Vons closing Vista store

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retailfanmitchell019
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Vons closing Vista store

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

After 45 years in business, the Vons in Vista (closest Vons to my house) is closing on June 23.
I'm a little surprised that my Vons is closing. From what I am hearing from people on NextDoor, this store could be closing due to plumbing issues. I suspect it could be the lease expiring and Vons deciding not to renew it. It seems like Vons doesn't have the best track record in far north San Diego County (towns north of Carlsbad, where Albertsons is clearly the stronger banner). In 2008, they closed a store on Oceanside Blvd (former Safeway right by I-5). They bought back a store from Haggen in 2016 in San Marcos, only for them to close it in 2020. Vons did remodel their Oceanside store @ College Blvd/Highway 76 recently (although I expect the sign to change to Albertsons within a couple years)
I would stop at this Vons on the way home from work to get something out of convenience.
A bit sad that this is happening, but I guess all good things eventually come to an end. 45 years is quite a good run.

RIP Vista Vons
1977-2022
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Re: Vons closing Vista store

Post by storewanderer »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: June 20th, 2022, 6:36 pm After 45 years in business, the Vons in Vista (closest Vons to my house) is closing on June 23.
I'm a little surprised that my Vons is closing. From what I am hearing from people on NextDoor, this store could be closing due to plumbing issues. I suspect it could be the lease expiring and Vons deciding not to renew it. It seems like Vons doesn't have the best track record in far north San Diego County (towns north of Carlsbad, where Albertsons is clearly the stronger banner). In 2008, they closed a store on Oceanside Blvd (former Safeway right by I-5). They bought back a store from Haggen in 2016 in San Marcos, only for them to close it in 2020. Vons did remodel their Oceanside store @ College Blvd/Highway 76 recently (although I expect the sign to change to Albertsons within a couple years)
I would stop at this Vons on the way home from work to get something out of convenience.
A bit sad that this is happening, but I guess all good things eventually come to an end. 45 years is quite a good run.

RIP Vista Vons
1977-2022
These Vons of this size/era are some of my least favorite stores. The lifestyle remodel probably bought them an extra 15 years of operation. Now instead of try to get the store out of the dark dingy run down depressing lifestyle atmosphere they just shut the thing down instead. The irony is if they could get even moderate volume through this type of a store, it would be very profitable. And Vons it seems has a few too many stores like this- outdated, undersized, dingy lifestyle interiors. Los Alamitos fits that bill too, except I think it is a fairly busy little dive of a store.

Looks like it will make a great Grocery Outlet location. The irony is they'd remodel the space, put in a new ceiling, etc. Not saying I've heard they will take the location but it would be a great fit.

They have been wise to not convert many SoCal Stores to the Vons banner. That Cliff Store in Santa Barbara that closed as Haggen then reopened as Vons is the only example I can think of. Though all it will take is one management team who likes Vons to go ahead and re-banner everything to Vons, doing so would be a huge mistake.
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Re: Vons closing Vista store

Post by CalItalian »

storewanderer wrote: June 20th, 2022, 8:42 pm
retailfanmitchell019 wrote: June 20th, 2022, 6:36 pm After 45 years in business, the Vons in Vista (closest Vons to my house) is closing on June 23.
I'm a little surprised that my Vons is closing. From what I am hearing from people on NextDoor, this store could be closing due to plumbing issues. I suspect it could be the lease expiring and Vons deciding not to renew it. It seems like Vons doesn't have the best track record in far north San Diego County (towns north of Carlsbad, where Albertsons is clearly the stronger banner). In 2008, they closed a store on Oceanside Blvd (former Safeway right by I-5). They bought back a store from Haggen in 2016 in San Marcos, only for them to close it in 2020. Vons did remodel their Oceanside store @ College Blvd/Highway 76 recently (although I expect the sign to change to Albertsons within a couple years)
I would stop at this Vons on the way home from work to get something out of convenience.
A bit sad that this is happening, but I guess all good things eventually come to an end. 45 years is quite a good run.

