Albertsons & Smith's Las Vegas Observations

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Albertsons & Smith's Las Vegas Observations

Post by Bagels »

Recently, I toured several Albertsons (and Smith’s) within the Las Vegas area. The last time I visited a Las Vegas-area Albertsons was circa 2008, after the Las Vegas Review Journal published an article stating that SuperValu had placed the regional stores up for sale. At the time, the RJ interviewed local experts who predicted that Kroger would acquire (most of) the stores as replacements for nearby Smith’s, since the Albertsons stores trended newer, larger and in more desirable shopping centers. It was somewhat ironic given the scrutiny surrounding Kroger’s acquisition of Raley’s just a few years earlier, but Walmart had emerged as the 800 lb. gorilla. BTW, those same experts also projected that Safeway would exit the market as well (Vons had shrunk and none of the stores were scheduled for lifestyles renewals).

Anyways, I sought out to visit and photograph Albertsons. The article called these stores “zombie” stores (due to lack of foot traffic) and boy, was that true. I recall being in one store - a very large, beautiful store with virtually nobody in it; in contrast, a much older Smith’s directly across the streets as booming.

Anyways, what a difference a decade made! Every store I was in were busy. All locations still featured the Albertsons “Grocery Palace” interior, but were well maintained, and much nicer than the Smith’s (several of the Smith’s I was in had a hybrid of pressed concrete / titled floors... just looked tacky).

In the Las Vegas market, Albertsons has a much larger selection of prepared produce, bakery and deli items compared to SoCal. And the prices were excellent! Noteably, prices on similar items (SoCal) were much cheaper. E.g. a slice of cheesecake was $2 less, a slice of sheet cake $1.50 less, etc. the prepared meals were very reasonable - $5-8 for a large variety. SoCal locations recently introduced a baked potato $5 (which is ridiculous IMO).

Grocery items were also less than Smith’s; in many cases, they were comparable to Walmart. In the produce selection, quality was excellent — the cut fruit was outstanding, way better than Walmart/Smith’s.

What an amazing turnaround, I was very impressed! If I lived in the area, this would be my supermarket of choice.

One thing I found interesting: all stores were using plastic Vons bags. Not sure if these were left over from the pandemic days when SoCal stores we’re giving away free plastic bags. Otherwise you’d think it’d all be branded as Albertsons, given there’s so few Vons in the market.
Last edited by Bagels on November 28th, 2020, 1:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Albertsons Las Vegas Observations

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

These stores transferred over to the SW division (out of Phoenix) before the SWY merger.

Which LV Albertsons still has Grocery Palace? The one on Flamingo/Durango was just remodeled, much to my dismay. The Albertsons at Ann & Simmons (2003 build) still has Jewel Marketplace decor.
The Flamingo/Durango store has an abandoned garden center. A handful of early 2000's Albertsons in Vegas got the garden center, which SVU closed.
Besides Texas and Arizona, Albertsons also tried the garden centers at 2 SoCal stores (Escondido and Newbury Park), one in the NW division (Medford, OR), another somewhere in Boise, and even one in Grand Island, NE (sold in 2004).
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Re: Albertsons Las Vegas Observations

Post by storewanderer »

Bagels wrote: November 26th, 2020, 3:27 pm
Anyways, what a difference a decade made! Every store I was in were busy. All locations still featured the Albertsons “Grocery Palace” interior, but were well maintained, and much nicer than the Smith’s (several of the Smith’s I was in had a hybrid of pressed concrete / titled floors... just looked tacky).

In the Las Vegas market, Albertsons has a much larger selection of prepared produce, bakery and deli items compared to SoCal. And the prices were excellent! Noteably, prices on similar items (SoCal) were much cheaper. E.g. a slice of cheesecake was $2 less, a slice of sheet cake $1.50 less, etc. the prepared meals were very reasonable - $5-8 for a large variety. SoCal locations recently introduced a baked potato $5 (which is ridiculous IMO).

Grocery items were also less than Smith’s; in many cases, they were comparable to Walmart. In the produce selection, quality was excellent — the cut fruit was outstanding, way better than Walmart/Smith’s.

