Bristol Farms "Newfound Market"

[brendenmoney]

This store hasn't even been open for two years, leaving me with doubts that Bristol Farms has intentions to close the store, simply because there is no way they have completed their lease yet. It is understandable if maybe they are trying to convert the store to another new concept, but they would simply lose more money by trying to get out of their lease to close the store.

This store is not much different in concept from the new Mercado Gonzales Northgate that just opened in Costa Mesa, with the store mostly focusing on service departments, food vendors, and restaurants with a smaller center store section. Perhaps they are seeing the success with Northgate's new store, and want to pivot the store to their own ethnic concept to replicate that success.

[ClownLoach]

This store hasn't even been open for two years, leaving me with doubts that Bristol Farms has intentions to close the store, simply because there is no way they have completed their lease yet. It is understandable if maybe they are trying to convert the store to another new concept, but they would simply lose more money by trying to get out of their lease to close the store.

This store is not much different in concept from the new Mercado Gonzales Northgate that just opened in Costa Mesa, with the store mostly focusing on service departments, food vendors, and restaurants with a smaller center store section. Perhaps they are seeing the success with Northgate's new store, and want to pivot the store to their own ethnic concept to replicate that success.

I think it would make a lot of sense to pivot both Irvine and Yorba Linda to their faster growing Lazy Acres concept which can easily be done thanks to their new similar floorplan with just some repainting, restocking and a sign change. No major remodel expenses are needed and Lazy has proven to grow through word of mouth, succeeding in areas WFM failed like Encinitas. They had a similar underperforming Bristol that was converted to what was at the time a completely unknown Lazy Acres brand in Long Beach (it was only the 2nd location, the first being in Santa Barbara) and that was a tremendous success that is now one of the busiest stores in the neighborhood which has seen Ralphs and Food4Less depart along with a Pavilions change to Vons since the banner change. The sales in the Irvine store skew more towards prepared foods and healthy items than luxury items, so it would make sense to double down on that part of the business especially going up against a poorly sited and struggling Whole Foods across the freeway that is approaching the end of its first lease term and likely facing a big rent increase for the next term. The area has become over stored with ethnic markets with 3 H-Mart, two 99 Ranch and two Zion. The Zion nearby on University is closing this month and I expect the original and smaller Irvine H-Mart to close at the end of its lease due to bad location and parking (seems they opened the new stores nearby in advance to move the customers over).

And the criticism of the center is very outdated and invalidated by the success of many businesses there. Target has ascended to the #1 volume location in the OC market in just the last 5 years - quite an accomplishment considering OC is one of the best markets in the country for Target and the south end of Irvine isn't growing anymore as it's been fully built out for some time with only one smaller apartment complex still planned to go up in a few years. Apple is the same #1 position in their market, and the "big" restaurants have expanded in recent years to accommodate their large customer bases including Cheesecake Factory, Javier's, Wood Ranch and others. The theater complex has bounced back as many other nearby megaplexes have faltered or closed including a nearby Regal 22 in Lake Forest. Even Nordstrom has stayed which is unexpected as the other department store site which was the newest Macy's in OC was leveled and redeveloped. The offices are also doing well considering that they have lost some big leases, but at the same time businesses are recognizing that they are more likely to be successful attracting employees on site with better quality facilities and thus are trading up to new offices in the Irvine Spectrum area at the expense of other communities. More new businesses are going in than going out.

But the real key to all of the recent success is the dramatic expansion of parking which is undoubtedly the most available parking of any major OC center with 5 very large and sparkling clean parking garages during peak evening hours as all of the mega office towers across the street open their huge garages for free. In addition they reworked every surface lot to establish better entrance/exit points and eliminated the congestion on the surrounding perimeter road that used to come from cars constantly making turns on and off to hunt for spaces in a single row. As I said before there was a time when they had to quickly pave additional land and established Disneyland style parking lot trams due to the demand, but that was in the mid 1990's and again there are very few people in this rapidly diversifying and changing city that even remember those days.

[storewanderer]

We will see what happens. Maybe this is the wrong store for the location also. If this is a heavy traffic area for Target, that shows there is a mass of nearby customers who are to some extent price conscious. I'm not sure Lazy Acres is the right fit either but it is probably cheaper to operate that format if they are stuck in a lease.