RIP Vista Vons
1977-2022
These Vons of this size/era are some of my least favorite stores. The lifestyle remodel probably bought them an extra 15 years of operation. Now instead of try to get the store out of the dark dingy run down depressing lifestyle atmosphere they just shut the thing down instead. The irony is if they could get even moderate volume through this type of a store, it would be very profitable. And Vons it seems has a few too many stores like this- outdated, undersized, dingy lifestyle interiors. Los Alamitos fits that bill too, except I think it is a fairly busy little dive of a store.

Looks like it will make a great Grocery Outlet location. The irony is they'd remodel the space, put in a new ceiling, etc. Not saying I've heard they will take the location but it would be a great fit.

They have been wise to not convert many SoCal Stores to the Vons banner. That Cliff Store in Santa Barbara that closed as Haggen then reopened as Vons is the only example I can think of. Though all it will take is one management team who likes Vons to go ahead and re-banner everything to Vons, doing so would be a huge mistake.
Highland Village San Diego is a Vons conversion (former Albertsons-Haggen).

North County San Diego Valley Center store that is soon to start construction will be a Vons.
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Re: Vons closing Vista store

Post by storewanderer »

CalItalian wrote: June 20th, 2022, 10:41 pm
Highland Village San Diego is a Vons conversion (former Albertsons-Haggen).

North County San Diego Valley Center store that is soon to start construction will be a Vons.
That all took place when there were heavy Vons/Safeway focused people running the division. If they were still around I suspect the Albertsons banner would be nearly gone from SoCal (maybe hanging around a few places like Bakersfield and Paso Robles).

I guess at this point it is all largely symbolic anyway. The stores are basically the same. At least Albertsons doesn't force the club card though.
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Re: Vons closing Vista store

Post by HCal »

storewanderer wrote: June 20th, 2022, 8:42 pm
They have been wise to not convert many SoCal Stores to the Vons banner. That Cliff Store in Santa Barbara that closed as Haggen then reopened as Vons is the only example I can think of. Though all it will take is one management team who likes Vons to go ahead and re-banner everything to Vons, doing so would be a huge mistake.
After the Lucky fiasco, I think Albertsons learned their lesson on mass rebranding of stores. I doubt they will try that again in California. Both Albertsons and Vons/Pavilions are big enough to remain viable on their own, and strangely I don't think most people have realized they are the same company, despite joint weekly ads and very similar stores.
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Re: Vons closing Vista store

Post by storewanderer »

HCal wrote: June 21st, 2022, 9:12 am
storewanderer wrote: June 20th, 2022, 8:42 pm
They have been wise to not convert many SoCal Stores to the Vons banner. That Cliff Store in Santa Barbara that closed as Haggen then reopened as Vons is the only example I can think of. Though all it will take is one management team who likes Vons to go ahead and re-banner everything to Vons, doing so would be a huge mistake.
After the Lucky fiasco, I think Albertsons learned their lesson on mass rebranding of stores. I doubt they will try that again in California. Both Albertsons and Vons/Pavilions are big enough to remain viable on their own, and strangely I don't think most people have realized they are the same company, despite joint weekly ads and very similar stores.
You'd think, but they did it in Denver/Colorado Springs. And they are doing it quite heavily up in WA though it is happening one store at a time.

I also think the Albertsons banner in SoCal in particular, for whatever reason, still has some strength. I can't believe it has any strength left after how Supervalu ran it into the ground, but it seems to have some strength. The SoCal Albertsons even at their worst were in remarkably better condition and pulling in better customer counts than the OR/WA Supervalu Albertsons (which were quite dire, especially in WA). But CO Albertsons under LLC (the few stores left) were actually pretty good, much better than Safeway in that market, so the name change there was not the right move.
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Re: Vons closing Vista store

Post by HCal »

storewanderer wrote: June 21st, 2022, 7:43 pm
I also think the Albertsons banner in SoCal in particular, for whatever reason, still has some strength. I can't believe it has any strength left after how Supervalu ran it into the ground, but it seems to have some strength. The SoCal Albertsons even at their worst were in remarkably better condition and pulling in better customer counts than the OR/WA Supervalu Albertsons (which were quite dire, especially in WA). But CO Albertsons under LLC (the few stores left) were actually pretty good, much better than Safeway in that market, so the name change there was not the right move.
How do you figure it has some strength? I believe Albertsons sales per store are lower than both Vons and Ralphs. Customer counts may be higher than in other divisions, but that's probably because customer counts and sales are higher in California in general, due to population density and household income. From what I can tell, people shop at Albertsons because it's convenient to their homes, not because of any affinity to the brand. Perhaps the brand still has some strength, but I would say it's minimal. It's probably just barely strong enough to justify the expense of keeping the banner going rather than changing it to Vons (which isn't a particularly strong brand either, but that's a different story).
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Re: Vons closing Vista store

