Smith's California Adventure

California. No non-grocery posts.
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retailfanmitchell019
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Smith's California Adventure

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

kr.abs.swy wrote: March 6th, 2020, 7:06 am This store has co-existed with a WinCo store that is essentially across the street for about 20 years. Now Kroger is throwing in the towel ...

I agree with StoreWanderer. It is silly to think that the Fred Meyer is positioned to capture the majority of this store's business.

The Smith's would have opened somewhere around 1989-1991. I have no idea whether that is owned real estate, but it could be that a 25-year lease with a five-year extension or a 30-year lease has come to an end.
Most Smith's stores from the 80's and 90's seem to have one exit and entrance in the center of the storefront. These older Smith's are quite large for a conventional supermarket.
I wonder why Smith's failed in SoCal in the 90's?
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Post by pseudo3d »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: March 6th, 2020, 6:11 pm
kr.abs.swy wrote: March 6th, 2020, 7:06 am This store has co-existed with a WinCo store that is essentially across the street for about 20 years. Now Kroger is throwing in the towel ...

I agree with StoreWanderer. It is silly to think that the Fred Meyer is positioned to capture the majority of this store's business.

The Smith's would have opened somewhere around 1989-1991. I have no idea whether that is owned real estate, but it could be that a 25-year lease with a five-year extension or a 30-year lease has come to an end.
Most Smith's stores from the 80's and 90's seem to have one exit and entrance in the center of the storefront. These older Smith's are quite large for a conventional supermarket.
I wonder why Smith's failed in SoCal in the 90's?
From reading, they had to devote a lot more resources to the region than they really wanted or had the means to. To even get 6% of the market share, they had to open at least 50+ stores, and Smith's comparatively huge stores to competition (70k square feet) made it hard to get a good ROI.
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Post by klkla »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: March 6th, 2020, 6:11 pm I wonder why Smith's failed in SoCal in the 90's?
Because they couldn't find enough good locations that would support a 70-80,000 sq. ft. store. Real estate was and is too expensive in SoCal. As a result they opened up a lot stores in subpar locations that weren't profitable.
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Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

klkla wrote: March 6th, 2020, 7:47 pm
retailfanmitchell019 wrote: March 6th, 2020, 6:11 pm I wonder why Smith's failed in SoCal in the 90's?
Because they couldn't find enough good locations that would support a 70-80,000 sq. ft. store. Real estate was and is too expensive in SoCal. As a result they opened up a lot stores in subpar locations that weren't profitable.
Smith's exited SoCal in 1996. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html

If I recall correctly, Smith's had three stores in San Diego County (where I live). Two of these stores no longer sell groceries.
Vista: sold to Ralphs, became a Food 4 Less (still operating today)
Santee: now a megachurch. Albertsons planned to move into this store in 1999, but instead took over the Lucky up the street.
El Cajon: became a Lucky, then Albertsons, closed by SVU in 2010 or so, now subdivided between a Ross and 24 Hour Fitness.
These stores were built from 1993 to 1995.
Last edited by retailfanmitchell019 on February 17th, 2022, 2:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by rwsandiego »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: March 7th, 2020, 1:39 pm
klkla wrote: March 6th, 2020, 7:47 pm
retailfanmitchell019 wrote: March 6th, 2020, 6:11 pm I wonder why Smith's failed in SoCal in the 90's?
Because they couldn't find enough good locations that would support a 70-80,000 sq. ft. store. Real estate was and is too expensive in SoCal. As a result they opened up a lot stores in subpar locations that weren't profitable.
Smith's exited SoCal in 1996. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html

If I recall correctly, Smith's had three stores in San Diego County (where I live). Two of these stores no longer sell groceries.
Vista: sold to Ralphs, became a Food 4 Less (still operating today)
Santee: now a megachurch
El Cajon: became a Lucky, then Albertsons, closed by SVU in 2010 or so, now subdivided between a Ross and 24 Hour Fitness.
These stores were built from 1993 to 1995.
If memory serves correctly, they also had one at LaJolla Village Square. It is a Ralphs now.
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Post by storewanderer »

klkla wrote: March 6th, 2020, 7:47 pm
retailfanmitchell019 wrote: March 6th, 2020, 6:11 pm I wonder why Smith's failed in SoCal in the 90's?
Because they couldn't find enough good locations that would support a 70-80,000 sq. ft. store. Real estate was and is too expensive in SoCal. As a result they opened up a lot stores in subpar locations that weren't profitable.
They opened stores that were too big and could not pull the sales volumes they needed. They pulled good volumes, higher than other stores in CA were pulling, but they were too low given the size of the stores was simply too large. They did go with a scaled down store size by the mid 90's but by then they were in way too deep. Lucky and Vons fought them pretty hard on price.