That Lazy Acres in Long Beach does some $$$$$ level transactions. Not necessarily a lot of items but some real high cost stuff (liquor mostly) going through. I also wonder if that is a problem with Irvine Bristol Farms Newfound Market- ticket sizes are smaller than the chain is typically used to which is a problem. This format that pushes prepared foods so much- does the customer not know how to function in this type of store and just goes for prepared foods then leaves and shops elsewhere on the way home?

[ClownLoach]

If this is a heavy traffic area for Target, that shows there is a mass of nearby customers who are to some extent price conscious.

That Lazy Acres in Long Beach does some $$$$$ level transactions. Not necessarily a lot of items but some real high cost stuff (liquor mostly) going through.

I was born and raised in Long Beach and have known that Bristol Farms since I got my first retail job a few doors over when that shopping center was rebuilt in the 90s. There is no more price conscious area than that neighborhood. It never was close to the level of volume that the Irvine Bristol Farms does already until the banner change.

There is a serious lack of grocery stores in the south tip of Irvine area which is why Target does well. There is one slow, hard to get to Albertsons. There is Gelsons. There is Target. Walmart is gone. Whole Foods is also difficult to access and has parking problems. I would argue that this location is superior to all listed above except the Gelsons.

I have looked everywhere to substantiate this rumor. One person posted to a social media service saying that the pizza restaurant server said they're closing. Bristol Farms sent out a survey late last summer about the restaurant and basically asked if they should change concepts. Nothing about the store itself. All of the usual feedback of a closing store is missing. No cut backs in perimeter or efforts to alleviate losses if they were occurring, unlike a known problem store for the chain in Yorba Linda that has slashed ordering and stocking to the bone to reduce shrink. And no lease is going to dictate how many steaks get cut or heads of romaine are on the wet rack, so no reason to think that a big-business friendly landlord is pulling strings. Plus the landlord more desperately needs this store to be successful than maybe the chain itself as they want to continue to pursue competition for lease space which is currently at a premium in the center. In fact if it was failing I would not be surprised if IMC took over directly just like they did at Edward's Fashion Island, the Hyatt Irvine, and the Fashion Island Four Seasons Hotel. They are very willing and capable of taking over entire businesses and operating until they can flip them to a new operator.

I think this is another "Shohei Othani is on a plane to Toronto" situation. It's known the restaurant is changing. Restaurant servers now say that the restaurant is closing in late January. Social media buffoons mutilate the message and say the whole damned store is closing after it was just made into the Instacart showcase which was a big 3rd party investment. The store is highly staffed and a WARN notice would be required, but has not been filed. Their history is to announce closures many months in advance to try to educate the customer to shop alternative locations. I do not believe this store is closing and will not believe it is until I see official word from Bristol. I sent them a DM and am waiting to hear back.

[storewanderer]

If this is a heavy traffic area for Target, that shows there is a mass of nearby customers who are to some extent price conscious.

That Lazy Acres in Long Beach does some $$$$$ level transactions. Not necessarily a lot of items but some real high cost stuff (liquor mostly) going through.

I was born and raised in Long Beach and have known that Bristol Farms since I got my first retail job a few doors over when that shopping center was rebuilt in the 90s. There is no more price conscious area than that neighborhood. It never was close to the level of volume that the Irvine Bristol Farms does already until the banner change.

There is a serious lack of grocery stores in the south tip of Irvine area which is why Target does well. There is one slow, hard to get to Albertsons. There is Gelsons. There is Target. Walmart is gone. Whole Foods is also difficult to access and has parking problems. I would argue that this location is superior to all listed above except the Gelsons.

I have looked everywhere to substantiate this rumor. One person posted to a social media service saying that the pizza restaurant server said they're closing. Bristol Farms sent out a survey late last summer about the restaurant and basically asked if they should change concepts. Nothing about the store itself. All of the usual feedback of a closing store is missing.

