if SVF took Crowley, that none of the three that are closing were offered to Albertsons or Rouses.
Albertsons doesn't operate in Slidell or New Orleans. The Lafayette store is on the extreme north side of town, but near where Albertsons closed their Northgate Mall store in 2012. So I'm not overly surprised that they didn't want it. Shoppers Value operates a smaller store 2 blocks from WD already. Unless they can get a deal on the Moss store, they aren't moving.

Personally, I'd like to see Rouses involved with that store and possibly the others. I think they could make a killing there, since there's nothing like it on that side of town.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by pseudo3d »

wnetmacman wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:
wnetmacman wrote:Winn-Dixie to close 3 stores in south Louisiana

Three stores:

New Orleans: 4600 Chef Menteur
Slidell: 851 Brownswitch Road (A former Delchamps; has been WD since 2000 or 2001)
Lafayette: 3803 Moss (and my closest WD)

The New Orleans and Slidell stores aren't very surprising. In NO, a Walmart Supercenter opened across the street, and it's just generally a rough neighborhood. Slidell is just too far out of the way.

Lafayette's closure takes WD out of Lafayette completely. Stores still operate in Abbeville, Rayne, Breaux Bridge, Franklin, Eunice, Crowley and New Iberia, but I suspect none of those will last long with the last Lafayette store going.
This is fairly significant news, and comes just a few weeks after a closure of W-D in Gulfport (there are about a dozen Winn-Dixies total in MS now). I wouldn't be surprised if SVF took Crowley, that none of the three that are closing were offered to Albertsons or Rouses.
Albertsons doesn't operate in Slidell or New Orleans. The Lafayette store is on the extreme north side of town, but near where Albertsons closed their Northgate Mall store in 2012. So I'm not overly surprised that they didn't want it. Shoppers Value operates a smaller store 2 blocks from WD already. Unless they can get a deal on the Moss store, they aren't moving.

Personally, I'd like to see Rouses involved with that store and possibly the others. I think they could make a killing there, since there's nothing like it on that side of town.
Albertsons has shown interest in recent years in expanding in territory they were once in, and expanding existing markets. Maybe not for Albertsons to enter New Orleans yet (again) but certainly to expand Lafayette. However, the location just seems oddly out of the way and not near any other big establishments or roads (yeah, I know Pont Des Mouton has widened, but it still looks "off").

The New Orleans location is a stones throw away from the original "giant" Schwegmann (but due to the building footprint and parking location, it has made it impossible for modern supermarket usage today...it doesn't even look like a former supermarket location). It's also near a closed-down Home Depot (former Kmart) in a strange footprint (necessitated by the exit ramp) that instead of a rectangle, looks like a quarter of a circle. What looks like what definitely did it in was a Walmart built catty-corner a few years ago.

The Slidell location looks incredibly dated but there's really nothing on that part of town. You're right, with the exception of maybe Lafayette, all three would be a hard sell for anyone else.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by wnetmacman »

pseudo3d wrote:You're right, with the exception of maybe Lafayette, all three would be a hard sell for anyone else.
The Lafayette store was once very popular owing to being the only larger regional/national retailer north of I-10. In recent years (2000-present), however, the store has been squeezed out by several changes:

- Super 1 Foods opened first in an abandoned Kmart near the Evangeline Thruway and Willow, and Albertsons demolished an old JCPenney store at Northgate Mall to build a new store(circa 1997)
- Walmart expanded store 534 into a Supercenter (2001)
- Target opened a store nearby on Louisiana Avenue at I-10. (2008)
- Super 1 Foods opened a store in Carencro (2012)
- Albertsons at Northgate Mall closed
- Walmart opened a store in Carencro (April 5, 2017)
- Super 1 has another store planned in Scott (opening soon)

When you add this to the fact that WD just hasn't done anything west of the Mississippi River in 17 years, and taken services out of this store, it was doomed to fail sooner or later. When I moved to Lafayette in 2000, this store had a Salad Bar, sit down deli, self checkouts and many other amenities that have all been stripped. Rouses would have to sink serious cash into this one to make it work, but I have seen them do more. SVF wouldn't do much more than lipstick on the pig, so to speak.

The store was a standard WD store, built in the late 70's or early 80's, and expanded to both sides, once in the late 80's, and again around 1997. The last expansion split the deli and bakery to the opposite corners of the store and added a pharmacy. It's a long, narrow store. Also, it doesn't have strip fluorescent lighting; the lights are 2x4 grid drop in fixtures throughout, with a line around the ring of the store.

