Retail Watchers

Subway is switching to Pepsi for 10 years. Previously the chain used Coke. No more Coke Freestyle machines for Subway. They say Pepsi is cheaper for restaurants, but more people prefer Coke products. https://fox59.com/news/national-world/in-rare-shift-subway-says-its-ditching-coca-cola-products/ Pr...

There were no problems with Albertsons in Florida. Everyone I visited were clean, modern, well staffed and well run. The "problem" was they did not have enough stores to make a difference and for some reason would not build more stores. I think they would have taken W/D to the cleaners IF...

As for acquisitions, I haven't seen any good ones for either company. Maybe Giant Eagle for Albertsons if they divest the gas station business (which accounts for half of the company), and they probably should've considered SEG again after BI-LO vanished and before Aldi bought it...but they need to...

Unless Kroger has a large termination fee owed to Albertsons Section 8.4d of the SEC filing. Kroger is the parent in the agreement: " As used herein, “Company Termination Fee” means a cash amount equal to $318,000,000. As used herein, “Parent Termination Fee” means a cash amount equal to $600,...

Safeway wasn't a lost cause in the divisions it divested I kind of disagree. The Dallas division was plagued with a union instability that was threatening the whole company - not just that division. When you combine that with an older and smaller store base containing mostly in-town, non-suburban s...

That is my impression. The first time I went into one of these decades ago I was blown away by how cheap everything was. Compared to other stores it almost felt like free food. And the quality was above average for generics. The store was orderly and spartan. NOW- the price gap between them and oth...

The stores there seemed to sell before they were closed. One store was sold to Kroger (which closed it within a year), several were sold to H-E-B and never reopened as anything, and a few got converted to Fiesta Mart which also would close them. (Fiesta seemed to be a poor operator for the former M...

They never seemed to take off in Texas (only a handful of stores in the Texas Triangle, plus some new-builds in Houston and Dallas). They aren't busy and rarely have more than one checkstand open. I'm sure they still turn a profit but they sure haven't been enthusiastic on TX expansion and not hard...

Wasn't LA Pantry format? That's radically different from what they build today. Lake Charles was indeed a Pantry store, opened in a former Delchamps that failed before the majority of the chain, also known as Strike 1. The store was next to a successful D1 Walmart that moved up the road soon after,...

Admittedly it's been a while since I've visited a Publix. I remember their chicken tender sub--good stuff! But there's nothing of the sort like at H-E-B, and H-E-B quality ranges wildly in quality. There's the H-E-B brand, the Hill Country Fare brand (sometimes co-existing on the same products), an...