Erickson's Thriftway in Burns, Oregon, closed

[kr.abs.swy]

The Erickson's Thriftway in Burns, Oregon (technically in Hines), closed within the past few months.

Burns and Hines have almost 5,000 people. They are very isolated in Central Oregon -- the largest town between Ontario and Bend, each two hours away.

Erickson's and a Safeway have probably coexisted in Burns for 40+ years or more. (The Safeway is a marina. The lettering inside Erickson's probably is from the 1970s or 1980s and the building is definitely not new, although newer than the Safeway). But Grocery Outlet, Dollar General and Dollar Tree have all come to town. I suspect that those stores took enough business from Erickson's that it wasn't viable any longer.

Safeway has got to be wishing their marina store was 10,000 sqft larger now.

[storewanderer]

This store (it dropped Thriftway from its exterior a few years ago, not sure why, not sure what Thriftway even means anymore) did little business even before the new competition arrived. I am surprised it lasted as long as it did. But I am disappointed we see independent stores continue to close and I wish someone else would have purchased the store and tried to make a go of it. The population in Burns keeps declining so I kind of understand.

The one thing is this store did game processing and it is possible there would be an opening for a small butcher shop to open up and continue that service/a meat department.

The issue with these stores in this territory is you just can't get a supplier who will be competitive and get the independents the program they need to compete. If this store was in Associated Utah territory, it wouldn't be closing.

Assume it did $200,000 a week in sales (probably didn't even do that), collectively Grocery Outlet, Dollar Tree, and Dollar General will do that much in grocery/consumable sales so it largely washes out.

The Burns Marina Safeway is a large/deluxe version Marina.

[Super S]

This store (it dropped Thriftway from its exterior a few years ago, not sure why, not sure what Thriftway even means anymore) did little business even before the new competition arrived. I am surprised it lasted as long as it did. But I am disappointed we see independent stores continue to close and I wish someone else would have purchased the store and tried to make a go of it. The population in Burns keeps declining so I kind of understand.

The one thing is this store did game processing and it is possible there would be an opening for a small butcher shop to open up and continue that service/a meat department.

The issue with these stores in this territory is you just can't get a supplier who will be competitive and get the independents the program they need to compete. If this store was in Associated Utah territory, it wouldn't be closing.

Assume it did $200,000 a week in sales (probably didn't even do that), collectively Grocery Outlet, Dollar Tree, and Dollar General will do that much in grocery/consumable sales so it largely washes out.

The Burns Marina Safeway is a large/deluxe version Marina.

Thriftway still exists in a handful of small towns, but is a name that seems to be fading away. A lot of locations have dropped the Thriftway branding.

Looking at the pictures of the Safeway, it doesn't look like it has been neglected, and has service departments and a pharmacy. I was expecting a bare-bones location like Clatskanie which has NO service departments.

[kr.abs.swy]

Storewanderer, your knowledge of some of these stores blows me away. I had no idea that the volume at that store had been that low. I was only in it once when it was operating. It was dead, but it was a Friday evening, so I couldn't draw any conclusions from that.
In a different world, you could have imagined Ray's / C&K ending up with this store.
Interestingly, they are still operating game services for hunters. I peeked in the windows yesterday. Any remaining equipment was for sale (price tags on everything). There were hand-written signs in the windows with a phone number for hunters to call. That's probably good business for them, and certainly not something Safeway is going to do.

The Safeway does have a pharmacy, deli, Starbucks and bakery. The bakery is awkward -- the bakery area is a tiny corner in the back of the store, and the ovens are located through the service doors at the back of the store, so they have to move product back and forth to bake it. But then they do the packaging in the traditional bakery area.

It has a false front so you can't necessarily tell it's a marina from the highway, but it's 100% marina inside.

The Safeway was hopping yesterday.

[storewanderer]

Yeah, this store had been suffering for a long time. Maybe it turned a little profit for the owners to live off of. To have an independent store hypothetically turn a profit of $80,000 a year to support a family is accepted by many of these families that own/operate decades-in-the-family independent rural stores, much different model from these big chains that want every store to make a million or two+ in profit every year. I suspect Grocery Outlet finally is what did it in.

It is interesting they are self liquidating the equipment vs. engaging an auction house to take it (maybe relocate it to a larger city with more potential buyers).

It is also really too bad what happened to Ray's. They should have been a promising chain. Instead they got mismanaged (really just mispriced themselves) into a shadow of what they were/could have been. I do think this Thriftyway could have gone to a possible Associated Utah operator but the volume must have just been too low. I think M&W Markets out of Boise could have made it work. They took a store in Redmond.

That bakery in Burns Safeway was done in the last remodel. In the Lifestyle version of the store, there was no actual department labeled as "bakery" but there were a couple ovens up in the very front corner of the store in the service deli and in those ovens they did limited breads, cookies, muffins, so they didn't quite have the mix of a normal Safeway Bakery but it was very close, they had 3-4 tables up front of bakery items (in the space that is Starbucks now). So it seems like they just can't squeeze in the space for a typical bakery department but basically are offering it now that they carved out an actual space for a bakery/small visible prep area away from the deli.

I also think it is possible the back of the Burns Safeway and possibly the loading dock area are an expansion area. It is hard to tell. This may be how it feels like it has a large Marina sales floor.

[veteran+]

I feel for this small community that has been reduced with choices like Grocery Outlet and Dollar General, etc.

[storewanderer]

I feel for this small community that has been reduced with choices like Grocery Outlet and Dollar General, etc.

This Thriftway was an old store, not in great condition, not very well assorted and not very well priced.

Grocery Outlet put up a nice new building, it is good quality nice building. Dollar Tree and Dollar General also put up new buildings but no comment on the quality of those buildings. The Dollar Tree building isn't horrible. But overall the square footage added by Grocery Outlet, Dollar Tree, and Dollar General is greater than the square footage lost by the closure of this store, and also Grocery Outlet, Dollar Tree, and Dollar General handle significantly larger mixes of non grocery products than this store did.

These stores Dollar General and Family Dollar are responsible for many closures of independent grocers all over the US and the "barely surviving" state of many other still open independent grocers in small towns all over the US. In far too many cases this results in no full line grocery store in a 20 or so mile radius. In this case in Burns you still have Safeway and you also have Grocery Outlet. Grocery Outlet provides a constant/full assortment of meat and produce and dairy products, unlike the dollar stores.

[veteran+]

This dumbing down of American retail grocery is nasty and is a disservice to the poorest of us, and to those better off that think they are getting great stuff for cheap.

People are brainwashed into thinking they are getting great value by accepting less and less service. It's like the retailers are doing the customer a big favor by allowing them to give them money.

Great Value is not having to calculate if the "size game" is a deal or the expiration is acceptable or taking a chance in fresh and hope it does not rot by the time you get home and many other issues with these types of stores. I will include those stupid Outlet stores as well. All that and the way they treat their employee is the topping on that yukky cake.

Grocery Outlet....................meh! I don't care how much they have improved a store here and there.

[jamcool]

If Aldi had brains, they would build stores in small towns as an alternative to the dollar stores.

[kr.abs.swy]

StoreWanderer, what was the story with the Ray's bankruptcy in the 2010s? As far as I can tell, they went from mostly operating small-town stores with limited competition and decided that they should start competing with Safeway and Albertsons in larger markets along I-5 and in Bend, Albany, Redmond, etc., so they built a bunch of full-size stores in larger towns. Was it as simple as them losing sight of what they were good at and getting crushed by larger competitors, or was there more to it than that?