Recall their SoCal exit was right about when they decided to buy Smitty's in AZ. They also seemed to be building a good number of stores elsewhere in the mid 90's as they were exiting CA as well. I am sure they lost a lot of money on their CA venture and it may have been what ultimately pushed the sale to Fred Meyer.
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Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote: March 7th, 2020, 11:15 pm
klkla wrote: March 6th, 2020, 7:47 pm
retailfanmitchell019 wrote: March 6th, 2020, 6:11 pm I wonder why Smith's failed in SoCal in the 90's?
Because they couldn't find enough good locations that would support a 70-80,000 sq. ft. store. Real estate was and is too expensive in SoCal. As a result they opened up a lot stores in subpar locations that weren't profitable.
They opened stores that were too big and could not pull the sales volumes they needed. They pulled good volumes, higher than other stores in CA were pulling, but they were too low given the size of the stores was simply too large. They did go with a scaled down store size by the mid 90's but by then they were in way too deep. Lucky and Vons fought them pretty hard on price.

Recall their SoCal exit was right about when they decided to buy Smitty's in AZ. They also seemed to be building a good number of stores elsewhere in the mid 90's as they were exiting CA as well. I am sure they lost a lot of money on their CA venture and it may have been what ultimately pushed the sale to Fred Meyer.
Smith's also made a strange move around 1988-1989 when they pulled completely out of Boise because they couldn't get approval to build a new, larger store. Smith's eventually decided to return to Boise (I am not sure if any of their old locations reopened) and got approval for a new store on Fairview, and construction began but ground to a halt when Fred Meyer acquired Smith's. The building sat in this state for several years and eventually became a car dealership. Because of how things happened in Boise, I am surprised that they have kept stores in Idaho open this long.
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Post by veteran+ »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: March 7th, 2020, 1:39 pm
klkla wrote: March 6th, 2020, 7:47 pm
retailfanmitchell019 wrote: March 6th, 2020, 6:11 pm I wonder why Smith's failed in SoCal in the 90's?
Because they couldn't find enough good locations that would support a 70-80,000 sq. ft. store. Real estate was and is too expensive in SoCal. As a result they opened up a lot stores in subpar locations that weren't profitable.
Smith's exited SoCal in 1996. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html

If I recall correctly, Smith's had three stores in San Diego County (where I live). Two of these stores no longer sell groceries.
Vista: sold to Ralphs, became a Food 4 Less (still operating today)
Santee: now a megachurch
El Cajon: became a Lucky, then Albertsons, closed by SVU in 2010 or so, now subdivided between a Ross and 24 Hour Fitness.
These stores were built from 1993 to 1995.
I'm pretty certain there was one in Palm Springs on HWY 111
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Post by klkla »

veteran+ wrote: March 8th, 2020, 10:42 amI'm pretty certain there was one in Palm Springs on HWY 111
You are correct. But it wasn't from this expansion program in the 90's. That store dated back to the Smiths Food King days. It was probably one of the last stores they built before leaving SoCal the first time in the 80's. It was at the corner of North Palm Canyon Drive and Racquet Club Rd in North Palm Springs.

You can still see the outline of the store on Google maps:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Palm+ ... 16.5452921
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Post by klkla »

storewanderer wrote: March 7th, 2020, 11:15 pm They opened stores that were too big and could not pull the sales volumes they needed. They pulled good volumes, higher than other stores in CA were pulling, but they were too low given the size of the stores was simply too large. They did go with a scaled down store size by the mid 90's but by then they were in way too deep. Lucky and Vons fought them pretty hard on price.
Only about a third of their stores were viable. The others failed for one reason: Crappy real estate!
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