Vons Montecito to become Pavilions

[CalItalian]

https://www.noozhawk.com/article/bizhaw ... s_20210909

[retailfanmitchell019]

This is the first Pavilions in Santa Barbara County.
Albertsons should expand Pavilions more in San Diego County. The La Jolla Vons would be a good conversion, as well as the Vons on Rancho Santa Fe Rd in Carlsbad.

[JimKarras]

I believe the Vons in La Mesa (old Gemco) would be a good candidate for conversion to a Pavilions.

It’s a larger footprint and at one time this Vons had a hot foods area and a Panda Express similar to the earlier Pavilions in Los Angeles County.

Although I haven’t been to this store or the area for a few years, I think the surrounding demographics would support such a banner change.

[retailfanmitchell019]

I believe the Vons in La Mesa (old Gemco) would be a good candidate for conversion to a Pavilions.
Although I haven’t been to this store or the area for a few years, I think the surrounding demographics would support such a banner change.

La Mesa is more of a solidly middle class area, not upper-middle class/wealthy like Coronado. Pavilions wouldn't succeed in La Mesa. The Vons in Coronado would also be a good Pavilions conversion.

[ClownLoach]

Just drove past this on the 101. Still a Vons. Wonder what happened?

[storewanderer]

Just drove past this on the 101. Still a Vons. Wonder what happened?

Relaunch of Pavilions is a dud. It already feels like a half hearted effort/program at best. Whatever management that Pavilions was the pet project of probably moved on or got promoted to a different position.

[ClownLoach]

Just drove past this on the 101. Still a Vons. Wonder what happened?

Relaunch of Pavilions is a dud. It already feels like a half hearted effort/program at best. Whatever management that Pavilions was the pet project of probably moved on or got promoted to a different position.

After sleeping on this one I think I figured out what happened. Santa Barbara and Montecito have been restricting signs for decades. No backlit plastic, and they have to be very tiny. The ancient Vons sign is big and plastic. I'll bet that they realized that if they rebranded it would mean that they would have been forced to reduce the size of the sign by at least 80%. To someone driving by it would look like the store closed down. What is odd is that construction had begun on the remodel and they had placed signs inside the store about "Pavilions coming soon" so I doubt they would have put back all of the lifestyle interior... I wonder if they gave it the Pavilions interior anyway?

[Alpha8472]

The Safeway in Alamo, Northern California just got the Pavilions decor. I was shocked, as I thought it would get the cheap version of the Florida decor that the former Flagship Safeway in Dublin, recently received.

The store is the second in the area to become a Pavilions in everything but name. It still says Safeway out front. I assume Northern California Safeway is switching to Pavilions decor from now on. Except for Pak N Save...

The Safeway in Alamo has a blue and white Safeway sign. I had never seen that before.

[storewanderer]

The Safeway in Alamo, Northern California just got the Pavilions decor. I was shocked, as I thought it would get the cheap version of the Florida decor that the former Flagship Safeway in Dublin, recently received.

The store is the second in the area to become a Pavilions in everything but name. It still says Safeway out front. I assume Northern California Safeway is switching to Pavilions decor from now on. Except for Pak N Save...

The Safeway in Alamo has a blue and white Safeway sign. I had never seen that before.

Alamo is a very special store. Steve Burd lives nearby. This store to this day gets higher labor budgets than the typical Safeway. This is also an extremely profitable store. This was one of the first stores in NorCal to get Boar's Head products also.

[Bluelightspecial]

Just drove past this on the 101. Still a Vons. Wonder what happened?

Relaunch of Pavilions is a dud. It already feels like a half hearted effort/program at best. Whatever management that Pavilions was the pet project of probably moved on or got promoted to a different position.

After sleeping on this one I think I figured out what happened. Santa Barbara and Montecito have been restricting signs for decades. No backlit plastic, and they have to be very tiny. The ancient Vons sign is big and plastic. I'll bet that they realized that if they rebranded it would mean that they would have been forced to reduce the size of the sign by at least 80%. To someone driving by it would look like the store closed down. What is odd is that construction had begun on the remodel and they had placed signs inside the store about "Pavilions coming soon" so I doubt they would have put back all of the lifestyle interior... I wonder if they gave it the Pavilions interior anyway?

I would say Storewander would be right in that Pavilions has been miss-managed over the years. For years they treated it just as any Vons/Safeway and had no clear vision. Whether that changes or not we will see, but it's not a "dud". They wouldn't have adopted the decor in other areas like Hawaii and now high end Northern California stores if it was.

As for Montecito, the Santa Barbara building department still shows the permit application on their web site.