Sprouts Closing 11 Stores, to focus on "smaller concept."

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Re: Sprouts Closing 11 Stores, to focus on "smaller concept."

Post by veteran+ »

Great points ClownLoach and storewanderer!

This back and forth format is not good for this company going forward. They keep on reinterpreting the reason to shop there.

I would never go there to buy their supplements and such. Many other places have a lower price point for that, including the prevalent online monster.

When they expanded their offerings was when I became interested. I still think their supplement department is way too big, even with their larger stores.

I suspect they will close more stores.

Side note: That West Hollywood store is not 23,000 sqft. It is very small, so I suspect they will close some small stores as well.
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Re: Sprouts Closing 11 Stores, to focus on "smaller concept."

Post by storewanderer »

Once a full store list comes out I want us to put together the list of addresses, when opened, and square footage.

I am curious to see where all these oversized Sprouts Stores are located.

I know of one in Roseville that seems quite giant to me, it used to be maybe a Linens N Things, it is huge and spacious, and way deeper than a typical Sprouts. It feels like it is at least 40k square feet.
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Re: Sprouts Closing 11 Stores, to focus on "smaller concept."

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: March 10th, 2023, 11:55 pm Once a full store list comes out I want us to put together the list of addresses, when opened, and square footage.

I am curious to see where all these oversized Sprouts Stores are located.

I know of one in Roseville that seems quite giant to me, it used to be maybe a Linens N Things, it is huge and spacious, and way deeper than a typical Sprouts. It feels like it is at least 40k square feet.
I saw online that Lynnwood, WA is closing and it is a 2019 opening.

Also somewhere called Wellington in the Palm Beach, FL market.

Both of these are supposedly 30,000 Sq ft.
Last edited by ClownLoach on March 11th, 2023, 10:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sprouts Closing 11 Stores, to focus on "smaller concept."

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: March 10th, 2023, 11:55 pm Once a full store list comes out I want us to put together the list of addresses, when opened, and square footage.

I am curious to see where all these oversized Sprouts Stores are located.

I know of one in Roseville that seems quite giant to me, it used to be maybe a Linens N Things, it is huge and spacious, and way deeper than a typical Sprouts. It feels like it is at least 40k square feet.
There is no way that the difference between a 23,000 and a 30,000 Sq ft store would be the difference between being a money loser vs a profitable store. I just don't see it. I've dealt with new stores and relocations for some time and have even moved into buildings that were 15,000 Sq ft larger than our prototype but the rent was right so we just walled off space for extra backroom storage. The fact is that if these stores are not profitable then it was because they signed bad leases and overpaid regardless of size. I know in California you can drive 5 miles and pay more for a smaller building, or pay less for a larger one. The real truth will come out if there are "large format" stores they don't close.

I believe San Clemente is a large format as well, it takes up about a third of a closed Kmart. It is at least as big, if not bigger, than the Lake Forest store I'm wondering about which is 30K.

I'm guessing they opened more than 11 stores in 2019 as well, and probably all of them were this new larger format. I think this is just covering for some bad leases as they started to get reckless and were opening up wherever they felt like it without doing research.
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Re: Sprouts Closing 11 Stores, to focus on "smaller concept."

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: March 10th, 2023, 11:55 pm Once a full store list comes out I want us to put together the list of addresses, when opened, and square footage.

I am curious to see where all these oversized Sprouts Stores are located.

I know of one in Roseville that seems quite giant to me, it used to be maybe a Linens N Things, it is huge and spacious, and way deeper than a typical Sprouts. It feels like it is at least 40k square feet.
That makes sense, I think most Linens were well over 30K.

I am still thinking about Sprouts I know of that are over 30K. Pretty sure that the Huntington Beach one on Warner is over 30K, it's an old Ralphs that was so large they built a wall inside the front wall and basically have a Gigantic vestibule cart corral. I think the other HB Sprouts may be over 30 as well, it's an old Thrifty plus they knocked down the wall and expanded next door.

I already mentioned San Clemente as seemingly over 30K.

