Well, they did nearly double the size of the Westwood Village store to 94,000 sq. ft. last year. They gutted the entire store. The most extensive supermarket remodel I've ever seen. I love how the highest ceiling is black and they drop it partially throughout the store (including lighting). As for general merchandise, they have little so even if Ralphs had more larger stores, they wouldn't be like a Fry's. In Westwood, additional service departments (Murray's Cheese, Boar's Head deli, juice bar, sit down sushi bar, guest services/money transfer - among others), a bar, cork & tap, an extensive hot foods selection (Chef-on-the-go), Live Naturally non-foods section, expanding service meat, additional produce, tripling of frozen foods, quintupling of liquor/wine were the biggest additions. Center aisles actually carry fewer items than most Ralphs (which is disappointing to me...poor selection of snacks, cereal, canned goods - to just name three). This is an affluent area but also across the street from UCLA so they're catering to both. There are plenty of photos on Yelp including many of mine... https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/ralphs- ... ?start=120veteran+ wrote:CalItalian wrote:Ralphs has had a number of large locations since the 1980's. They are the converted Zody's locations such as Ralphs in Redondo Beach or Food 4 Less in Hollywood. They were first The Giant, a chain Ralphs ran separately at first (with Rosanne Barr as spokesperson) before merging them into the Ralphs chain. They are/were 70,000 to 100,000 sq. ft. http://articles.latimes.com/1988-02-05/ ... phs-storesstorewanderer wrote:
Ralphs has a number of locations that are doing less volume than the surrounding Vons or Albertsons. Many of these are the stores that have been closed. Most are former Hughes or Alpha Beta locations, received little to no capex by Ralphs, and were not in great shape. Most were in the 40,000 square foot range and did not have pharmacy.
Ralphs has barely more than 5 or so gas stations because they have had a difficult time securing land to add fuel stations. There is not room in the parking lots. Most of the Ralphs gas stations I know of (Woodland Hills, San Diego) are acquisitions of pre-existing gas stations across the road from the main store.
As far as building large marketplace stores, Ralphs was the second division to have Marketplace Stores (Frys was first) but they were a smaller model than the current model. They were 65,000 or so square foot stores with 2-3 aisles of general merchandise supplied by Fred Meyer (kitchen goods, sporting goods, and some random hardware and such). This was the store model Ralphs went into new markets with (Palm Springs, NorCal, and various new stores around SoCal) and the format was ultimately shelved. There are a good number of these stores still open scattered around SoCal and most do have the "itchen Place" department now but the other non-food is long gone. It has been proven time and time again in SoCal that you cannot get a good ROI if you build stores too big. This is why Smiths failed in SoCal in the 90's; the stores were too big to cover overhead. Lucky built a lot of large Lucky/Sav-On stores in the late 1990's and not many of those are still open at this point. So I don't think the current Marketplace format is the right fit for SoCal. Land is costly and somewhat difficult to acquire and many other retailers want surrounding space. This is also why you see WinCo shifting expansion from California to lower cost places like Texas and Oklahoma.
I think outside Los Angeles Ralphs has missed a lot of opportunities for one reason or another. In NorCal it was poor locations and poor pricing. I don't know what went wrong in some of these other places.
There are a number of Ralphs former Hughes Market locations that do incredible business. Beverly Hills, Studio City, West Los Angeles, Malibu, Pacific Palisades, Rancho Palos Verdes, just to name a few. Some, such as Beverly Hills and West Los Angeles do not have a pharmacy. Beverly Hills is one of the smallest Ralphs there is.
Yes Cal, you are correct.
But sadly, I think the trend in California has been moving away from those large footprints.
I am a huge fan of the super big palace size stores and wish they would come back!
Sometime this summer, Ralphs in Redondo Beach is going to go through a remodel (It has polished concrete floors which I was told will be covered with tile, for one). It was a former Zody's. It's almost 80,000 sq. ft. Will be interesting to see what they do with it. Doesn't have a Murray's Cheese but recently added a Starbucks. Has a lot of under utilized space which works great for promotional displays which they always have up. General merchandise is minimal but I love this location for the center aisle selection.
I recently went into the Ralphs Fresh Fare, former Hughes Market, in Rancho Palos Verdes. This is the oddest Ralphs since the checkout is smack in the middle of the store. Even after the remodel, they didn't make good use of the space. It's a fairly large store but the center aisles/produce/liquor/meat still seams cramped while there is lots of open space on the other side of the checkstands where the pharmacy, bakery, deli and hot foods are.
