Bristol Farms (former Vons) Santa Barbara Opening August 20

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Bristol Farms (former Vons) Santa Barbara Opening August 20

Post by CalItalian »

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Re: Bristol Farms (former Vons) Santa Barbara Opening August 20

Post by steps »

Vons missed the chance on making this a Pavilions if Bristol Farms works out.

Was there a landlord dispute or is there an Albertsons near by?
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Re: Bristol Farms (former Vons) Santa Barbara Opening August 20

Post by storewanderer »

There was an Albertsons right across the parking lot, it was divested to Haggen and then got taken by Smart & Final Extra. It was a well performing Albertsons with a good remodel by Supervalu (I suppose that isn't saying much).

The Vons, which closed in 2018, was a dive.
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Re: Bristol Farms (former Vons) Santa Barbara Opening August 20

Post by klkla »

Albertson's definitely played their hand wrong in this situation. They decided to divest the newer & larger Albertson's next door and keep the smaller & older Vons when they merged. Then they lost the lease to the Vons and now have no stores in the most densely populated part of Santa Barbara.

They only have one very small 15,000 sq ft store in an area with a much smaller population that competes with a popular Lazy Acres across the street.
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Re: Bristol Farms (former Vons) Santa Barbara Opening August 20

Post by storewanderer »

klkla wrote: August 19th, 2020, 12:02 pm Albertson's definitely played their hand wrong in this situation. They decided to divest the newer & larger Albertson's next door and keep the smaller & older Vons when they merged. Then they lost the lease to the Vons and now have no stores in the most densely populated part of Santa Barbara.

They only have one very small 15,000 sq ft store in an area with a much smaller population that competes with a popular Lazy Acres across the street.
My guess is they were thrown a couple curves:
1. First Smart & Final expressed interest in the failed Haggen
2. Then Bristol Farms expressed interest in their old dive Vons

I think Albertsons plan selling to Haggen was to get their old store back then control both stores and get one of them subleased out to some non grocery use. Maybe Albertsons can get its old store back still in the future.

The entire central coast and how things settled out was a real mess with the Haggen fiasco (Haggen got some decent stores around there, except for the dog Vons in Los Osos). Albertsons did not reclaim many stores (they got back that little tiny Cliff Albertsons in Santa Barbara and rebranded it to Vons).

I don't know why Ralphs did not go in there and make an offer for every one of those Central Coast Haggen stores. They offered on the Goleta Vons (which ended up going to Sprouts) only. Another major missed opportunity for Kroger out west. Ralphs took over a lot of Lucky Stores in that region in 2000 and failed with many of them but the issue at that time was Albertsons invested major dollars on new stores/upgrades usually in close proximity to those divested smaller Lucky Stores so Ralphs was dealing with a dated facility up against some very nice new stores. Ralphs pricing now is also a lot sharper than it was in 2000. I think Ralphs could have been successful this time.
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Re: Bristol Farms (former Vons) Santa Barbara Opening August 20

Post by klkla »

storewanderer wrote: August 19th, 2020, 10:00 pm
My guess is they were thrown a couple curves

...

I don't know why Ralphs did not go in there and make an offer for every one of those Central Coast Haggen stores. They offered on the Goleta Vons (which ended up going to Sprouts) only. Another major missed opportunity for Kroger out west. Ralphs took over a lot of Lucky Stores in that region in 2000 and failed with many of them but the issue at that time was Albertsons invested major dollars on new stores/upgrades usually in close proximity to those divested smaller Lucky Stores so Ralphs was dealing with a dated facility up against some very nice new stores. Ralphs pricing now is also a lot sharper than it was in 2000. I think Ralphs could have been successful this time.
You're right in that 'they were thrown a couple curves' in this case. But you're in Nevada and know what happens when you play your hand wrong :)

In the 1990's a lot of companies were betting on the Central Coast as the next great thing. Vons bought Williams Bros. but those stores fizzled. I don't know why, but the population growth that was predicted for the Central Coast never materialized.
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Re: Bristol Farms (former Vons) Santa Barbara Opening August 20

Post by CalItalian »

Bristol Farms Santa Barbara Grand Opening (video)
https://keyt.com/news/santa-barbara-s-c ... utetv=true
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Re: Bristol Farms (former Vons) Santa Barbara Opening August 20

Post by CalItalian »

klkla wrote: August 20th, 2020, 8:34 pm
storewanderer wrote: August 19th, 2020, 10:00 pm
My guess is they were thrown a couple curves

...

I don't know why Ralphs did not go in there and make an offer for every one of those Central Coast Haggen stores. They offered on the Goleta Vons (which ended up going to Sprouts) only. Another major missed opportunity for Kroger out west. Ralphs took over a lot of Lucky Stores in that region in 2000 and failed with many of them but the issue at that time was Albertsons invested major dollars on new stores/upgrades usually in close proximity to those divested smaller Lucky Stores so Ralphs was dealing with a dated facility up against some very nice new stores. Ralphs pricing now is also a lot sharper than it was in 2000. I think Ralphs could have been successful this time.
You're right in that 'they were thrown a couple curves' in this case. But you're in Nevada and know what happens when you play your hand wrong :)

In the 1990's a lot of companies were betting on the Central Coast as the next great thing. Vons bought Williams Bros. but those stores fizzled. I don't know why, but the population growth that was predicted for the Central Coast never materialized.
As a resident of Lompoc for a year, the top reason is the spaceport there never materialized. There was a lot of building in anticipation of it from shopping centers to hotels to housing (expected doubling of the size of the city which never happened). Not much since. Plus the Central Coast never became a lower cost bedroom community to the Santa Barbara city area other than somewhat Santa Maria. Central Coast also hasn't attracted much in the way of large businesses. https://lompocrecord.com/news/local/pop ... a042f.html
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Re: Bristol Farms (former Vons) Santa Barbara Opening August 20

Post by storewanderer »

This new Bristol Farms looks more like a Metropolitan Market from Seattle (their sister chain I guess) than the other Bristol Farms I've seen.

Excellent looking store- huge step up from Vons.
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