New Safeway for Reno

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Re: New Safeway for Reno

Post by storewanderer »

bryceleinan wrote: May 20th, 2021, 7:25 am
I agree - Raley’s is an early grand-opening gift to Safeway. One of the things I liked is how the pharmacy is right up front, and you can walk right into it from the outside doors on the left hand side. I haven’t been in a lot of the old Albertsons (now Save Mart stores in NorCal,) so it took a second to get used to the layout. but I agree this definitely didn’t feel like a Safeway to me.

I also happened to run into the district manager for Reno-Tahoe there too, and the entire management team was continually circulating through the store.
By the time I got there last night closer to 8 PM, there wasn't much in the way of staffing, nobody really on the sales floor. There were 3 checkouts open with pretty steady lines plus self checkouts had pretty steady lines. Meat, bakery, and pharmacy were closed entirely. Deli was open but in the process of wrapping up, same for Starbucks.

If it had a heavy management presence earlier in the day that explains why it still was in good shape last night, they must have been refreshing it all day. The store was in really good order last night. This is going to be a great store. I expect they will be very successful with the fresh departments in this location and the results will be very positive. This could even turn into one of the best performing stores for them in the entire NorCal Division which would be quite an achievement given how Safeway has done in Reno area over the past 20 years (not great).

Also it is good to have another pharmacy... current ones definitely have more customers than they know what to do with.

I too liked the layout after walking the entire store. It is an old layout but it actually works very well on the larger sized store with the warehouse ceilings.
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

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Tons of photos of the new store over in Yelp. Mostly documenting how fantastic the fresh departments look.

This one is my favorite showing a good view of the store near as you walk in.

https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... BcVJvM9j-Q

Another store I thought of that this store is almost a clone of in layout- the Albertsons in Grants Pass, OR. Biggest difference is a reversal of positioning of self serve meat vs. service meat.
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

storewanderer wrote: May 21st, 2021, 12:12 am Tons of photos of the new store over in Yelp. Mostly documenting how fantastic the fresh departments look.

This one is my favorite showing a good view of the store near as you walk in.

https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... BcVJvM9j-Q

Another store I thought of that this store is almost a clone of in layout- the Albertsons in Grants Pass, OR. Biggest difference is a reversal of positioning of self serve meat vs. service meat.
There is an Albertsons in northern Spokane that is a clone of Grants Pass, right down to the exterior design: https://foursquare.com/v/albertsons/4bb ... b0398c311c
Then there is the former Jewel-like Albertsons in Vancouver (Padden Pkwy) which you took pictures of once. That store was purely a Jewel-Osco with the exterior sign saying "Albertsons".
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

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Spokane is a little different than these stores because it has frozen foods in the middle of the store whereas Grants Pass has frozen on the side wall (same side as pharmacy).

The placement of frozen foods on the side wall is what makes these stores more like an 80's Albertsons or Alpha Beta than a Jewel.

Jewel would place frozen toward the middle of the store since that side wall would be Osco territory.
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

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Only 3 days in but so far this new Safeway in Reno is a big hit. The meat department is a little questionable (by far the worst layout and flow of the store's perimeter departments) to me in its size, regular pricing is off base, and overall assortment but we will see how that pans out over time. Looking at produce, bakery, and deli, these departments are being stuffed with the maximum selection of products and they are selling through a very impressive amount of items. I can't believe the number of cakes and cake-related products the bakery is selling through and those are Safeway's best item (relative to competitors) so I am sure customers will be happy with those items and return to the store for them in the future.

The produce department in this store is one of the best I've ever seen; the variety of produce available, presentation, and quality (freshness) is just beyond words outstanding. They actually have an assortment of fresh herbs (not just those few leafs in a plastic package), any exotic fruit you can think of, great selection of Asian vegetables, peppers, etc. Also interesting they modified the weekly ad for this store and put in Organic Peaches/Nectarines/Apricots at 1.99/lb and Organic Manila Mango at 1.00 each (Raleys ONE doesn't even have any Organic Nectarines or Organic Manila Mango). I really hope they can maintain this- if customers respond to it, which so far they are, I am sure Safeway will maintain this.

I've also taken a closer look at center store. This store has even fewer SKUs of Drug items than a typical Safeway has. Pet also has noticeably less space. There is still a full aisle of chips which is a real waste of space in my opinion given it is 80% Frito product and should only be half that much space but I guess Frito must pay well for shelf space at Safeway. But if you get into the food aisles, they have a better assortment of food items/odd gourmet type items especially when you are looking at ethnic foods (Asian, Italian jarred, etc.).

Comparing this store to Raleys "ONE" - there is just no comparison. This store would have given the old Raleys a run for its money (but the old Raleys had a better meat department) but this is not even a contest now. This store doesn't appear to have had much impact on Smiths at all (it has to be having some impact- because multiple people I know who used to shop Smiths went to this store this week or are planning to go this weekend) but Raleys "ONE" is even more quiet than it already was and has an off/dead vibe inside.

