Ralphs new strategy

[klkla]

I was reading the following article about how demographic changes in the city of Alhambra have changed the grocery industry there (for those not familiar with this city there has been huge growth in the city's Chinese population). The article is interesting to read and could be a topic on it's own but what caught my attention was the photo which appears to be taken at a new or very recently remodeled Ralphs store.

I thought it was a mistake but it turns out that Ralphs had decided not to renew the lease according to the article and 99 Ranch Market took over last year. They literally kept every element of the Ralphs interior package right down to the aisle markers. I'm surprised that Ralphs (AKA Kroger) didn't remove some of these features or insist that they remove them. They did remodel the seafood area, though, a couple months ago but that's it.

I'm really surprised that Ralphs closed the store so soon after doing a major remodel, which seems to coincide with their pulling back in other mid-to-low income areas of the San Gabriel Valley, Inland Empire and Orange county and something must have happened to change their strategy since doing that remodel. I think the change in strategy is because of all the additional stores in the market that will be opened by Smart & Final Extra, Aldi and other low cost chains. Evidently they have come to the conclusion that a good return on investment going forward in locations that are likely to be impacted by all the new competition just isn't possible so they are letting these stores go as their leases come up and investing in the stores where the barriers to entry make it unlikely that these new competitors would be successful. I'm guessing they will probably close 4-5 of these stores a year going forward and their store count will decline but the company will ultimately remain successful because they're continuing to invest heavily in the stores where there more likely to succeed, which is probably a good strategy.

Here is the article I referenced in the beginning:
http://www.latimes.com/local/california ... story.html

Here are photos of the store from Yelp:
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/99-ranch-market-alhambra

And somewhat unrelated but still interesting is a report yesterday from a Las Vegas TV station about a 99 Ranch Market having a C Health Department rating in their Service Deli.

"Health inspectors found water from thawing raw duck and chicken draining directly onto thawing raw beef. Raw chicken was also stored at room temperature. And a whole raw pig was left unattended on the back prep table at room temperature. And holy cross-contamination, Batman! Raw duck and chicken were thawing in the same basin as raw pork."

http://www.ktnv.com/news/dirty-dining/d ... nch-market

[pseudo3d]

I was reading the following article about how demographic changes in the city of Alhambra have changed the grocery industry there (for those not familiar with this city there has been huge growth in the city's Chinese population). The article is interesting to read and could be a topic on it's own but what caught my attention was the photo which appears to be taken at a new or very recently remodeled Ralphs store.

I thought it was a mistake but it turns out that Ralphs had decided not to renew the lease according to the article and 99 Ranch Market took over last year. They literally kept every element of the Ralphs interior package right down to the aisle markers. I'm surprised that Ralphs (AKA Kroger) didn't remove some of these features or insist that they remove them. They did remodel the seafood area, though, a couple months ago but that's it.

I'm really surprised that Ralphs closed the store so soon after doing a major remodel, which seems to coincide with their pulling back in other mid-to-low income areas of the San Gabriel Valley, Inland Empire and Orange county and something must have happened to change their strategy since doing that remodel. I think the change in strategy is because of all the additional stores in the market that will be opened by Smart & Final Extra, Aldi and other low cost chains. Evidently they have come to the conclusion that a good return on investment going forward in locations that are likely to be impacted by all the new competition just isn't possible so they are letting these stores go as their leases come up and investing in the stores where the barriers to entry make it unlikely that these new competitors would be successful. I'm guessing they will probably close 4-5 of these stores a year going forward and their store count will decline but the company will ultimately remain successful because they're continuing to invest heavily in the stores where there more likely to succeed, which is probably a good strategy.

Here is the article I referenced in the beginning:
http://www.latimes.com/local/california ... story.html

Here are photos of the store from Yelp:
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/99-ranch-market-alhambra

And somewhat unrelated but still interesting is a report yesterday from a Las Vegas TV station about a 99 Ranch Market having a C Health Department rating in their Service Deli.

