Retail Watchers

ClownLoach, I think you are looking at photos of the Century Blvd store on the Westside of Bend (across from the site of a short-lived Ray's Food Place), but I'm not 100% sure. One of the pictures shows "Bend" and that's clearly not the old Marina in the middle of town, or the converted Al...

The Safeway in The Forum in Bend (2650 NE US Highway 20) was remodeled to that interior last year. That Safeway still has a false ceiling. That interior felt quite a bit different with the false ceiling. I thought it looked really good in the Bend store. (Sort of how the stores that were remodeled i...

Has anyone heard anything about some kind of new Safeway wholesale program in the Northwest? I was at King's Market in Friday Harbor (San Juan Islands) a couple of weeks ago and they seemed to be selling the full line of Safeway/Albertsons store brands. I saw Open Nature, O, and Signature in dozens ...

"Kroger has a decision to make as to whether or not it wants to continue operating in (the PNW)." -- You are dramatically overstating what has happened to Kroger in the PNW. Whether the last few years have been a bit rough or not, there is still a Fred Meyer in virtually every town of any ...

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...

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 hav...

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 ...

I was in the Tukwila store earlier this month. I'd barely call it full-line. The third floor has been closed off for a while now. They had also closed off part of the second floor and there was little up there beyond mattresses and a light selection of tools. If they wanted to, they could seriously ...

We've pretty much hijacked the thread ... moderators, I understand if you tell us to knock it off. But it's been an interesting conversation and there has been some good perspective on here. StoreWanderer, to kind of answer your question: Part of the problem for First Republic is that they had made ...

Storewanderer, I usually really like what you write on here, but need to clarify some of the issues on banks for you. When banks fail, there isn't time for public comment. No chance. By the time you get through any kind of public comment, the situation will have gotten worse -- depositors will have ...