Retail Watchers

I noticed that the local San Francisco Bay Area Safeway stores no longer have deli soda fountains. They used to have tiny versions of the Coca Cola Freestyle machines.

I also noticed that Safeway is adding some new shopping carts. These are black plastic that look like the old Lifestyle shopping carts. The previous new carts were all metal.

Apparently, there is a metal shortage and plastic is cheaper.

Alpha8472 wrote: ↑November 20th, 2023, 12:53 am I noticed that the local San Francisco Bay Area Safeway stores no longer have deli soda fountains. They used to have tiny versions of the Coca Cola Freestyle machines.

I also noticed that Safeway is adding some new shopping carts. These are black plastic that look like the old Lifestyle shopping carts. The previous new carts were all metal.

Apparently, there is a metal shortage and plastic is cheaper.

San Francisco must be late to the party with the removal of the soda fountains. In the DC area, Safeway shut down their deli soda fountains when the pandemic restrictions went into to effect and never reopened them. Not that they were really maintaining them prior. Multiple soda flavor outages, only one size of cup available (usually super large) and ice not working. The soda fountains were removed in 2021 and 2022 when Safeway remodeled most of their stores here to either Colorful Lifestyle or the Modern interior. The majority of stores got a large multi-tier refrigerated unit that displays prepackaged deli salads, fresh packaged pasta and some "to go" type stuff like chicken and sides that replaced the soda fountain and the sub counter. As for the carts, the Safeway near me finally got new carts earlier this year. They still had the lighter beige plastic carts that went with the Lifestyle interior. They now have black steel carts with plastic coating. Those old carts that went with Lifestyle were really beat up and broken down when they were replaced.

A problem with those Freestyle machines is they can go “offline”-the computer system inside probably.

The soda machines were being replaced by the small freestyle units right when COVID occurred. My understanding is stores that got the new units kept them for a while but more recently they've removed them.

The soda machines were mainly there to sell drinks in sandwich combos. Now that they want 8.99 for a sandwich and even more for a combo, business is so slow on sandwiches it doesn't make sense. So the sandwich combo just gets a 20 oz soda bottle like it did during COVID (this probably explains 1.50 of the price increase).

The plastic carts are lighter but break down faster. Everyone keeps going back and forth on what carts to use. Seems like Wal Mart sticks constantly to metal, haven't seen plastic there in quite some time.

I don't recall seeing soda fountains of any kind at Vons or Albertsons for years. I think they had them at some Pavilions stores still in the deli.

A sandwich with better quality bread and meat for under 9 bucks is still a better deal than at Subway and their mediocre meats.

I always wondered about the quality of those Boar's Head pre-made sandwiches that are sitting out in those refrigerated displays.

I believe Safeway is buying new plastic carts because they are getting stolen for scrap metal. Walmart constantly runs out of shopping carts in the San Francisco Bay Area because carts are stolen for metal. You see them chain up shopping carts at night at Walmart.

Safeway brings their carts inside at night at some stores.

jamcool wrote: ↑November 20th, 2023, 2:24 pm A sandwich with better quality bread and meat for under 9 bucks is still a better deal than at Subway and their mediocre meats.

I used to get a Vons sandwich for lunch at work quite often pre-pandemic. It wasn't a bad price, considering the buy 10 get 1 free deal they almost always had running. I wonder if that is still in place. I haven't seen the running count on the receipt in a while.

Alpha8472 wrote: ↑November 20th, 2023, 3:40 pm I always wondered about the quality of those Boar's Head pre-made sandwiches that are sitting out in those refrigerated displays.

I believe Safeway is buying new plastic carts because they are getting stolen for scrap metal. Walmart constantly runs out of shopping carts in the San Francisco Bay Area because carts are stolen for metal. You see them chain up shopping carts at night at Walmart.

Safeway brings their carts inside at night at some stores.

Those are excellent quality. Portioning can vary by store and check the date to get the one with the longest shelf time left.

Safeway always used plastic carts in Reno/Tahoe- since the mid 90's- first it was gray plastic carts then later tan plastic carts- then the new Reno Store opened and it got metal carts.

HCal wrote: ↑November 20th, 2023, 3:58 pm

jamcool wrote: ↑November 20th, 2023, 2:24 pm A sandwich with better quality bread and meat for under 9 bucks is still a better deal than at Subway and their mediocre meats.

I used to get a Vons sandwich for lunch at work quite often pre-pandemic. It wasn't a bad price, considering the buy 10 get 1 free deal they almost always had running. I wonder if that is still in place. I haven't seen the running count on the receipt in a while.

I think that program is gone. It was a division by division thing. I liked how you could order small sandwiches but then redeem for a free large sandwich.

I was going to recommend you go to Ralphs as they used to have great sandwiches but I noticed on another thread it was mentioned Kroger took the sandwich counters out of a lot of Ralphs.

I also noticed some AZ Safeways that had decommissioned their sandwich counters. Same thing at Las Vegas Vons so that division must have stopped sandwiches. Maybe they think this will help them better fit in with Kroger.

NorCal replaced it with a monthly sandwich combo meal special which initially was like 7.00 for the sandwich and a drink/side. That promotion is long gone now. One they kept running was a "club" perhaps somehow due to Safeway's inability to do anything without the club card, which was turkey/ham/bacon. Bacon was previously an extra cost add on, as was a second meat. That was quite a bargain. I think the location I was purchasing from may have been being extra generous giving a full portion of both ham and turkey (as opposed to a half portion of each). They are supposed to do 0.18lb of meat per sandwich so that was 0.36lb of Boar's Head meat on a sandwich plus drink and side at 7.00 which was a real bargain. Back then an extra roll from bakery cost 0.79 and there was enough to split it up.