Post by storewanderer »

HCal wrote: June 21st, 2022, 8:10 pm

How do you figure it has some strength? I believe Albertsons sales per store are lower than both Vons and Ralphs. Customer counts may be higher than in other divisions, but that's probably because customer counts and sales are higher in California in general, due to population density and household income. From what I can tell, people shop at Albertsons because it's convenient to their homes, not because of any affinity to the brand. Perhaps the brand still has some strength, but I would say it's minimal. It's probably just barely strong enough to justify the expense of keeping the banner going rather than changing it to Vons (which isn't a particularly strong brand either, but that's a different story).
I'm not sure why. It seems like the brand works in some lower middle class areas where the other brands do not work. Why it is working, I am not sure. Their prices and perimeters historically have not been very good, but their product mix both in center store grocery and also non food categories like drug has tended to be wider and maybe that is how they have made it work. There are some stores under the Albertsons banner that pull pretty good volumes but they tend to be in the less densely populated areas. Whereas the high volume stores of Vons and Ralphs tend to be in the more densely populated areas and Ralphs in particular seems to struggle in the less densely populated areas. Vons just sort of seems to be Vons no matter where it is. Boring lousy store. If Vons at least had a reasonable prices it would make up for its lousiness, but it doesn't, so it is a real problem.

I think Vons got a reputation boost with the Lifestyle remodel program but has been dying on the vine ever since. I don't think that brand has a great reputation at all (it sure doesn't deserve to have a great reputation). Now it seems rather than improve Vons the goal is to expand Pavilions (which is little more than a more expensive Vons).

I'd also note at this point the stores under the Albertsons banner tend to be larger, nicer stores. The lousy stores under the Albertsons banner have mostly closed by now (and there were many...).
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Re: Vons closing Vista store

Post by Bluelightspecial »

I don't completely understand your disdain for all things "Vons"....especially since the division is being run by an Albertson's Division Manager and there really is no legacy Vons or Safeway control of the division. Some of the most high volume and profitable Von's/Pavilions locations were previous Safeway store locations from before the divestiture. It also should be pointed out that it is probably the only acquisition that was a net plus for Safeway unlike Genuardi's, & Dominicks......Randalls is on life support even under Albertson's. The only division Safeway spent any real attention to was Norcal. From a marketing perspective, in my personal opinion, is that in southern California they should make Albertsons the price conscious banner and all stores east of the 605 and 805 freeways should be rebranded as Albertsons. The exception would be around the Coachella valley. Everything west should be a Vons or Pavilions.
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Re: Vons closing Vista store

Post by CalItalian »

Bluelightspecial wrote: June 21st, 2022, 9:12 pm I don't completely understand your disdain for all things "Vons"....especially since the division is being run by an Albertson's Division Manager and there really is no legacy Vons or Safeway control of the division. Some of the most high volume and profitable Von's/Pavilions locations were previous Safeway store locations from before the divestiture. It also should be pointed out that it is probably the only acquisition that was a net plus for Safeway unlike Genuardi's, & Dominicks......Randalls is on life support even under Albertson's. The only division Safeway spent any real attention to was Norcal. From a marketing perspective, in my personal opinion, is that in southern California they should make Albertsons the price conscious banner and all stores east of the 605 and 805 freeways should be rebranded as Albertsons. The exception would be around the Coachella valley. Everything west should be a Vons or Pavilions.
Wouldn't work in Murrieta where Vons and Albertsons are directly across the street from each other. Vons has more sales volume than Albertsons there.

Vons in Corona is much busier than two Albertsons in Corona that are 1.6 and 1.2 miles away.

Quite frankly, there is no possible way to rebrand the stores.
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