What an amazing turnaround, I was very impressed! If I lived in the area, this would be my supermarket of choice.

One thing I found interesting: all stores were using plastic Vons bags. Not sure if these were left over from the pandemic days when SoCal stores we’re giving away free plastic bags. Otherwise you’d think it’d all be branded as Albertsons, given there’s so few Vons in the market.
There are bag shortages right now so that is why you are seeing the unusual/out of place bags. I don't think Vons-branded bags were used at all in SoCal this year. NV NorCal Division Safeway is using CA super thick bags last night when I went in. Yet stores I was in physically in NorCal last week were using the thin bags (where they are banned).

Your observations echo my observations of Fred Meyer vs. Safeway/Albertsons in OR/WA (and Boise) as well the past few years vs. under SVU.

The AZ Division operates its stores much better than the SoCal Vons Division operates its stores. That is very clear. They have better pricing, better execution, but to be fair they also have nicer, newer, larger stores to work with in many cases. Moving the Las Vegas Stores from the SoCal Division to the AZ Division was a very wise move by Bob Miller.

It helps that Smiths is having some pretty serious execution problems, their perimeter quality is pretty awful and isn't getting any better (I think it may be getting worse) and is continually increasing its prices. Purchased most Thanksgiving items at Smiths this year due to pricing and the store was an absolute wreck; it was pretty busy, and messy, dirty, found expired Simple Truth beef in the meat department, many of the lights seemed to be off around the perimeter, it was really awful in there. I did find everything I went in for, though had to pull some items off pallets. What a disaster this store was. Went to Safeway down the street after to see how things were going there, did not get anything for Thanksgiving there; they ran a very weak ad in NorCal for Thanksgiving price-wise, and the store was very orderly, had more staffing than usual, but also pretty deserted of customers. Very oversupplied on Thanksgiving items. Empty paper product aisle at Safeway. Smiths paper wall was about 10% stocked, but there were about 8 pallets strewn around the aisle you could rummage through and get paper products from, and many people had. Pallet wrap and other random boxes strewn all over the floor.
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Re: Albertsons Las Vegas Observations

Post by pseudo3d »

The fact that a partially-built Vons got finished as an Albertsons a few years ago spoke volumes about which brand was stronger in the market. However, the Albertsons in LV are all "new" stores, as the original Albertsons stores were sold to Raley's (and in turn, Smith's), and the Lucky stores were the ones that ended up as Albertsons today. Is that true?
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Re: Albertsons Las Vegas Observations

Post by storewanderer »

pseudo3d wrote: November 26th, 2020, 9:27 pm The fact that a partially-built Vons got finished as an Albertsons a few years ago spoke volumes about which brand was stronger in the market. However, the Albertsons in LV are all "new" stores, as the original Albertsons stores were sold to Raley's (and in turn, Smith's), and the Lucky stores were the ones that ended up as Albertsons today. Is that true?
Also that they re-opened the Village Center Vons as an Albertsons after taking it back from Haggen. I forget if the stores in Henderson they took back from Haggen were former Vons or former Albertsons and what they reopened as.

Albertsons spent a ton of money in Las Vegas in 2000-2003 and built many new stores. This was a situation similar to Bakersfield and San Diego where Albertsons made significant investment after the Lucky purchase. Lucky had a handfull of newer late 90's build stores around as well but many of the Lucky Stores in Las Vegas were smaller/older stores not in the greatest condition. Most of the lousy small old stores have closed, along with a handfull of the larger newer stores. So what is left at this point in Las Vegas is primarily either late 90's build Lucky Stores or early 00's build Albertsons Stores (along with a couple stores opened the past few years).

