Save Mart-South Carson Street Carson City, NV

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storewanderer
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Save Mart-South Carson Street Carson City, NV

Post by storewanderer »

This store- I don't know what the deal with it is. This was opened around 1997, as a blue gray Albertsons, replacing the older Albertsons at Fairview/Carson Street. This had all the usual departments you would expect in a store of this era. Plus a US Bank inside (which is still there). It did pretty well for Albertsons but not great. Save Mart ran it into the ground in short order and volume dropped like a rock and hasn't recovered but for some reason it is still open.

Save Mart has handled this store in a strange manner over the years. I have not seen things quite like this in other locations.

One of Save Mart's first orders of business in this store in 2009 was to remove the self checkouts. They did this to one in Reno too (Kietzke; which since had self checkout re-added as volume came back up after Safeway/Raleys closures nearby). This was because business was so bad they only had enough labor budget for one person up front most of the time, so they went with having a regular cashier. That was probably the right decision.

About six years ago, more or less, they decided to close the in-store bakery. Odd decision, but okay. They still have a deli employee go fire up the oven to make bolillos and a few other random items. There is a small assortment of thaw and serve product present. Also the formal floral area was closed and they moved floral to part of the old bakery space. That makes sense as it moves floral closer to produce and at Save Mart produce is responsible for floral.

Within the past few years they covered up part of seafood and part of deli to reduce shrink.

Now as of 8/17/2022 the pharmacy is closed.

Also as of today 8/21/2022 the service meat and seafood department is entirely closed and the deli case has about 25% of its case still open and the rest of the case is closed. Also the produce department looks like it either hasn't been staffed in days or like they have half given up on produce too as the area was quite empty and clearly not rotated.

Staffing levels in this store are at skeleton levels. For instance this afternoon US Bank inside is closed since it is Sunday, and they had a total of 3 employees in customer facing positions (1 cashier, 1 employee stocking shelves who appeared to be the supervisor on duty, and 1 employee in deli). I am guessing there was also an employee in meat who I did not see. Produce certainly wasn't staffed given how terrible the department looked.

I am curious if department closures are happening like this in other Save Mart locations or this is a one off situation. There is another store in Reno that has parts of service departments covered up too (deli/seafood)- North McCarran, but it looks nothing even close to this bad.

It looks like Save Mart is falling into distress under this private equity group. Pharmacy closures, significant price increases lately that are above market and make no sense (.99 for a can of Friskies cat food- highest in market; even Safeway is only .89/.80 ongoing sale), and what seem like staffing cuts elsewhere. I am not sure what has happened here but this is not looking good. Maybe they just need to focus on better performing stores and quit trying to run lost cause stores on absolute fumes until there is literally no customer left (yes I use the singular phrase customer), as the old Save Mart chain did over the years.
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Re: Save Mart-South Carson Street Carson City, NV

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

I can say that even Manzanita (set to convert to foodmaxx next year coinciding with a 15-year lease extension at Crestview Village) didn't even look half as bad as this when I popped in nearly a month ago.Service departments were decently staffed and in-stock levels weren't any worse than other stores.

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Re: Save Mart-South Carson Street Carson City, NV

Post by storewanderer »

norcalriteaidclerk wrote: August 22nd, 2022, 12:08 pm I can say that even Manzanita (set to convert to foodmaxx next year coinciding with a 15-year lease extension at Crestview Village) didn't even look half as bad as this when I popped in nearly a month ago.Service departments were decently staffed and in-stock levels weren't any worse than other stores.

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I was wondering why they did not yet remodel Manzanita... that was such a busy store as a Lucky/Sav-On combo. It was also somewhat busy as Albertsons (but not as busy). I guess at this point converting to Food Maxx is a better option than closing entirely.

Manzanita must be turning 25 years old. I remember the grand opening.

I have seen no other location with this much perimeter closed. Not even at Homeland or Food Lion. By the same token, I have never seen such a large store running such a low sales volume and with such low staffing as this store.
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Re: Save Mart-South Carson Street Carson City, NV

Post by reymann »

i have not liked this equity group one bit. prices have also gone up significantly at foodmaxx for a lot of items. kingswood is going to find themselves having to pull save mart out of nevada at this rate and safeway could be licking their chops on gaining more share in the central valley soon.
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Re: Save Mart-South Carson Street Carson City, NV