I think this is another "Shohei Othani is on a plane to Toronto" situation. It's known the restaurant is changing. Restaurant servers now say that the restaurant is closing in late January. Social media buffoons mutilate the message and say the whole damned store is closing after it was just made into the Instacart showcase which was a big 3rd party investment. I do not believe this store is closing.

I was a little confused too but my last trip into that Long Beach Lazy Acres it had low customer count but the two customers ahead of me in line both had $400+ transactions due to liquor purchases and it wasn't much quantity they were buying. Didn't have a whole lot of traffic... never seems to have a whole lot of traffic...

I've been searching around Social Media also and am not seeing much on this store in general; a few reviews a week at the most flow through Google/Yelp mostly positive. But at the same time there isn't much in general on social media for this store which also is what happens with a low traffic store.

[ClownLoach]

If this is a heavy traffic area for Target, that shows there is a mass of nearby customers who are to some extent price conscious.

That Lazy Acres in Long Beach does some $$$$$ level transactions. Not necessarily a lot of items but some real high cost stuff (liquor mostly) going through.

I was born and raised in Long Beach and have known that Bristol Farms since I got my first retail job a few doors over when that shopping center was rebuilt in the 90s. There is no more price conscious area than that neighborhood. It never was close to the level of volume that the Irvine Bristol Farms does already until the banner change.

There is a serious lack of grocery stores in the south tip of Irvine area which is why Target does well. There is one slow, hard to get to Albertsons. There is Gelsons. There is Target. Walmart is gone. Whole Foods is also difficult to access and has parking problems. I would argue that this location is superior to all listed above except the Gelsons.

I have looked everywhere to substantiate this rumor. One person posted to a social media service saying that the pizza restaurant server said they're closing. Bristol Farms sent out a survey late last summer about the restaurant and basically asked if they should change concepts. Nothing about the store itself. All of the usual feedback of a closing store is missing.

I think this is another "Shohei Othani is on a plane to Toronto" situation. It's known the restaurant is changing. Restaurant servers now say that the restaurant is closing in late January. Social media buffoons mutilate the message and say the whole damned store is closing after it was just made into the Instacart showcase which was a big 3rd party investment. I do not believe this store is closing.

I was a little confused too but my last trip into that Long Beach Lazy Acres it had low customer count but the two customers ahead of me in line both had $400+ transactions due to liquor purchases and it wasn't much quantity they were buying. Didn't have a whole lot of traffic... never seems to have a whole lot of traffic...

I've been searching around Social Media also and am not seeing much on this store in general; a few reviews a week at the most flow through Google/Yelp mostly positive. But at the same time there isn't much in general on social media for this store which also is what happens with a low traffic store.

What I look at are Google searches that show traffic, and every time I've searched it is both a high traffic store and exceeding it's historical averages. For its first six months it was slow until they got the dedicated parking lot right, and then it took off.

Retail in Irvine is odd, social media like Yelp has low review counts for everyone. But Instagram tags are huge. It's like Irvine is a place to be seen, not to write about. Reviews therefore tend to skew extremely negative and are famous for skewering cut backs and scaled back operations. I don't see that here.

The other piece missing that is important to judge the validity here is an echo chamber. Typically on social media when something like this gets out and it is true then you see the echo chamber form with personal stories and anecdotes like "yes I work there and it is true, we are closing and it sucks everyone was crying at the meeting when corporate came to tell us etc." There is absolutely none of that out there which is unheard of these days.

Way too many red flags here. No WARN act, conflict around restaurant status that has been known for a while, all signs have been indicative of improving performance, and an operator who is more than capable of scaling back perimeter and closing service counters to maintain profitability of low volume stores. Plus it is a private company that isn't indebted or beholden to Wall Street and makes lavish and very expensive investments all the time, and they've gone on record as saying this is a learning lab or a prototype test store they will keep adjusting and changing then roll out the best elements to the rest of the chain (which has already happened with the newly remodeled again Lazy Acres in Long Beach). They do not need the kind of volume a heavily indebted, public corporation needs to stay open, and they've got a landlord who is very friendly and financially favorable in leasing to big box retailers (despite being hostile to smaller businesses).