Did you go to the Smiths Marketplace up on Skye Canyon? That is their newest store there and it is very nice. Nearby Albertsons (an exit south) was built as a Grocery Palace, got a Supervalu remodel, and then most recently got a Colorful Lifestyle remodel (probably to combat the new Smiths). If you go another exit down from there, there is a big Vons, about 15 years old. It never got a Lifestyle remodel and does very little business. I am sure it was on the way out under Safeway, but the changes Arizona made in pricing and promotions must be getting it enough traffic to survive. There is also a nicely maintained Jewel interior Albertsons SE of there on Ann. That NW part of Las Vegas seems to have the nicest stores.
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Re: Albertsons Las Vegas Observations

Post by klkla »

storewanderer wrote: November 26th, 2020, 9:32 pm Also that they re-opened the Village Center Vons as an Albertsons after taking it back from Haggen. I forget if the stores in Henderson they took back from Haggen were former Vons or former Albertsons and what they reopened as.
The three stores divested to Haggen in Henderson were all Albertsons. They are currently operated as Albertsons.

The three stores in the Summerlin area and Boulder City were Vons.
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Re: Albertsons Las Vegas Observations

Post by Bagels »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: November 26th, 2020, 5:40 pmWhich LV Albertsons still has Grocery Palace?
One store was off Eastern Ave (not far from the airport), the other was in Henderson. Both stores had a full "Grocery Palace" interior (no Supervalu signage, etc.). The stores in SoCal that opened with the "Grocery Palace" interior had the Jewel layout; these stores do not.
storewanderer wrote: November 26th, 2020, 9:12 pm It helps that Smiths is having some pretty serious execution problems, their perimeter quality is pretty awful and isn't getting any better (I think it may be getting worse) and is continually increasing its prices. Purchased most Thanksgiving items at Smiths this year due to pricing and the store was an absolute wreck; it was pretty busy, and messy, dirty, found expired Simple Truth beef in the meat department, many of the lights seemed to be off around the perimeter, it was really awful in there. I did find everything I went in for, though had to pull some items off pallets. What a disaster this store was. Went to Safeway down the street after to see how things were going there, did not get anything for Thanksgiving there; they ran a very weak ad in NorCal for Thanksgiving price-wise, and the store was very orderly, had more staffing than usual, but also pretty deserted of customers. Very oversupplied on Thanksgiving items. Empty paper product aisle at Safeway. Smiths paper wall was about 10% stocked, but there were about 8 pallets strewn around the aisle you could rummage through and get paper products from, and many people had. Pallet wrap and other random boxes strewn all over the floor.
I agree completely that Albertsons ran a very weak Thanksgiving ad -- especially in Southern California. OTOH, it was very challenging to find most of Ralph's / Smith's advertised specials in stock. For example, in my multiple visits, I did not spot a single case of Diet Coke -- and just a handful of Coke. That's pretty incredible. Both Albertsons and Kroger are running very weak ads for the post-Thanksgiving stub; with many people choosing (or not having much of a choice) to eat at home, demand is likely very strong. I had an insanely hard time finding a brick of Velveeta cheese (!!!), until I ran into a Walmart (which was suppose to be a restroom stop) that literally had a pallet of them.
Did you go to the Smiths Marketplace up on Skye Canyon? That is their newest store there and it is very nice. Nearby Albertsons (an exit south) was built as a Grocery Palace, got a Supervalu remodel, and then most recently got a Colorful Lifestyle remodel (probably to combat the new Smiths). If you go another exit down from there, there is a big Vons, about 15 years old. It never got a Lifestyle remodel and does very little business. I am sure it was on the way out under Safeway, but the changes Arizona made in pricing and promotions must be getting it enough traffic to survive. There is also a nicely maintained Jewel interior Albertsons SE of there on Ann. That NW part of Las Vegas seems to have the nicest stores.
I haven't been into the Skye Canyon Smith's, but I'll be sure to check it out! The decor looks interesting. Most of the Smith's I've been in historically are original Smith's, and have the hybrid wood / pressed concrete / titled floor in the produce / meat / deli / bakery area that looks ridiculous.
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Re: Albertsons Las Vegas Observations

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Bagels wrote: November 27th, 2020, 10:40 am
I agree completely that Albertsons ran a very weak Thanksgiving ad -- especially in Southern California. OTOH, it was very challenging to find most of Ralph's / Smith's advertised specials in stock. For example, in my multiple visits, I did not spot a single case of Diet Coke -- and just a handful of Coke. That's pretty incredible. Both Albertsons and Kroger are running very weak ads for the post-Thanksgiving stub; with many people choosing (or not having much of a choice) to eat at home, demand is likely very strong. I had an insanely hard time finding a brick of Velveeta cheese (!!!), until I ran into a Walmart (which was suppose to be a restroom stop) that literally had a pallet of them.