When built, it was a great location, as there are a lot of folks living nearby; it just fell victim to its own inaction and competition.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by pseudo3d »

wnetmacman wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:You're right, with the exception of maybe Lafayette, all three would be a hard sell for anyone else.
The Lafayette store was once very popular owing to being the only larger regional/national retailer north of I-10. In recent years (2000-present), however, the store has been squeezed out by several changes:

- Super 1 Foods opened first in an abandoned Kmart near the Evangeline Thruway and Willow, and Albertsons demolished an old JCPenney store at Northgate Mall to build a new store(circa 1997)
- Walmart expanded store 534 into a Supercenter (2001)
- Target opened a store nearby on Louisiana Avenue at I-10. (2008)
- Super 1 Foods opened a store in Carencro (2012)
- Albertsons at Northgate Mall closed
- Walmart opened a store in Carencro (April 5, 2017)
- Super 1 has another store planned in Scott (opening soon)

When you add this to the fact that WD just hasn't done anything west of the Mississippi River in 17 years, and taken services out of this store, it was doomed to fail sooner or later. When I moved to Lafayette in 2000, this store had a Salad Bar, sit down deli, self checkouts and many other amenities that have all been stripped. Rouses would have to sink serious cash into this one to make it work, but I have seen them do more. SVF wouldn't do much more than lipstick on the pig, so to speak.
I wasn't even aware Winn-Dixie stores had self checkouts in 2000. Part of the problem I thought with the 2005 bankruptcy (besides a lot of dead leases) was the fact that a lot of the stores that were open were small, old stores that couldn't hack it in the modern grocery world.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by wnetmacman »

Winn Dixie's main problem during their bankruptcy was one of neglect. They were just too slow to respond to changes by Kroger, Safeway, Albertsons, and most of all, Walmart. Those companies were innovative and experimenting with new stores and technologies, while WD just putted along.

WD had replaced a number of older stores with the Marketplace stores in larger communities, but they didn't finish before they could no longer afford to sustain the transition.

WD's self checkouts were older; they used a system that verified each item by size and shape before you could bag it. The conveyor would pass the items under the eyes, then push down if
you were correct. Meats and produce were difficult to buy under these. They looked like this:
wdsc.jpg
wdsc.jpg (33.21 KiB) Viewed 5244 times
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by storewanderer »

I was also in a Winn Dixie in Orlando that was in the process of liquidation. The neighborhood did not look to be the greatest, but not bad by any means.

The store was a very large "Marketplace" format Winn Dixie. It was actually a very nice store, the largest Winn Dixie I've ever seen. It reminded me of a Smiths or a Lucky Sav-On combo or a Jewel Osco (pretty similar layout too) with large perimeter departments, split middle aisle in center store, etc. The store still had the late 1990's interior but was not in particularly bad condition. When I got there the perimeter was already all shut down. The store only had 6 checkstands but obviously had space for a lot more checkstands.

I went into quite a few Winn Dixies around Miami and Orlando (and one somewhere in between) and the experiences were so mixed. Some of them are just dead store walking. Even in ones that look somewhat healthy there are signs of problems like empty floral departments or seafood cases covered by paper or half covered by paper. I will say every Winn Dixie was clean, reasonably well stocked, and not very well merchandised. It feels like they are not using endcaps and display space as effectively as they could. They are not filling perimeters enough to try to control waste. Actually in their more successful stores they seem to have a pretty good deli program; the $6/lb wings are great (much better than the Albertsons ones; more meat, less bone), the $3.96/lb chicken tenders were also pretty good (tasted better at one store than others) and higher volume stores also had interesting hot items like roast pork, hot plantains in brown sugar sauce, hot hushpuppies, hot rice, etc. Winn Dixie also had Florida Peaches available which were not yet at Publix or Safeway-Florida which were also great (especially since California Peaches haven't rolled out yet). Winn Dixie also had Polar Seltzer in some stores (not in the dire stores) which is my favorite brand of Seltzer and has some great flavors like Orange Vanilla. So for my purpose last week I actually preferred Winn Dixie to Publix or anything else in FL, mainly due to the widespread availability of the peaches and the Polar Seltzer.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by pseudo3d »

wnetmacman wrote:Winn Dixie's main problem during their bankruptcy was one of neglect. They were just too slow to respond to changes by Kroger, Safeway, Albertsons, and most of all, Walmart. Those companies were innovative and experimenting with new stores and technologies, while WD just putted along.
W-D never seemed to capitalize on new growth either. Before their meltdowns, Albertsons and Kmart both pushed new stores in growth areas, while Winn-Dixie did nothing. Even in the early 2000s when Florida was growing fast, W-D never took advantage of growth like Publix did. I feel like they could've done a lot more in 2002, when they closed down the Texas division (which was too spread out and featured generally small stores)...like also pulling out of Atlanta instead of wasting time with the Save Rite format, closing more former Jitney Jungle stores (which by 2005 was obvious that many of those stores were not going to work out), giving up on Thriftway (a Cincinnati chain that they acquired in 1995 but didn't close until 2004), selling leases, and then pushing modern stores closer to its base.

But hindsight is 20/20, and it seems that Winn-Dixie never did recover from bankruptcy, with the BI-LO merger and subsequent creation of Southeastern Grocers doing nothing really great for the chain (I had some hope when Randall Onstead was in charge, but that didn't work out). Despite what McLeod says I'm still not sold that Down Down is working, and the continued closures instead of openings of W-D seem to confirm that.
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