"Health inspectors found water from thawing raw duck and chicken draining directly onto thawing raw beef. Raw chicken was also stored at room temperature. And a whole raw pig was left unattended on the back prep table at room temperature. And holy cross-contamination, Batman! Raw duck and chicken were thawing in the same basin as raw pork."

http://www.ktnv.com/news/dirty-dining/d ... nch-market

I know Kroger often took old décor--a number of Houston Albertsons Kroger in 2002 had Albertsons stuff in a Kroger, but to see modern Kroger décor in a decidedly-not-Kroger-at-all store is definitely unique. The 99 Ranch Market near me was originally a Fiesta (one of the new-build stores from 1990) and at least a full quarter of the store space was turned into a mini-mall area.

[storewanderer]

I went into that Alhambra Ranch 99 former Ralphs late last year and I too was very confused why Kroger closed (sold?) a store that had recently received such a detailed remodel. I think CalItalian may have some additional comments on this.

[CalItalian]

That's certainly the second most recent "look" that Ralphs stores have (right down to the polished concrete floors). It is the one they are doing away with now, though (but what Smith's still seems to be using in the most recent remodels in Las Vegas).

What can you do in Arcadia since the demographics have changed so much with mostly newly immigrated (with money...some shady) Chinese nationals buying up the city and building mega-mansions on small lots there.

Looks like the Ralphs that is closing this weekend in Arcadia hasn't had a remodel in quite some time...someone has posted photos of the shelves being emptied during the store closing sale on Yelp. https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/ralphs-arcadia

[veteran+]

I was reading the following article about how demographic changes in the city of Alhambra have changed the grocery industry there (for those not familiar with this city there has been huge growth in the city's Chinese population). The article is interesting to read and could be a topic on it's own but what caught my attention was the photo which appears to be taken at a new or very recently remodeled Ralphs store.

I thought it was a mistake but it turns out that Ralphs had decided not to renew the lease according to the article and 99 Ranch Market took over last year. They literally kept every element of the Ralphs interior package right down to the aisle markers. I'm surprised that Ralphs (AKA Kroger) didn't remove some of these features or insist that they remove them. They did remodel the seafood area, though, a couple months ago but that's it.

I'm really surprised that Ralphs closed the store so soon after doing a major remodel, which seems to coincide with their pulling back in other mid-to-low income areas of the San Gabriel Valley, Inland Empire and Orange county and something must have happened to change their strategy since doing that remodel. I think the change in strategy is because of all the additional stores in the market that will be opened by Smart & Final Extra, Aldi and other low cost chains. Evidently they have come to the conclusion that a good return on investment going forward in locations that are likely to be impacted by all the new competition just isn't possible so they are letting these stores go as their leases come up and investing in the stores where the barriers to entry make it unlikely that these new competitors would be successful. I'm guessing they will probably close 4-5 of these stores a year going forward and their store count will decline but the company will ultimately remain successful because they're continuing to invest heavily in the stores where there more likely to succeed, which is probably a good strategy.

Here is the article I referenced in the beginning:
http://www.latimes.com/local/california ... story.html

Here are photos of the store from Yelp:
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/99-ranch-market-alhambra

And somewhat unrelated but still interesting is a report yesterday from a Las Vegas TV station about a 99 Ranch Market having a C Health Department rating in their Service Deli.

"Health inspectors found water from thawing raw duck and chicken draining directly onto thawing raw beef. Raw chicken was also stored at room temperature. And a whole raw pig was left unattended on the back prep table at room temperature. And holy cross-contamination, Batman! Raw duck and chicken were thawing in the same basin as raw pork."

http://www.ktnv.com/news/dirty-dining/d ... nch-market

I think that is probably a sound theory but if only we could be a fly on the wall

My take is not so much competition, because Kroger has a good if not excellent track record in dealing with just about any type competitor. I believe they perform a detailed "root cause analysis" on demographics. Based on their research, they choose where to stay or when to leave.

