New Carrs in Alaska

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pseudo3d
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New Carrs in Alaska

Post by pseudo3d »

Opened in November 2019 at Midtown Mall (formerly The Mall at Sears) the end where Sears used to be. A few things of note:

- About five years ago or so there was a (decades-old) Carrs at the east end of the mall, this new store is on the Sears side. Due to the configuration, it doesn't look like it has a mall entrance.
- It's 65,500 square feet, which may put it at the largest Albertsons/Safeway-owned store in Alaska.
- It's also branded as a Carrs, whereas Safeway seemed to want to eventually rebrand stores as Safeway, even rebranding an Eagle Quality Center (one of Carrs' smaller brands)
- The store features the "Florida Decor" and Oaken Keg, which is the name of Safeway liquor stores in Alaska
- The store emphasizes locally-produced produce (probably seasonal, given the day/night cycle in Alaska)
- The most unusual trait seems to be a kiosk of local coffee shop Kaladi Brothers Coffee rather than the typical Starbucks. The in-store coffee shop is a first for Kaladi.

https://www.ktva.com/story/41290983/new ... -wednesday
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Re: New Carrs in Alaska

Post by SamSpade »

Kaladi has a Seattle location, part of that lovely Alaska "bleed over" into Washington state. It's lovely.

This sounds like it is similar to the Albertsons Market Street in Boise. (No mention of fresh baked breads?)

Interesting find! Thanks for sharing.
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Re: New Carrs in Alaska

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

pseudo3d wrote: February 11th, 2020, 8:35 pm Opened in November 2019 at Midtown Mall (formerly The Mall at Sears) the end where Sears used to be. A few things of note:

- About five years ago or so there was a (decades-old) Carrs at the east end of the mall, this new store is on the Sears side. Due to the configuration, it doesn't look like it has a mall entrance.
- It's 65,500 square feet, which may put it at the largest Albertsons/Safeway-owned store in Alaska.
- It's also branded as a Carrs, whereas Safeway seemed to want to eventually rebrand stores as Safeway, even rebranding an Eagle Quality Center (one of Carrs' smaller brands)
- The store features the "Florida Decor" and Oaken Keg, which is the name of Safeway liquor stores in Alaska
- The store emphasizes locally-produced produce (probably seasonal, given the day/night cycle in Alaska)
- The most unusual trait seems to be a kiosk of local coffee shop Kaladi Brothers Coffee rather than the typical Starbucks. The in-store coffee shop is a first for Kaladi.

https://www.ktva.com/story/41290983/new ... -wednesday
The Carrs banner is only used for stores in the Anchorage metro area (also Wasilla and Palmer), while the Safeway banner is used in the rest of Alaska.
Carrs-Safeway in Alaska is like HEB in San Antonio: the only major traditional supermarket in the area. Only competition is really big-box stores (including Fred Meyer). Carrs has an advantage: they have their own distribution center in Anchorage.
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Re: New Carrs in Alaska

Post by pseudo3d »

SamSpade wrote: February 14th, 2020, 10:45 am Kaladi has a Seattle location, part of that lovely Alaska "bleed over" into Washington state. It's lovely.

This sounds like it is similar to the Albertsons Market Street in Boise. (No mention of fresh baked breads?)

Interesting find! Thanks for sharing.
AMS has a bunch of features that most stores can only dream of, including a full bar, an oyster bar, a "home" department (looks directly lifted off of "Dish" from United's Market Street, but better integrated into the store), and having the perishable departments with lots of high-end items (in-house chicken cordon bleu, nicer bakery items, etc.). In contrast, the new Carrs seems like a pretty standard (higher-middle class) Safeway/Albertsons build. The new Kaladi seems to be part of an initiative that suggests Albertsons is putting their money where their mouth is...a new-build Star Market in Boston that opened that same month included a Regina Pizzeria in the deli area instead of the standard pizza offerings.
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Re: New Carrs in Alaska

Post by kr.abs.swy »

Just curious, did Safeway have an Alaska distribution center prior to the Carr's acquisition (I assume not)?

