Van Nuys Albertsons now Lucky

[storewanderer]

This store appears to have been built or heavily remodeled by Albertsons.

[krogerclerk]

I've been unsuccessfully trying to find Albertson's and Lucky locations pre-merger. The Alpha Beta on Van Owens became a Ralphs but no longer shows up on the store locator.

According to this article, a customer says the store was originally a Lucky.
http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_12515552

[Alpha8472]

This is good news. Judging by the crowds, Supervalu might actually think about converting more stores to the Lucky brand.

The decor on this store is different than the other Lucky stores that Supervalu has opened. It looks like it had some sort of Albertsons decor previously. The walls are a neutral beige color. I like it better than the stark white of the other Lucky stores. The white clashed with the heavy red color and made the entire store look harsh on the eyes.

The signs are somewhat harsh as well. Black, white, and red seem to clash. The original Lucky featured green and orange for their in-store signs in the 90s.

[krogerclerk]

SuperValu seems to have learned that the Lucky banner is associated with a traditional supermarket that had a good reputation for price and variety and acceptable perishable quality, rather rather than a bare bones discount store as previous conversions to Lucky were.

Given the big 3 of SoCal have a price image problem, it might be prudent for Kroger to either expand Food 4 Less with a better store experience than the typical F4L, or bring back Alpha Beta as a price oriented mainstream supermarket.

[Alpha8472]

The Van Nuys Lucky store has a decor that looks more like the Lucky in San Ysidro: Beige walls with triangle patterns.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ssbn737rm/3202878468/

The Van Nuys store has red triangle patterns. It is better than the stark white of the other Lucky stores.

[luckysaver]

SuperValu seems to have learned that the Lucky banner is associated with a traditional supermarket that had a good reputation for price and variety and acceptable perishable quality, rather rather than a bare bones discount store as previous conversions to Lucky were.

Given the big 3 of SoCal have a price image problem, it might be prudent for Kroger to either expand Food 4 Less with a better store experience than the typical F4L, or bring back Alpha Beta as a price oriented mainstream supermarket.

During the Yucaipa ownership of F4L, there were conventional F4L stores along with Boys, Viva, and ABC Markets. In fact, this division operated Alpha Beta (green-yellow logo) from the time they bought it from American Stores until 1995 when they integrated with Ralphs.

AB at that time was essentially the mainstream version of F4L. Conventional F4L stores and former AB's became regular Ralphs units handled by the phantom "Alpha Beta Company" subsidiary.