storewanderer wrote: ↑January 18th, 2020, 7:55 pm
pseudo3d wrote: ↑January 17th, 2020, 6:17 pm
I can't imagine the remaining 13 stores are that much more profitable to keep worthwhile interest in. My theory is that Albertsons has a buyer (or buyers) lined up for the other stores. I could even imagine a scenario like an independent like Arlan's Market buying most of the remaining stores (may or may not include the Austin stores), with Albertsons buying Arlan's (or whatever) in part or whole.
How do the remaining 13 stores do? Are they large decent volume stores? Is there even such a thing as a decent volume operation run by Safeway in TX?
It is usually not a great thing to see an operator exit a market. The market loses a competitor (fewer options for people who like to go chase the weekly specials at the different chains) and from the looks of things some pretty nice looking facilities are being lost as this chain closes down its operation in Houston. Given how long those 3 island stores in FL stuck around, I would not be surprised to see a few island Houston stores stick around too.
My experiences with HEB were nothing too impressive on fresh products, in the stores I drove to south of Dallas, a number of years ago, but I guess their stores are very variable and given their ability to run competitors out of many TX markets, they obviously have some pretty serious abilities.
Given my experiences with Randalls and the stores that remain open, Bellaire has done really low volume and has gotten crushed by the H-E-B that rebuilt a few years ago, but it hasn't closed yet despite predictions. The adjacent bus station probably gives them business but headaches as well (I would know). Midtown was renovated not long after the Florida stores opened. It's a nice but small store and one of the only stores in the area with a growing residential population, but it faces competition with a new Whole Foods Market several blocks away. Galveston seems to do okay in the summertime even as a Kroger pulls in most of the tourist traffic just a few blocks (about a third of a mile away). Woodlake, if I remember, was one of Safeway's prized operations that they wouldn't sell unless it came down to the end, and likewise for Town & Country, but both of those were still sporting Lifestyle décor as of a year or two ago. Katy (South Fry) is a former Albertsons. Pearland, if I remembered, was largely dead, the consequence of not just Safeway's neglect but tucked away half a mile from the freeway while H-E-B and Kroger operate large stores prominently visible from Highway 288. Weslayan I've been to once, I remember it having a weird smell (partly because of its age, partly because of a lack of Starbucks...mostly looking for evidence of the store's abandoned basement level).
The other ones I haven't been to are Bellfort (right near a Kroger), San Felipe (near The Galleria), Holcombe (near the Medical Center, features a Quest Diagnostics and probably had improved sales when an old Kroger bit it, though a new H-E-B on the other side of the neighborhood could threaten it), Clay Road (another former Albertsons, benefits due to lack of competition nearby), Memorial Drive (not threatened by immediate competition, especially when H-E-B closed a smaller store a few years ago without replacement), and Champions Village on FM 1960 (once a prime shopping center but is threatened as the neighborhood isn't what it used to be).
None of the stores are in particularly attractive to Randalls' immediate competitors. When Albertsons pulled out its own stores in 2002, the large stores and trendy locations made them targets of Kroger, H-E-B, and Randalls. Even when AppleTree (Safeway) went out in the early 1990s, Kroger snapped up the better locations to get back into growth mode (there was a brief time when Kroger had started to slip in the Houston market and was close to falling even behind Fiesta) and worm itself into areas that it wouldn't be able to get into before, like the trendy River Oaks area. Nowadays, Kroger has largely backed off on expansion mode while H-E-B has skyrocketed and closed in on their market share, especially in the Inner Loop. Neither of them are particularly like Publix and willing to build stores across the street from each other to shut off competition, nor are they fond of smaller stores (which Publix has in abundance).
The only other thing to note for Randalls is that all five of the stores closed were in the suburbs, with most of the remaining stores (except for Galveston, Pearland, and Katy) are all in the main city core, even if they do suffer from competition. It's not like the Florida situation--even when they only had 17 stores, Albertsons still held onto the DC until they cut the store count down from 17 to 4, then eventually threw everything they had into reviving the last three to make a potential fresh start into the market without buying or building new stores. (It didn't work).
This is why I think that the 13 stores survived for a reason. I don't think the five suburban stores were doing that badly compared to the others, besides, the region had already largely been left for dead for the last few years, I think that Albertsons
does have a plan for the stores that would allow them to continue being grocery stores somehow through new ownership. And, maybe, they'll still keep the stores by buying out the buyer. I don't know. It's possible that the 13 stores will be divided between independents, Kroger, Fiesta, and H-E-B, with an announcement coming soon. Maybe even the Austin stores will go that way soon (if not at the same time), having fulfilled their contractual obligation with the Leander store but still losing stores since (the Exposition/Lake Austin store).
* It should also be noted that H-E-B's only true market entrance and conquest is Houston but their expansion into the market was like lightning in a bottle and its competitors had all the right problems to allow it to gain a foothold; otherwise, their core market (basically running up I-35 to south of Dallas) remains largely just as it was from the 1960s.