And are some of the far flung stores like Ketchikan supplied from Anchorage or from Seattle?

Do Walmart and Fred Meyer supply from the Pacific Northwest?
retailfanmitchell019 wrote: February 14th, 2020, 12:34 pm
pseudo3d wrote: February 11th, 2020, 8:35 pm Opened in November 2019 at Midtown Mall (formerly The Mall at Sears) the end where Sears used to be. A few things of note:

- About five years ago or so there was a (decades-old) Carrs at the east end of the mall, this new store is on the Sears side. Due to the configuration, it doesn't look like it has a mall entrance.
- It's 65,500 square feet, which may put it at the largest Albertsons/Safeway-owned store in Alaska.
- It's also branded as a Carrs, whereas Safeway seemed to want to eventually rebrand stores as Safeway, even rebranding an Eagle Quality Center (one of Carrs' smaller brands)
- The store features the "Florida Decor" and Oaken Keg, which is the name of Safeway liquor stores in Alaska
- The store emphasizes locally-produced produce (probably seasonal, given the day/night cycle in Alaska)
- The most unusual trait seems to be a kiosk of local coffee shop Kaladi Brothers Coffee rather than the typical Starbucks. The in-store coffee shop is a first for Kaladi.

https://www.ktva.com/story/41290983/new ... -wednesday
The Carrs banner is only used for stores in the Anchorage metro area (also Wasilla and Palmer), while the Safeway banner is used in the rest of Alaska.
Carrs-Safeway in Alaska is like HEB in San Antonio: the only major traditional supermarket in the area. Only competition is really big-box stores (including Fred Meyer). Carrs has an advantage: they have their own distribution center in Anchorage.
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Re: New Carrs in Alaska

Post by pseudo3d »

kr.abs.swy wrote: February 14th, 2020, 3:45 pm Just curious, did Safeway have an Alaska distribution center prior to the Carr's acquisition (I assume not)?

And are some of the far flung stores like Ketchikan supplied from Anchorage or from Seattle?

Do Walmart and Fred Meyer supply from the Pacific Northwest?
Carrs' own DC in Anchorage looks like it carried over from its independent days (Carrs Quality Centers merged with Gottstein, a shipping/freight company in the mid-1980s, presumably giving its distribution center). Safeway may not have had one, it entered the market in 1959 (and Hawaii's market in 1963, which appears to have never had a distribution center or even division of its own). As for distribution to smaller markets, from what I've heard, many U.S. companies ship through water to Alaska avoid the hassle of border visas and fees, so Alaskan stores would get serviced by Anchorage.
Last edited by pseudo3d on February 16th, 2020, 7:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New Carrs in Alaska

Post by klkla »

There's an interesting article about the difficulties of distributing food to Alaska here:
https://www.adn.com/business-economy/20 ... ply-chain/
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Re: New Carrs in Alaska

Post by storewanderer »

When Safeway bought Carrs, Carrs had the only food distribution center in Alaska and my understanding was that was a big reason why they bought Carrs.

Carrs had a lot more stores then, than it has now. I'm not sure what went wrong... typical Safeway I guess. Maybe a lot of them were really small stores or something.
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Re: New Carrs in Alaska

Post by kr.abs.swy »

Interesting conversation. Klkla, thanks for sharing that link.

For what it's worth, I believe that (at least) some of the stores in the "panhandle" of Alaska (Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka, etc.) are supplied from Seattle. I can't remember if someone at one of the stores told me that or if it was a "local."'

It makes sense … the distance vs. Anchorage is probably reasonably comparable and costs would certainly be less from the Northwest vs. from Anchorage.

It certainly changes the paradigm a bit. If you're in Sitka and both of the stores are out of something, you're out of luck until the next shipment comes in … which might not be for a couple more days.
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Re: New Carrs in Alaska

Post by Brian Lutz »

I know Walmart closed their one Juneau location a couple of years ago (anything in Juneau would have to come from the mainland as there are no road connections from Juneau to the outside world.) Not sure how Anchorage would be supplied though. It looks like Ketchikan still has a Walmart as well, which would also need to be supplied from the mainland.
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