Retail Watchers

You may be onto something--I wonder if their niche is paradoxically shrinking in the last 20 years to a more rural, poorer client base as the politics in the US have similarly shifted...it's become a class signifier to lean toward or away from WM depending on politics both personal and local. I've g...

Meijer was famous for overbuilding early-on---their first Thrifty Acres in Grand Rapids supposedly had foot-thick concrete floors so if the concept failed they could sell it to an auto dealer.

Sugar, on the other hand, is subsidized in the US but not in Canada, so sugar and sugar intensive things (hard candy, etc) are cheaper in Canada. Promo/loss leader pricing for branded items (Tide, Bounty, etc) is pretty identical (so cheaper in Canada)...

Burger King has always been weird in Detroit...LaVan Hawkins was tied up with them 20 years ago which adds another layer of weird. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/ ... 422289002/

Carrols is one of the other franchisees in metro Detroit--they're reasonably well capitalized and have multiple hundred locations of BK and Popeyes.

Not to pile on but I believe one of the two Targets in South Bend is a Super Target (Mishawaka) and Meijer has 3 stores. 3 WM stores may just have been one too many to be sustainable (particularly with WM locations surrounding pulling business away from metro South Bend). I don't think people who ha...

You cannot say with certainty that standards overall are universally higher in CA than the US...things are just different. For instance, in Canada, milk and cream comes from mammals, so plant "milks" are "beverages" or "drinks". Likewise, Coffee-Mate is not "creame...

I really wonder the value of having lovely in-store environments when you're forcing people to squint at their phones (price checking/app loading/coupon scanning/location finding). Just had a conversation w/a 37 year salesperson at Macy's on this topic--I am personally not an "app" guy, bu...

Don't know--we were driving past at 50 mph from the casino back to PSP. No idea that E/W route existed!

Drove the length of the valley from Indio all the way to RM on Fred Waring--there's another WMNM on Fred Waring in La Quinta...no idea that was there.