Retail Watchers

These current Walmart Neighborhood Markets will never do much volume. They are clearly designed not to. No service departments, often not too large in size, skeleton staffing levels, marginal pricing, awful atmosphere... But I think they will capture enough volume to force a number of marginally per...

I just saw that the Rays in Crescent City closed on February 3. The store opened in 1991. It is next to a Rite Aid (former Payless) and a long closed building that once housed Carl's Jr. is out in the parking lot. Safeway is in a center just to the side. Crescent City approved a Wal Mart Supercenter...

I smell trouble for Bristol Farms as The Fresh Market expands in California. TFM runs circles around Bristol. I don't particularly care for either format, but TFM is much better than Bristol: better selection, better quality, better (but still very bad) prices, more efficient checkout, maybe worse s...

I am guessing the cash is just not there to convert more Top Stores to Haggen. I would expect the ROI on that remodel in Bellevue was probably non-existent. That Bellevue Store was largely unimpressive; I saw a lot of pointless changes (like rebranding the Belterra bread, moving bulk foods up front,...

I was in the Federal Way Top Store recently (another one I expect to close soon). I noticed the pricing looked a little bit better than in the past. They seem to keep scaling back bakery, deli, and even produce more and more. I saw various private labels present; Haggen, Western Family, and Food Clu...

There is also a vintage QFC in Lacey (last remodel was probably, I don't know when...). I wouldn't expect it to make it.

I see a few more closures for Haggen/Top Food. Unfortunate, but, there is an awful lot of competition...

I am pretty sure the guy walking around selling siding (they have this in the Reno Sears, but I've never seen it in a Kmart.) is actually working for some third party that is just using the Sears name.

http://www.boston.com/business/news/201 ... story.html

I'm debating what is run into the ground worse: Pacific Northwest Albertsons (OR/WA) or Shaw's.

I see the Vallejo Lucky had its grand reopening as Food Maxx today. That was the last new store built by Albertsons in NorCal. It wasn't as nice as some of the other new builds, but it was still a modern store.

I get the feeling Kmart is close to pulling the plug in the Pacific Northwest entirely. They haven't had a good presence up there ever, but the closure activity of the past couple years has diminished their presence even more. There are also a ton of 8 PM closing time stores up there. A Seattle stor...