I haven't been into the Skye Canyon Smith's, but I'll be sure to check it out! The decor looks interesting. Most of the Smith's I've been in historically are original Smith's, and have the hybrid wood / pressed concrete / titled floor in the produce / meat / deli / bakery area that looks ridiculous.
Safeway NorCal currently has no ad running other than the monthly savings book. No $5 Friday single page flyer or anything. Smiths has a small ad running- as they always have during this period even before they were bought by Fred Meyer. There is more food now than there used to be, but about half of the ad is non-food. Smiths has a bunch of $249 TV's again- have not seen those in a few years. The store I was in the other night had at least 25 of them available.

Smiths did a really good job being in-stock this year on Thanksgiving items from what I saw up here in Reno (these stores get dry goods from Las Vegas and get perishables from Utah). Maybe they are just sending more full trucks up here due to the distance.

The Sparks Smiths has the interior you describe- and the remodel they did, is so terrible. The fresh departments are done okay (bakery, deli, produce, meat- all have a good layout and decent spacing- same way they were set up before the remodel). The rest of the store is just awful. The aisles are too narrow, facings are all misallocated with surprisingly few facings of items you would expect to have more facings, causing empty shelves quickly, the cement floors are in horrible condition full of stains, there are only 5 checkouts with little space for lines to form (there are a ton of self checkouts, also with no space for lines to form); this is a huge store but the way it is set up since this most recent Kroger remodel makes it difficult to move around the store and social distancing is particularly challenging due to the terrible Kroger remodel that was done to this store. The Smiths down in Carson City is an old Smiths of the same era as Sparks but hasn't gotten as much capex (basically all it has gotten is a single low budget Kroger remodel that repainted the walls, installed some new refrigeration at the back of the store, and put in some new cases around the perimeter; then early this year they also demolished/remodeled the pharmacy which previously was original to the late 80's and a was a bit small) and while it is definitely a run down store, somehow it seems better than the Sparks one since the layout is basically preserved to late 80's Smiths and there is proper spacing throughout the store since it has not been screwed up by Kroger's recent remodel program which is an absolute disaster. Kroger's store remodels in the past few years have been absolutely terrible (before that, they did good remodels that actually improved the stores- I don't know what happened) and completely screwed up the layout and flow of the stores particularly in center store and front end. Their new built Marketplace Stores the past few years, however, are very nice and do not seem to have any of these layout issues.

Those SoCal Stores with a Jewel Layout and Grocery Palace interior were probably built as or planned as Lucky and got a decor swap.
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Re: Albertsons Las Vegas Observations

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

Bagels wrote: November 27th, 2020, 10:40 am One store was off Eastern Ave (not far from the airport), the other was in Henderson. Both stores had a full "Grocery Palace" interior (no Supervalu signage, etc.). The stores in SoCal that opened with the "Grocery Palace" interior had the Jewel layout; these stores do not.
Only Tustin, Murrieta, and Wildomar were the only Grocery Place stores in SoCal to get a Jewel layout. One store in Orange (Chapman) got a similar layout, but with "Blue & Green Awnings" decor.
Most Grocery Palaces in SoCal got this layout: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tHTmaGSKsuU/U ... Layout.jpg
There is one Albertsons off Maryland Pkwy that was planned by Lucky, but opened as an Albertsons in 2000. https://lasvegassun.com/news/2000/apr/2 ... las-vegas/
This store had Jewel decor until 2016, when it got LLC decor - what a downgrade.
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Re: Albertsons Las Vegas Observations

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storewanderer wrote: November 27th, 2020, 1:03 pmSafeway NorCal currently has no ad running other than the monthly savings book. No $5 Friday single page flyer or anything. Smiths has a small ad running- as they always have during this period even before they were bought by Fred Meyer. There is more food now than there used to be, but about half of the ad is non-food. Smiths has a bunch of $249 TV's again- have not seen those in a few years. The store I was in the other night had at least 25 of them available.