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

reymann wrote: August 24th, 2022, 7:37 am i have not liked this equity group one bit. prices have also gone up significantly at foodmaxx for a lot of items. kingswood is going to find themselves having to pull save mart out of nevada at this rate and safeway could be licking their chops on gaining more share in the central valley soon.
I could see Albertsons buying Save Mart stores in the Central Valley and Nevada. An exception would be the Bay Area, where Safeway buying Lucky would create a total monopoly. Tehachapi could be sold to Stater Bros, as Albertsons already has a store there.
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Re: Save Mart-South Carson Street Carson City, NV

Post by reymann »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: August 24th, 2022, 5:28 pm I could see Albertsons buying Save Mart stores in the Central Valley and Nevada. An exception would be the Bay Area, where Safeway buying Lucky would create a total monopoly. Tehachapi could be sold to Stater Bros, as Albertsons already has a store there.
i don't see that happening but, if save mart were to ever be sold off, raley's makes a lot more sense than albertsons to me since they are both stakeholders in sunnyside farms. maybe foodmaxx gets sold off to kroger if raley's doesn't want to go back into the warehouse supermarket business again.
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Re: Save Mart-South Carson Street Carson City, NV

Post by storewanderer »

reymann wrote: August 24th, 2022, 6:20 pm
retailfanmitchell019 wrote: August 24th, 2022, 5:28 pm I could see Albertsons buying Save Mart stores in the Central Valley and Nevada. An exception would be the Bay Area, where Safeway buying Lucky would create a total monopoly. Tehachapi could be sold to Stater Bros, as Albertsons already has a store there.
i don't see that happening but, if save mart were to ever be sold off, raley's makes a lot more sense than albertsons to me since they are both stakeholders in sunnyside farms. maybe foodmaxx gets sold off to kroger if raley's doesn't want to go back into the warehouse supermarket business again.
Raleys doesn't use Sunnyside on much anymore aside from milk, butter, and maybe yogurt (?). Eggs, cheese, bread, are all Raleys brand. I also noticed recently Save Mart quit using Sunnyside on bread and moved bread to Sunny Select. Most of the Sunnyside manufacturing was sold to Producers.

I don't think Save Mart is a great fit for Raleys but after they bought Bashas... Save Mart is kind of similar to Bashas in a lot of ways.

Lucky has such low market share in the bay area at this point, that I don't think anyone would bat an eye at Safeway getting those stores at this point. Add in Food Maxx and that may create some market share issues.

But this investment group could also buy some additional stores and put them under Save Mart (that is a scary thought).
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Re: Save Mart-South Carson Street Carson City, NV

Post by bryceleinan »

Storewanderer is right… this store is in rough shape. Only grocery stores in the area are the Walmart that’s 1.4 miles south, Raley’s across the street, and Target (a non P-fresh location) to the south of Walmart. Walmart originally owned a store across the street (4209 S Carson), however, it relocated to its current location due to Raley’s having a covenant over the former Walmart property that prohibited a grocery store.

When I was a kid, this store did fairly well as Albertsons, it was a relocation from 222 Fairview (now an Office Depot / US Foods Chef’store. What’s worse is that by store count, Save Mart / Foodmaxx own 3 out of the 5 traditional grocery stores in Carson City (Raley’s and Smith’s are it other than Walmart.). Not sure if Albertsons/Safeway would be interested in this location again - I’d doubt it.
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Re: Save Mart-South Carson Street Carson City, NV

Post by storewanderer »

bryceleinan wrote: August 25th, 2022, 7:34 pm Storewanderer is right… this store is in rough shape. Only grocery stores in the area are the Walmart that’s 1.4 miles south, Raley’s across the street, and Target (a non P-fresh location) to the south of Walmart. Walmart originally owned a store across the street (4209 S Carson), however, it relocated to its current location due to Raley’s having a covenant over the former Walmart property that prohibited a grocery store.

When I was a kid, this store did fairly well as Albertsons, it was a relocation from 222 Fairview (now an Office Depot / US Foods Chef’store. What’s worse is that by store count, Save Mart / Foodmaxx own 3 out of the 5 traditional grocery stores in Carson City (Raley’s and Smith’s are it other than Walmart.). Not sure if Albertsons/Safeway would be interested in this location again - I’d doubt it.
Smiths appears to be doing more volume in its one store in Carson City than those three Save Mart/Food Maxx stores do combined... The Raleys does okay but isn't breaking any records by any means.

Don't forget the Trader Joe's next to the South Carson Wal Mart, which I don't think has helped this Save Mart any. Slow store for a Trader Joe's but still a competitor...
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