Safeway Opening New Monterey Store as “Community Market”

[brandonmetal]

They have the “new” store located in the old Nob Hill Foods location on 900 Lighthouse Ave listed as “Andronico’s” and opening on 12/5. Haven’t seen pictures of the remodel yet but assuming it’ll be closer in concept to the old Berkeley and San Anselmo Andronio’s locations. I believe this is the first new store with the concept that wasn’t bought as either Andonico’s or G&G.

[pseudo3d]

They have the “new” store located in the old Nob Hill Foods location on 900 Lighthouse Ave listed as “Andronico’s” and opening on 12/5. Haven’t seen pictures of the remodel yet but assuming it’ll be closer in concept to the old Berkeley and San Anselmo Andronio’s locations. I believe this is the first new store with the concept that wasn’t bought as either Andonico’s or G&G.

Did they rename the G&G stores to Safeway Community Market? I don't think they did.

[storewanderer]

They have the “new” store located in the old Nob Hill Foods location on 900 Lighthouse Ave listed as “Andronico’s” and opening on 12/5. Haven’t seen pictures of the remodel yet but assuming it’ll be closer in concept to the old Berkeley and San Anselmo Andronio’s locations. I believe this is the first new store with the concept that wasn’t bought as either Andonico’s or G&G.

Did they rename the G&G stores to Safeway Community Market? I don't think they did.

The G&G Stores were rebannered and merchandised as standard Safeway Stores. They are not Community Market format.

I also heard they are looking to open another new store in San Francisco with the Community Market format.

[Alpha8472]

Andronico's was a local small family owned chain. They opened up a store in downtown Wanut Creek, California in the early 2000s and competed with Whole Foods, Safeway, and Albertsons. It only lasted a few years. The prices were absurdly high and the quality was not that great. People even commented that they preferred Whole Foods and Safeway for low prices. In fact, as hated at Albertsons was in Northern California, the Albertsons outlived Andronico's. Albertsons closed later on.

The Andronico's name is not that liked in the area. They sold items such as Cheerios for absurd prices. It was worse than Whole Foods for price gouging. I never shopped there.

Safeway wants a chain that competes with Whole Foods for gourmet and expensive foods. This is an excuse to sell groceries for a very high price. A Safeway store could never get away with such terrible pricing. I do not know how well it will work out for Safeway.

[rwsandiego]

Andronico's was a local small family owned chain. They opened up a store in downtown Wanut Creek, California in the early 2000s and competed with Whole Foods, Safeway, and Albertsons. It only lasted a few years. The prices were absurdly high and the quality was not that great. People even commented that they preferred Whole Foods and Safeway for low prices. In fact, as hated at Albertsons was in Northern California, the Albertsons outlived Andronico's. Albertsons closed later on.

The Andronico's name is not that liked in the area. They sold items such as Cheerios for absurd prices. It was worse than Whole Foods for price gouging. I never shopped there.

Safeway wants a chain that competes with Whole Foods for gourmet and expensive foods. This is an excuse to sell groceries for a very high price. A Safeway store could never get away with such terrible pricing. I do not know how well it will work out for Safeway.

When visiting San Francisco in October I stopped into the Irving Street Andronico's. The prices on standard grocery items seemed to be in line with those at Safeway in San Francisco. The prices of non-standard specialty items seemed to be on-par with Whole Foods. Of course, this is post-acquisition.

[storewanderer]

Andronico's was a local small family owned chain. They opened up a store in downtown Wanut Creek, California in the early 2000s and competed with Whole Foods, Safeway, and Albertsons. It only lasted a few years. The prices were absurdly high and the quality was not that great. People even commented that they preferred Whole Foods and Safeway for low prices. In fact, as hated at Albertsons was in Northern California, the Albertsons outlived Andronico's. Albertsons closed later on.

The Andronico's name is not that liked in the area. They sold items such as Cheerios for absurd prices. It was worse than Whole Foods for price gouging. I never shopped there.

Safeway wants a chain that competes with Whole Foods for gourmet and expensive foods. This is an excuse to sell groceries for a very high price. A Safeway store could never get away with such terrible pricing. I do not know how well it will work out for Safeway.

When visiting San Francisco in October I stopped into the Irving Street Andronico's. The prices on standard grocery items seemed to be in line with those at Safeway in San Francisco. The prices of non-standard specialty items seemed to be on-par with Whole Foods. Of course, this is post-acquisition.

NorCal Safeway seems to put its stores onto one price scale for the most part. The Hawaii stores are on a different scale but other than that all stores seem to have the same pricing. I have seen a few odd differences on an item here or there and liquor varies, but 99% of the non-liquor items are the same price in every NorCal Division Store except Hawaii. So the same pricing in high labor cost unionized San Francisco as they have in much more competitive optional union/way lower wage Reno. A stupid strategy (from my point of view in Reno), but probably easy to apply. They do sometimes tinker with the ad prices a bit by area.

I don't know how the Andronico's thing will play out long term for them but smaller stores don't need to do nearly the volume of large stores. Given real estate costs in the bay area, and labor costs, property taxes, etc. it would be much better to try to push business to smaller stores.