Save Mart-South Carson Street Carson City, NV
Posted: August 21st, 2022, 11:05 pm
This store- I don't know what the deal with it is. This was opened around 1997, as a blue gray Albertsons, replacing the older Albertsons at Fairview/Carson Street. This had all the usual departments you would expect in a store of this era. Plus a US Bank inside (which is still there). It did pretty well for Albertsons but not great. Save Mart ran it into the ground in short order and volume dropped like a rock and hasn't recovered but for some reason it is still open.
Save Mart has handled this store in a strange manner over the years. I have not seen things quite like this in other locations.
One of Save Mart's first orders of business in this store in 2009 was to remove the self checkouts. They did this to one in Reno too (Kietzke; which since had self checkout re-added as volume came back up after Safeway/Raleys closures nearby). This was because business was so bad they only had enough labor budget for one person up front most of the time, so they went with having a regular cashier. That was probably the right decision.
About six years ago, more or less, they decided to close the in-store bakery. Odd decision, but okay. They still have a deli employee go fire up the oven to make bolillos and a few other random items. There is a small assortment of thaw and serve product present. Also the formal floral area was closed and they moved floral to part of the old bakery space. That makes sense as it moves floral closer to produce and at Save Mart produce is responsible for floral.
Within the past few years they covered up part of seafood and part of deli to reduce shrink.
Now as of 8/17/2022 the pharmacy is closed.
Also as of today 8/21/2022 the service meat and seafood department is entirely closed and the deli case has about 25% of its case still open and the rest of the case is closed. Also the produce department looks like it either hasn't been staffed in days or like they have half given up on produce too as the area was quite empty and clearly not rotated.
Staffing levels in this store are at skeleton levels. For instance this afternoon US Bank inside is closed since it is Sunday, and they had a total of 3 employees in customer facing positions (1 cashier, 1 employee stocking shelves who appeared to be the supervisor on duty, and 1 employee in deli). I am guessing there was also an employee in meat who I did not see. Produce certainly wasn't staffed given how terrible the department looked.
I am curious if department closures are happening like this in other Save Mart locations or this is a one off situation. There is another store in Reno that has parts of service departments covered up too (deli/seafood)- North McCarran, but it looks nothing even close to this bad.
It looks like Save Mart is falling into distress under this private equity group. Pharmacy closures, significant price increases lately that are above market and make no sense (.99 for a can of Friskies cat food- highest in market; even Safeway is only .89/.80 ongoing sale), and what seem like staffing cuts elsewhere. I am not sure what has happened here but this is not looking good. Maybe they just need to focus on better performing stores and quit trying to run lost cause stores on absolute fumes until there is literally no customer left (yes I use the singular phrase customer), as the old Save Mart chain did over the years.
Save Mart has handled this store in a strange manner over the years. I have not seen things quite like this in other locations.
One of Save Mart's first orders of business in this store in 2009 was to remove the self checkouts. They did this to one in Reno too (Kietzke; which since had self checkout re-added as volume came back up after Safeway/Raleys closures nearby). This was because business was so bad they only had enough labor budget for one person up front most of the time, so they went with having a regular cashier. That was probably the right decision.
About six years ago, more or less, they decided to close the in-store bakery. Odd decision, but okay. They still have a deli employee go fire up the oven to make bolillos and a few other random items. There is a small assortment of thaw and serve product present. Also the formal floral area was closed and they moved floral to part of the old bakery space. That makes sense as it moves floral closer to produce and at Save Mart produce is responsible for floral.
Within the past few years they covered up part of seafood and part of deli to reduce shrink.
Now as of 8/17/2022 the pharmacy is closed.
Also as of today 8/21/2022 the service meat and seafood department is entirely closed and the deli case has about 25% of its case still open and the rest of the case is closed. Also the produce department looks like it either hasn't been staffed in days or like they have half given up on produce too as the area was quite empty and clearly not rotated.
Staffing levels in this store are at skeleton levels. For instance this afternoon US Bank inside is closed since it is Sunday, and they had a total of 3 employees in customer facing positions (1 cashier, 1 employee stocking shelves who appeared to be the supervisor on duty, and 1 employee in deli). I am guessing there was also an employee in meat who I did not see. Produce certainly wasn't staffed given how terrible the department looked.
I am curious if department closures are happening like this in other Save Mart locations or this is a one off situation. There is another store in Reno that has parts of service departments covered up too (deli/seafood)- North McCarran, but it looks nothing even close to this bad.
It looks like Save Mart is falling into distress under this private equity group. Pharmacy closures, significant price increases lately that are above market and make no sense (.99 for a can of Friskies cat food- highest in market; even Safeway is only .89/.80 ongoing sale), and what seem like staffing cuts elsewhere. I am not sure what has happened here but this is not looking good. Maybe they just need to focus on better performing stores and quit trying to run lost cause stores on absolute fumes until there is literally no customer left (yes I use the singular phrase customer), as the old Save Mart chain did over the years.