Future of Yard Birds in Chehalis, WA

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Re: Future of Yard Birds in Chehalis, WA

Post by storewanderer »

The TV and Rainbow brands were sold at that store in Reno in the 80's as well. Rainbow was a Fleming brand but I do not recall who distributed TV. By the mid 90's Fleming had consolidated private labels like Rainbow to Bonnie Hubbard brand, then moved to Best Yet label not long after that.

I wonder if the Food 4 Less format grew out of Shop N Kart. Kind of seems like it may have. Shop N Kart for stripped conventional stores with zero features, Food 4 Less for larger warehouse format type stores. But I think Burkle in SoCal may have been who came up with F4L initially.
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Re: Future of Yard Birds in Chehalis, WA

Post by marshd1000 »

storewanderer wrote: November 7th, 2022, 11:48 pm
Super S wrote: November 7th, 2022, 6:13 am
storewanderer wrote: November 5th, 2022, 11:38 am
I still think Fred Meyer should have a full line store in that city. I suspect Yard Birds may be what kept them away back in the 80's when they were expanding rapidly. I guess now they'll get the Safeway, but, that is no Fred Meyer and never will be.
Safeway is already in Centralia and Chehalis. The irony here is that Fred Meyer actually operated the Yard Birds grocery department at one point. I never fully understood why Fred Meyer never opened a full-line store in the area years ago though....
While I don’t truly know the exact reason Fred Meyer left Yard Birds. But I am guessing it may have to do with Pay ‘n Save Corporation’s purchase of Yard Birds. So I’m guessing that Fred Meyer wanted out of the lease since Pay ‘n Save is a major competitor.

How did Fred Meyer lose the grocery department in the Yard Birds?

That Shop N Kart chain, seemed to be some kind of format connected to Fleming. There was one in Reno on East Plumb in the 70's or 80's, then turned into Sak N Save (Scolaris discount format) and eventually closed under that banner as Scolaris was downsizing in the 2010's. The White City, OR Shop N Kart was sold to Ray's and closed during bankruptcy but it was somewhat similar to the Yard Birds one in layout/feel. The Ashland Shop N Kart has morphed into a nutrition focused store, I like what they've done there. There was a Shop N Kart in Lebanon, OR which rebranded to Mega Foods then later closed. This store struck me as a former Food 4 Less but it may have just been a knockoff since both Shop N Kart and Food 4 Less in OR were being supported by Fleming before they left OR/WA.

It appears the Shop N Kart in Lebanon was a corporate owned store by Fleming in 1998.
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/19 ... 268806007/
Never heard of this arrangement they formed with AG-Seattle in the late 90's, always just assumed Fleming left the PNW and some stores continued on as F4L/SNK in the market and slowly closed over the years (except the few that are still open...). This AG-Seattle/Fleming joint venture blew up fast. F4L was carrying AG Labels (Western Family) in the late 90's in OR already and IGA was gone from OR and the WA IGAs were primarily supplied by Supervalu.
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Re: Future of Yard Birds in Chehalis, WA

Post by storewanderer »

That makes sense. It appears Pay N Save owned Yard Birds in 1987 and that was right when Fred Meyer was doing a lot of expanding/building large stores up and down I-5. I wonder if they had a non compete or something for some time period.

Seems like they could have done Centralia though; tough to imagine they'd have a non-compete that covered both cities. Unless it was miles based.
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Re: Future of Yard Birds in Chehalis, WA

Post by marshd1000 »

When I posted earlier about this, I must have accidentally not posted my response. I believe that Fred Meyer may had left Yard Birds or was forced out when Pay ‘n Save Corporation took ownership as they were major competitors!
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Re: Future of Yard Birds in Chehalis, WA

Post by Brian Lutz »



The Yard Bird statue that once stood in front of this store has undergone a full restoration, and will now be put on display at the Lewis County Historical Museum.
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Re: Future of Yard Birds in Chehalis, WA

Post by marshd1000 »

Since there was a mention earlier in this thread about Fred Meyer operating a grocery inside Yard Birds, I thought I’d post a photo of it!
IMG_2536.jpeg
IMG_2536.jpeg (39.53 KiB) Viewed 534 times
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Re: Future of Yard Birds in Chehalis, WA

Post by storewanderer »

So I wonder was the Shop N Kart configured like a Fred Meyer? It must have been. It reminded me more of a franchise Food 4 Less.

I vaguely recall in the early 90's going into a Fred Meyer that had food separated from non food, south of Seattle, and the food area was a warehouse type format with self bagging set up.
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Re: Future of Yard Birds in Chehalis, WA

Post by marshd1000 »

storewanderer wrote: September 6th, 2023, 12:06 am So I wonder was the Shop N Kart configured like a Fred Meyer? It must have been. It reminded me more of a franchise Food 4 Less.

I vaguely recall in the early 90's going into a Fred Meyer that had food separated from non food, south of Seattle, and the food area was a warehouse type format with self bagging set up.
That store would have been the Midway (Now Redondo) Fred Meyer on Pacific Hwy in Kent. That building, since demolished, was formerly a Leslie's aka Valu-Mart. The food section was formerly a Mark It Foods. Under Fred Meyer it was a Consumer Warehouse Foods. That was a program that Fred Meyer had in a few locations. Notably there was a solo Consumer Warehouse Foods in Soap Lake, WA that was a carry over from The Roundup Company, which Fred Meyer had previously bought!
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Re: Future of Yard Birds in Chehalis, WA

Post by Brian Lutz »

I know that the Bellevue (Overlake) Fred Meyer originated as one of the short-lived White Front stores in the Seattle area and then went through a few years as a Valu-Mart/Leslie's store before becoming a Fred Meyer. I seem to recall hearing that the separate food departments were present in the White Front stores as well, but have only seen a few pictures of one of those so I can't tell for sure. The shape of the building seems to suggest it (although the food side of the store did also get expanded in their last major remodel around 2017-2018)
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