Also- up to 99 photos already on Yelp, 3 days after opening.
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway-reno-5

This store definitely photographs very well.
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

Post by Alpha8472 »

The Modern decor has changed from the previous version. The older version had rich faux brown wood on the sides of the wall signs. The new Safeway has stone bricks instead. I prefer the faux wood. The older version had shiny black tile behind the lettering. Now it appears to be a non-shiny brown background. It looks dull and rough. The older version was polished and smooth. It is a downgrade.

Getting rid of the tiles must be cheaper.

I also noticed that there is no fireplace. The new Safeway in Walnut Creek, California had a fire place at the Starbucks cafe.
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

Post by bryceleinan »

storewanderer wrote: May 21st, 2021, 11:54 pm I've also taken a closer look at center store. This store has even fewer SKUs of Drug items than a typical Safeway has. Pet also has noticeably less space. There is still a full aisle of chips which is a real waste of space in my opinion given it is 80% Frito product and should only be half that much space but I guess Frito must pay well for shelf space at Safeway. But if you get into the food aisles, they have a better assortment of food items/odd gourmet type items especially when you are looking at ethnic foods (Asian, Italian jarred, etc.).
My mom and I both noticed that while we were in there on Wednesday. I will say that Pet had more canned cat food than we have seen at most other stores - both Walmarts in Carson, Damonte Ranch (3277), and Smith's in Dayton combined. I'm guessing that because this is a new store, they had all of their merchandise in. Drug was a little lacking, however, with CVS in the same plaza, it was a minor inconvenience. My mom is from Oregon, and Safeway was the big store for her growing up, and compared to what we have in Dayton, it's a good place to shop. It blows the pants off Smith's any day of the week.
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

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bryceleinan wrote: May 22nd, 2021, 10:14 am
My mom and I both noticed that while we were in there on Wednesday. I will say that Pet had more canned cat food than we have seen at most other stores - both Walmarts in Carson, Damonte Ranch (3277), and Smith's in Dayton combined. I'm guessing that because this is a new store, they had all of their merchandise in. Drug was a little lacking, however, with CVS in the same plaza, it was a minor inconvenience. My mom is from Oregon, and Safeway was the big store for her growing up, and compared to what we have in Dayton, it's a good place to shop. It blows the pants off Smith's any day of the week.
They have a few more SKUs of Friskies than Smiths, and some different ones than Wal Mart. Probably about the same number of SKUs as Wal Mart- if Wal Mart could figure out how to get their shelves fully stocked. But there are 6-8 Friskies SKUs I have seen only at Wal Mart and Petsmart (Farm Favorites, Surf Turf). Definitely more SKUs of Fancy Feast than Wal Mart, but same as Smiths. Save Mart and Raleys both have more SKUs of Friskies/Fancy Feast than Safeway, Wal Mart, or Smiths. Save Mart's pricing is also lower than the other grocers on this (also lower than Food Maxx- has been this way for over a year) around .58 for the Friskies. No 9 Lives at Safeway at all and very little Sheba which has a good assortment at Wal Mart and Smiths (and isn't sold at Save Mart or Raleys). Cat food category is an interesting one- best bet if you want assortment is to go to Petsmart. They are also at or equal to the best price for the single cans of Friskies or Fancy Feast (everything else there seems to be pretty high priced).

Smiths needs to straighten out its fresh department quality and get control over in-stock. But with the way Kroger has increased prices in the past couple years, I'm not sure Smiths is worth what they are trying to charge anymore. They are cheaper than Safeway yes, but you pay for it with lower quality, the worst "digital coupon" program I've ever dealt with, reduced fresh department mix, and stores that are not staffed well. I also have a real problem with standing in line to use a self checkout when multiple self checkouts are closed at the same time, and it seems like when I go to Smiths (except the Carson Smiths who always has them all open no matter what time) that ends up happening almost every time.
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

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Alpha8472 wrote: May 22nd, 2021, 3:51 am The Modern decor has changed from the previous version. The older version had rich faux brown wood on the sides of the wall signs. The new Safeway has stone bricks instead. I prefer the faux wood. The older version had shiny black tile behind the lettering. Now it appears to be a non-shiny brown background. It looks dull and rough. The older version was polished and smooth. It is a downgrade.

Getting rid of the tiles must be cheaper.

I also noticed that there is no fireplace. The new Safeway in Walnut Creek, California had a fire place at the Starbucks cafe.
I noticed some of these higher end sort of decor and design features were missing from the new store. However I don't know how to describe it but the new store has a great feel. It feels light, open, and airy. It does not come off as cheap or lacking in the decor department. The Starbucks seating is behind the Starbucks kiosk, isolated from the store by the kiosk, and has some windows. The cement floor which is just gray polished cement looks a lot better than the brown cement floors I am used to seeing in many stores. It was probably cheaper to keep it gray too... and it looks better. It goes with the decor.
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

Post by HCal »

Is this store supplied by Norcal distribution centers?
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