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Romr123 wrote: ↑September 19th, 2023, 5:11 am
Yeah, they could have put a band of stores out west of 355 and likely done pretty well as a Jewel alternative.
...I don't think those suburbs would work for Hy-Vee west of 355 in Chicago.
It seems like Hy-Vee likes markets that have Wal Mart and 1-2 other conventional operators present. That seems to be the type of market they can roll into and just sort of steamroll the competition with their larger store and wider product mix. Chicago has way too much other competition.
To clarify, the area west of 355/53 and east of Illinois 25 is smack in the middle of established suburbia. Hy-Vee wouldn't do well there. I was referring to west of Illinois 25 and/or Illinois 47.
Had Hy-Vee jumped when Safeway sold/closed Dominick's they would have had a chance, as many of the true competitors acquired former Dominick's stores. Had they acquired some or all of Dominick's, they could have restored the locations to their former glory and been a decent competitor for Jewel, as was Dominick's prior to Safeway getting its mitts on it. Instead, several other operators did that for them.
I think subtract Mariano's from the equation and also subtract Woodman's and Meijer, and there could be space for Hy-Vee in some of the far northwest/south suburbs of Chicago. The Dominicks Stores were too small for Hy-Vee to do what it would need to do to "wow" the customers. Part of the trick of Hy-Vee is to have the biggest store in town with the largest departments and widest product mix. They wouldn't have been able to do that with the Dominicks.