Regarding 99 Ranch Market, is that an ethnic store? And, were/are they in Los Angeles?

[pseudo3d]

I was reading the following article about how demographic changes in the city of Alhambra have changed the grocery industry there (for those not familiar with this city there has been huge growth in the city's Chinese population). The article is interesting to read and could be a topic on it's own but what caught my attention was the photo which appears to be taken at a new or very recently remodeled Ralphs store.

I thought it was a mistake but it turns out that Ralphs had decided not to renew the lease according to the article and 99 Ranch Market took over last year. They literally kept every element of the Ralphs interior package right down to the aisle markers. I'm surprised that Ralphs (AKA Kroger) didn't remove some of these features or insist that they remove them. They did remodel the seafood area, though, a couple months ago but that's it.

I'm really surprised that Ralphs closed the store so soon after doing a major remodel, which seems to coincide with their pulling back in other mid-to-low income areas of the San Gabriel Valley, Inland Empire and Orange county and something must have happened to change their strategy since doing that remodel. I think the change in strategy is because of all the additional stores in the market that will be opened by Smart & Final Extra, Aldi and other low cost chains. Evidently they have come to the conclusion that a good return on investment going forward in locations that are likely to be impacted by all the new competition just isn't possible so they are letting these stores go as their leases come up and investing in the stores where the barriers to entry make it unlikely that these new competitors would be successful. I'm guessing they will probably close 4-5 of these stores a year going forward and their store count will decline but the company will ultimately remain successful because they're continuing to invest heavily in the stores where there more likely to succeed, which is probably a good strategy.

Here is the article I referenced in the beginning:
http://www.latimes.com/local/california ... story.html

Here are photos of the store from Yelp:
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/99-ranch-market-alhambra

And somewhat unrelated but still interesting is a report yesterday from a Las Vegas TV station about a 99 Ranch Market having a C Health Department rating in their Service Deli.

"Health inspectors found water from thawing raw duck and chicken draining directly onto thawing raw beef. Raw chicken was also stored at room temperature. And a whole raw pig was left unattended on the back prep table at room temperature. And holy cross-contamination, Batman! Raw duck and chicken were thawing in the same basin as raw pork."

http://www.ktnv.com/news/dirty-dining/d ... nch-market

I think that is probably a sound theory but if only we could be a fly on the wall

My take is not so much competition, because Kroger has a good if not excellent track record in dealing with just about any type competitor. I believe they perform a detailed "root cause analysis" on demographics. Based on their research, they choose where to stay or when to leave.

Regarding 99 Ranch Market, is that an ethnic store? And, were/are they in Los Angeles?

Yeah, it's an Asian market chain with locations in SoCal (inc. LA), though it has some locations scattered in Nevada, Washington, and a few in Texas. Despite being far removed from California, the ones in Texas are company-owned...and said location near me has pretty terrible in-and-out access but is super-popular.

[veteran+]

I was reading the following article about how demographic changes in the city of Alhambra have changed the grocery industry there (for those not familiar with this city there has been huge growth in the city's Chinese population). The article is interesting to read and could be a topic on it's own but what caught my attention was the photo which appears to be taken at a new or very recently remodeled Ralphs store.

I thought it was a mistake but it turns out that Ralphs had decided not to renew the lease according to the article and 99 Ranch Market took over last year. They literally kept every element of the Ralphs interior package right down to the aisle markers. I'm surprised that Ralphs (AKA Kroger) didn't remove some of these features or insist that they remove them. They did remodel the seafood area, though, a couple months ago but that's it.