Smiths did a really good job being in-stock this year on Thanksgiving items from what I saw up here in Reno (these stores get dry goods from Las Vegas and get perishables from Utah). Maybe they are just sending more full trucks up here due to the distance.

The Sparks Smiths has the interior you describe- and the remodel they did, is so terrible. The fresh departments are done okay (bakery, deli, produce, meat- all have a good layout and decent spacing- same way they were set up before the remodel). The rest of the store is just awful. The aisles are too narrow, facings are all misallocated with surprisingly few facings of items you would expect to have more facings, causing empty shelves quickly, the cement floors are in horrible condition full of stains, there are only 5 checkouts with little space for lines to form (there are a ton of self checkouts, also with no space for lines to form); this is a huge store but the way it is set up since this most recent Kroger remodel makes it difficult to move around the store and social distancing is particularly challenging due to the terrible Kroger remodel that was done to this store. The Smiths down in Carson City is an old Smiths of the same era as Sparks but hasn't gotten as much capex (basically all it has gotten is a single low budget Kroger remodel that repainted the walls, installed some new refrigeration at the back of the store, and put in some new cases around the perimeter; then early this year they also demolished/remodeled the pharmacy which previously was original to the late 80's and a was a bit small) and while it is definitely a run down store, somehow it seems better than the Sparks one since the layout is basically preserved to late 80's Smiths and there is proper spacing throughout the store since it has not been screwed up by Kroger's recent remodel program which is an absolute disaster. Kroger's store remodels in the past few years have been absolutely terrible (before that, they did good remodels that actually improved the stores- I don't know what happened) and completely screwed up the layout and flow of the stores particularly in center store and front end. Their new built Marketplace Stores the past few years, however, are very nice and do not seem to have any of these layout issues.

Those SoCal Stores with a Jewel Layout and Grocery Palace interior were probably built as or planned as Lucky and got a decor swap.
I visited the Smith's in Mesquite as well. The store had been completely renovated since I last visited this past summer. The result was pretty nice -- even the wood flooring within the produce department was replaced with a newer, lighter (faux?) wood floor. This store also now features a new generation of furniture/fixtures in the produce department (the first time I've seen them; within the past year or so, I've been in a few new construction stores that featured the legacy versions). A step in the right direction! On the disappointing side, most of the prepared deli as well as bakery items are standardizing toward the legacy Midwestern product (which is featured in Ralph's, among other stores).

Kroger spent a lot of money on this remodel. I'm surprised, since it underwent an extensive renovation about a decade ago. The store is about 30yo and completes with a newish Walmart Supercenter nearby. There's only ~20K people living in the Mesquite area.
retailfanmitchell019 wrote: November 27th, 2020, 1:26 pm Only Tustin, Murrieta, and Wildomar were the only Grocery Place stores in SoCal to get a Jewel layout. One store in Orange (Chapman) got a similar layout, but with "Blue & Green Awnings" decor.
Most Grocery Palaces in SoCal got this layout: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tHTmaGSKsuU/U ... Layout.jpg
There is one Albertsons off Maryland Pkwy that was planned by Lucky, but opened as an Albertsons in 2000. https://lasvegassun.com/news/2000/apr/2 ... las-vegas/
This store had Jewel decor until 2016, when it got LLC decor - what a downgrade.
Thank you for that! It's interesting how Albertsons moved forward in renovating stores in Utah, Idaho, etc. with the "Grocery Palace" interior (granted, the renovations didn't look as nice as new builds) whereas stores in SoCal, Nevada, etc. received a much cheaper renovation.

One of the "zombie" Albertsons I visited in the late 2000s was off Maryland Parkway. I'm not certain if it's the same store mentioned in the article, but it definitely had the Grocery Palace interior. Great looking store, but virtually no consumers. The aging Smith's across the street was booming, and there was another chain store (can't remember if it was Vons or Walmart) nearby.
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