One last thought, it was a Sports Authority and Food Court reconfigured to become the new Bristol Farms. I personally don't think the restaurant and Bristol food court half do as well as the grocery store. They could easily put the wall back up and give all that mall food court space back to IMC although the store would probably require some reconfiguring of facilities to accommodate that. That could be another possibility here if there really is a problem, which I am still doubting.

[ClownLoach]

This closure was announced today and there is a pay walled article in the Orange County Register about it. They blame an overall lack of grocery-specific business at the location. I would have to guess that the food court and prepared foods were the most productive part which probably are lower margins due to labor and shrink. It clearly had plenty of foot traffic but not the right grocery specific business in center store, meats etc. They also state that many positive changes and new product lines stemming from tests at Irvine will go chain wide.

The article also specifically goes out of its way to state Yorba Linda is not closing (maybe someone read the speculation we raised here?). I highly doubt Yorba Linda will survive much longer as they've done more to mothball service counters, remove salad bars, and otherwise scale down the operation than was ever done in Irvine. Entire areas of produce are empty floor space after removal of several islands. No other Bristol Farms looks as slow as Yorba Linda, Irvine had far more foot traffic.

[storewanderer]

This closure was announced today and there is a pay walled article in the Orange County Register about it. They blame an overall lack of grocery-specific business at the location. I would have to guess that the food court and prepared foods were the most productive part which probably are lower margins due to labor and shrink. It clearly had plenty of foot traffic but not the right grocery specific business in center store, meats etc. They also state that many positive changes and new product lines stemming from tests at Irvine will go chain wide.

The article also specifically goes out of its way to state Yorba Linda is not closing (maybe someone read the speculation we raised here?). I highly doubt Yorba Linda will survive much longer as they've done more to mothball service counters, remove salad bars, and otherwise scale down the operation than was ever done in Irvine. Entire areas of produce are empty floor space after removal of several islands. No other Bristol Farms looks as slow as Yorba Linda, Irvine had far more foot traffic.

I am guessing something/someone else is lined up to take the space.

It will be interesting to see how many employees the WARN listing has.

[ClownLoach]

This closure was announced today and there is a pay walled article in the Orange County Register about it. They blame an overall lack of grocery-specific business at the location. I would have to guess that the food court and prepared foods were the most productive part which probably are lower margins due to labor and shrink. It clearly had plenty of foot traffic but not the right grocery specific business in center store, meats etc. They also state that many positive changes and new product lines stemming from tests at Irvine will go chain wide.

The article also specifically goes out of its way to state Yorba Linda is not closing (maybe someone read the speculation we raised here?). I highly doubt Yorba Linda will survive much longer as they've done more to mothball service counters, remove salad bars, and otherwise scale down the operation than was ever done in Irvine. Entire areas of produce are empty floor space after removal of several islands. No other Bristol Farms looks as slow as Yorba Linda, Irvine had far more foot traffic.

I am guessing something/someone else is lined up to take the space.

It will be interesting to see how many employees the WARN listing has.

Still has not been posted on the state website, but the state seems to be behind as I see many businesses that show filing received in November and December but they weren't on the report I downloaded last week. They also had filed for a bunch of separate business licenses, each section of the food hall had its own. The pizza restaurant also had its own. As a result there were health inspection certificates at nearly every counter in the store. If they're going to play that game then theoretically they can get around WARN by laying off 20 here and 30 there and 40 elsewhere etc. keeping it below the 50 person requirement. Many businesses just file for everything even single person layoffs to ensure compliance, but retailers are the notable exception and seem to try to avoid these filings possibly to limit the notice given to their competition and thus limit poaching before they can offer transfers etc. to their best workers they don't want to lose.

I agree there must be something lined up for the space. The Whole Foods across the freeway seems to have all the same problems or worse, it's basically just a lunchtime cafeteria for the office workers in the area. I strongly suspect it will close at the end of its first 10 years lease term. It is very odd that they have built over 10,000 housing units in those few blocks making one of the highest density population neighborhoods in all of California but they can't keep a single grocery store open. At some point the dominant landlord in the area has to figure this problem out and start giving better rents for grocery stores.

[HCal]

Is a WARN notice necessary if all workers are being offered jobs at other local stores?