I'm really surprised that Ralphs closed the store so soon after doing a major remodel, which seems to coincide with their pulling back in other mid-to-low income areas of the San Gabriel Valley, Inland Empire and Orange county and something must have happened to change their strategy since doing that remodel. I think the change in strategy is because of all the additional stores in the market that will be opened by Smart & Final Extra, Aldi and other low cost chains. Evidently they have come to the conclusion that a good return on investment going forward in locations that are likely to be impacted by all the new competition just isn't possible so they are letting these stores go as their leases come up and investing in the stores where the barriers to entry make it unlikely that these new competitors would be successful. I'm guessing they will probably close 4-5 of these stores a year going forward and their store count will decline but the company will ultimately remain successful because they're continuing to invest heavily in the stores where there more likely to succeed, which is probably a good strategy.

Here is the article I referenced in the beginning:
http://www.latimes.com/local/california ... story.html

Here are photos of the store from Yelp:
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/99-ranch-market-alhambra

And somewhat unrelated but still interesting is a report yesterday from a Las Vegas TV station about a 99 Ranch Market having a C Health Department rating in their Service Deli.

"Health inspectors found water from thawing raw duck and chicken draining directly onto thawing raw beef. Raw chicken was also stored at room temperature. And a whole raw pig was left unattended on the back prep table at room temperature. And holy cross-contamination, Batman! Raw duck and chicken were thawing in the same basin as raw pork."

http://www.ktnv.com/news/dirty-dining/d ... nch-market

I think that is probably a sound theory but if only we could be a fly on the wall

My take is not so much competition, because Kroger has a good if not excellent track record in dealing with just about any type competitor. I believe they perform a detailed "root cause analysis" on demographics. Based on their research, they choose where to stay or when to leave.

Regarding 99 Ranch Market, is that an ethnic store? And, were/are they in Los Angeles?

Yeah, it's an Asian market chain with locations in SoCal (inc. LA), though it has some locations scattered in Nevada, Washington, and a few in Texas. Despite being far removed from California, the ones in Texas are company-owned...and said location near me has pretty terrible in-and-out access but is super-popular.

Yeah, I have been in a couple of their stores and was turned off by some freshness issues, flies in produce and sanitation issues. But they are popular stores so I'm sure they must be doing something right.

[storewanderer]

Ranch 99 doesn't seem to run real clean stores, but they are high foot traffic and with the heavy amount of seafood being sold I think that leads to some cleanliness issues. I have found Seafood City seems to run cleaner stores despite having even more seafood so I am not sure what they are doing different. Ranch 99 seems to like taking over conventional stores and not doing much inside. In Foster City, CA they took over a Joey Franco's PW Market (this was a 10 or so store chain in San Jose who had excellent meat and deli but not great center store supplied by Unified with fairly high pricing). Foster City was one of their newest stores and it was sold to Ranch 99 shortly after opening. Ranch 99 took it over and expanded seafood but didn't do much else; even integrated their hot chinese food area into the old PW hot chinese food area (PW also had great hot pasta and grill to order in some of its stores). Ranch 99 kept all the fixtures, flooring, etc. but made the store their own. The store is now smelling of fish, the floor feels rather sticky, and in general it is quite cluttered. What was once a nice upscale store just doesn't feel that way anymore.

But the Sacramento Ranch 99 is a former Lucky/Sav-On and they completely gutted and remodeled that for some reason. That store was half remodeled when Save Mart decided to close it. It never converted to Save Mart but the inside had all of the Lucky decor removed and walls repainted. I think Ranch 99 may not be using all of the space and maybe that explains the remodel. The standard Lucky Sav-On layout was there (produce, bakery, deli, meat all on one side, then the other side was all drugs). Ranch 99 fresh departments are in all different places.

