Save Mart converting 2 Nevada Stores to Food Maxx

[storewanderer]

http://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/205066 ... t-to-close#

Well, they are finally doing something in this market. It is about time. What is funny is the stores converting. Highway 50 East is a leased store and the Sparks one is a building owned by "ALB NOCAL INVESTOR." Both stores are in very poor condition. Well, all of the Save Marts up here except for the N. Carson City store are in poor or very poor condition.

The other interesting thing with Carson City is Scolaris had a poorly performing store about 4 minutes away and tried to convert it to Sak N Save (kept the pharmacy open) and the converted store lasted less than two years. Since then a new 99 Cent Only (does a great business) opened in part of the former Scolaris and a new build small hispanic market opened which also does a great business. There is also a new Dollar General which does little to no business. I am not sure if this Food Maxx conversion will work out or not (Food Maxx is a much better store than Sak N Save is) but I guess time will tell.

It is interesting this time around they are not keeping the pharmacy operations in the Food Maxx Stores.

I expect 2-3 of the remaining Save Marts to close: South Carson Street in Carson City and N. McCarran Blvd. in Reno. Maybe one of the other Reno stores; they each have one issue or another. West Plumb lane is their best store here and leased and I think another chain could do a lot better, and would be willing to pay more rent, in that location than they do. Keystone is a horrible store with a ton of issues (theft, age, low average sale), and Kietzke is a well located store that does marginal volume even after many competitors nearby closed (Raleys and Safeway).

[storewanderer]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/7636026@N04/

Photos of all three of the Carson City stores from this month.

[storewanderer]

They closed both the stores in Sparks and Carson City in late March. The Sparks Store still has a bank and pharmacy operating inside. The Carson City Store is currently closed entirely.

Both stores are sitting as of today, with the lights all turned on, and all shelves and fixtures in place. There is no activity of any kind. There are no dumpsters in the back of the building or anything.

The Carson City Store that is closed also now has security sitting out front.

The employees in the still open stores have no idea what is going on or when they will start work to convert these stores to Food Maxx. They were just told "summer." Also they cannot transfer to the Food Maxx if they want to keep wage/seniority. Employee hours were cut in still open stores to "make room" for employees from the closed stores but not all were kept on.

I have never heard of an operator close stores like this and let them sit idle pending a remodel? Is this a common practice? When Raleys "downgraded" one of its stores in Reno to Food Source, the store did get closed/emptied as Raleys but the next week they were in there remodeling to Food Source (spent $800,000 to install a polished brown cement floor and a large bakery/hot Mexican food deli/tortilla/seafood area; today only the tortilla area remains the other departments are either closed or walled off). The Food Source reopened promptly and some of the less senior Raleys employees stayed working there.

[pseudo3d]

They closed both the stores in Sparks and Carson City in late March. The Sparks Store still has a bank and pharmacy operating inside. The Carson City Store is currently closed entirely.

Both stores are sitting as of today, with the lights all turned on, and all shelves and fixtures in place. There is no activity of any kind. There are no dumpsters in the back of the building or anything.

The Carson City Store that is closed also now has security sitting out front.

The employees in the still open stores have no idea what is going on or when they will start work to convert these stores to Food Maxx. They were just told "summer." Also they cannot transfer to the Food Maxx if they want to keep wage/seniority. Employee hours were cut in still open stores to "make room" for employees from the closed stores but not all were kept on.

I have never heard of an operator close stores like this and let them sit idle pending a remodel? Is this a common practice? When Raleys "downgraded" one of its stores in Reno to Food Source, the store did get closed/emptied as Raleys but the next week they were in there remodeling to Food Source (spent $800,000 to install a polished brown cement floor and a large bakery/hot Mexican food deli/tortilla/seafood area; today only the tortilla area remains the other departments are either closed or walled off). The Food Source reopened promptly and some of the less senior Raleys employees stayed working there.

For a chain to announce a converting format then leave the stores closed and untouched for a long time sounds pretty dire. Sounds like Save Mart might either start selling or closing stores soon.

[storewanderer]

Sometime in the last two weeks Save Mart started work on the Sparks Store converting to Food Maxx. I stopped by today; they have demolished out seafood, bakery, and deli entirely.

They have also closed the pharmacy. The pharmacy had been operating since the store closed in mid-March but today there was a really generic sign posted that said "the Pharmacy is closed your prescriptions are across the street at CVS."

I don't understand why they announced they were keeping pharmacy, kept it open these months while the store was empty, and now closed it? What in the heck is going on with this company?

The Carson Store closed its pharmacy immediately but rather than selling the prescription files moved them to another Save Mart which is like 4 miles away. It also has a CVS across the street.

Interesting that CVS; it was a former high volume 24 hour Sav-On which was designated a 24 hour store in the early 1990's. It has dissolved into itself also a Longs across the street, a Longs that was a former Rite Aid up the street about 3/4 mile which was the local 24 hour Longs (wasn't terribly high volume but Rite Aid designed it as 24 hour for some reason), and now the Save Mart pharmacy.

[storewanderer]

Now they say the stores will both re-open in mid-November. Pretty aggressive timeline considering how little they've done...

Also interesting they are now saying Food Maxx started as a warehouse store "but evolved into a traditional grocery store" --- huh??? Anyway, it will be interesting to see how these do in markets with Smiths, WinCo, and Wal Mart.

http://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/239967 ... arson-city#

[storewanderer]

http://www.kolotv.com/content/news/Food ... 81001.html

Looks like the Sparks Store is still on for mid November but the Carson City one is now delayed to December...

[storewanderer]

The Grand Opening for the Sparks Store was today. Received a postcard for the store last weekend that says "we're just around the corner" (postcard delivered to an address 6 miles from the store and about three zip codes away) and had offers on it for free case water, free 2lb hot roasted chicken, free 5lb bag potatoes, free reusable bag, and $10 off $50 purchase.

Went to the store around 6:30 PM tonight. Traffic was pretty good. The old Albertsons ceiling is still there but the floor is cement (the old tile marks show everywhere). The store follows the older F4L/Food Maxx layout (enter to a wall of values, then produce, then a very small bakery, then two sets of horizontal aisles split down the middle and all pallet/rack shelving). They demolished out pharmacy, bakery, deli, and all of the alcove/lower ceiling areas Albertsons had (liquor, seafood, bakery, deli). They also build new restrooms in the old video rental area. The sales floor is the old Albertsons sales floor shape minus the demolished departments; the back wall is still in the same spot as before. They relocated frozen foods to a space near the front of the store but other than that dairy, meat, and refrigerated produce are in the same spots as before (classic old F4L style layout).

The store is much better than Save Mart; the mix is pretty much the same, items look fresher, and pricing is quite a bit lower. Produce and meat departments are so much better than Save Mart since the items are stocked well, fresh, and mostly well priced. I don't care for the layout of the store but it isn't that difficult to figure out because there really aren't that many aisles. I expect this store will do okay but not great. We will see what happens.

Of course on the first day there will be problems:

The store had signs posted stating WIC was not working.

The store was out of stock on the 5lb potatoes which everyone seemed to have a coupon for, but was substituting 10 pound bags for free.

The store had no reusable bags.

The store was out of stock on the roast chickens that everyone seemed to have a coupon for and the hot case was shut off so it did not look like more were coming out. Roast chicken is the only prepared food offering they have.

Traffic was noticeably lower at the nearby Sak N Save (easily less than half of its usual traffic at that time) and also somewhat lower at the nearby Smiths (probably about 2/3 of its usual traffic at that time). We will see how this shakes out.