[veteran+]

Ranch 99 doesn't seem to run real clean stores, but they are high foot traffic and with the heavy amount of seafood being sold I think that leads to some cleanliness issues. I have found Seafood City seems to run cleaner stores despite having even more seafood so I am not sure what they are doing different. Ranch 99 seems to like taking over conventional stores and not doing much inside. In Foster City, CA they took over a Joey Franco's PW Market (this was a 10 or so store chain in San Jose who had excellent meat and deli but not great center store supplied by Unified with fairly high pricing). Foster City was one of their newest stores and it was sold to Ranch 99 shortly after opening. Ranch 99 took it over and expanded seafood but didn't do much else; even integrated their hot chinese food area into the old PW hot chinese food area (PW also had great hot pasta and grill to order in some of its stores). Ranch 99 kept all the fixtures, flooring, etc. but made the store their own. The store is now smelling of fish, the floor feels rather sticky, and in general it is quite cluttered. What was once a nice upscale store just doesn't feel that way anymore.

But the Sacramento Ranch 99 is a former Lucky/Sav-On and they completely gutted and remodeled that for some reason. That store was half remodeled when Save Mart decided to close it. It never converted to Save Mart but the inside had all of the Lucky decor removed and walls repainted. I think Ranch 99 may not be using all of the space and maybe that explains the remodel. The standard Lucky Sav-On layout was there (produce, bakery, deli, meat all on one side, then the other side was all drugs). Ranch 99 fresh departments are in all different places.

I believe you are correct.

Sedano's Market (cuban market) had the same exact issues except worse. Also their customer service was awful.

And you know, I was never too happy with the shopping experience at Jon's in Los Angeles. The I first experienced Jon's it was the one on Fountain Av. and I think La Brea. It looked like they catered to Russian and Eastern European immigrants. The staff was rude and the perishables were chaotic and not fresh looking.

Perhaps all of the above is reason for my negative bias towards ethnic grocers.

[rwsandiego]

Ranch 99 doesn't seem to run real clean stores, but they are high foot traffic and with the heavy amount of seafood being sold I think that leads to some cleanliness issues. I have found Seafood City seems to run cleaner stores despite having even more seafood so I am not sure what they are doing different. Ranch 99 seems to like taking over conventional stores and not doing much inside. In Foster City, CA they took over a Joey Franco's PW Market (this was a 10 or so store chain in San Jose who had excellent meat and deli but not great center store supplied by Unified with fairly high pricing). Foster City was one of their newest stores and it was sold to Ranch 99 shortly after opening. Ranch 99 took it over and expanded seafood but didn't do much else; even integrated their hot chinese food area into the old PW hot chinese food area (PW also had great hot pasta and grill to order in some of its stores). Ranch 99 kept all the fixtures, flooring, etc. but made the store their own. The store is now smelling of fish, the floor feels rather sticky, and in general it is quite cluttered. What was once a nice upscale store just doesn't feel that way anymore.

But the Sacramento Ranch 99 is a former Lucky/Sav-On and they completely gutted and remodeled that for some reason. That store was half remodeled when Save Mart decided to close it. It never converted to Save Mart but the inside had all of the Lucky decor removed and walls repainted. I think Ranch 99 may not be using all of the space and maybe that explains the remodel. The standard Lucky Sav-On layout was there (produce, bakery, deli, meat all on one side, then the other side was all drugs). Ranch 99 fresh departments are in all different places.

I believe you are correct.

Sedano's Market (cuban market) had the same exact issues except worse. Also their customer service was awful.

And you know, I was never too happy with the shopping experience at Jon's in Los Angeles. The I first experienced Jon's it was the one on Fountain Av. and I think La Brea. It looked like they catered to Russian and Eastern European immigrants. The staff was rude and the perishables were chaotic and not fresh looking.

Perhaps all of the above is reason for my negative bias towards ethnic grocers.

Oh, man, that Fountain and La Brea Jon's was hideous. By comparison, the Vermont and Hollywood Blvd store is a palace of cleanliness.

That being said, the Ranch 99 in San Diego's Kearny Mesa community (on Clairemont Mesa Blvd) is a pretty clean store. I stopped in last week expecting the worst and was surprised to find it very nicely decorated and clean. By contrast, the Zion Marketplace down the street was not dirty, per se, but I would not call it particularly inviting.