I think this "we need to close the large formats" is just BS. They definitely have more than 11 large formats.
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Re: Sprouts Closing 11 Stores, to focus on "smaller concept."

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: March 11th, 2023, 10:56 pm

That makes sense, I think most Linens were well over 30K.

I am still thinking about Sprouts I know of that are over 30K. Pretty sure that the Huntington Beach one on Warner is over 30K, it's an old Ralphs that was so large they built a wall inside the front wall and basically have a Gigantic vestibule cart corral. I think the other HB Sprouts may be over 30 as well, it's an old Thrifty plus they knocked down the wall and expanded next door.

I already mentioned San Clemente as seemingly over 30K.

I think this "we need to close the large formats" is just BS. They definitely have more than 11 large formats.
I've seen multiple other Sprouts that also have that full wall up front and then carts behind that wall (in the entryway). Sometimes there is also some merchandise in the entryway. That actually really served a great purpose for them during COVID back when they would clean carts, they kept all the cleaning stuff there, box of masks was also there for people to take a mask from, sometimes an employee was stationed there also. I think that was just a prototype thing for them for a while.

I am not sure what the plan for Sprouts is in WA. They are closing 1 of 4 stores. They have no stores in OR. I assume they are supplying these from CA. I am surprised which store they are closing as when I saw a closure in WA I was expecting a different store to close. But okay, Lynnwood it is.

Looks like Duluth, GA is another closure. 28,600 square feet opened 2016.
Lynnwood, WA opened 2019 30,000 square feet.
Wellington, FL opened 2019 30,000 square feet.
West Hollywood, CA (mentioned above)


Slowly we are getting a list. Stores closing are in CA, TX, WA, FL, and GA.
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Re: Sprouts Closing 11 Stores, to focus on "smaller concept."

Post by veteran+ »

West Hollywood is less than 20,000 sqft.
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Re: Sprouts Closing 11 Stores, to focus on "smaller concept."

Post by rwsandiego »

A few months ago, Jack Sinclair stated the smaller legacy Sprouts in San Diego do higher volumes and are more successful than their larger, newer counterparts. That is true. However, those stores did not start as Sprouts, they were Henry's stores Sprouts acquired. Before Henry's they were Boney's, owned by the forbears of Sprouts' founders. They were known for their bakery, deli, and supplements (sorry folks who think they sell too many supplements) and, of course, produce. They also had great meat and an OK wine department. They didn't have a lot of "center store" items, but they had some. Oh, yeah, they were also known for their low prices.

The first San Diego-area Sprouts location I visited seemed too big and just "off." It was almost a Henry's but weirdly different. When they acquired Henry's and converted them to Sprouts the Henry's were pretty much the same as they were, with a few changes. Bakery products were not as good as before and they got rid of the Harris Ranch beef. The wine selection suffered and the bulk coffee started to decline. After moving to Phoenix, I started shopping at a legacy Sprouts and really didn't like it. Too big, prices too high, and just "off." The same was true of the stores I visited in Florida. My friend said she would never shop there and I agreed. For starters, the store was in a hard-to-reach shopping center. Second, the prices were as high or higher than Publix, two of which we passed to get to Sprouts.

The San Diego-area stores built a loyal customer base over the course of years and years. It's hard to build that base in a short timeframe when the store doesn't offer the things that retained those customers.
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Re: Sprouts Closing 11 Stores, to focus on "smaller concept."

Post by storewanderer »

rwsandiego wrote: March 12th, 2023, 9:37 am A few months ago, Jack Sinclair stated the smaller legacy Sprouts in San Diego do higher volumes and are more successful than their larger, newer counterparts. That is true. However, those stores did not start as Sprouts, they were Henry's stores Sprouts acquired. Before Henry's they were Boney's, owned by the forbears of Sprouts' founders. They were known for their bakery, deli, and supplements (sorry folks who think they sell too many supplements) and, of course, produce. They also had great meat and an OK wine department. They didn't have a lot of "center store" items, but they had some. Oh, yeah, they were also known for their low prices.


The San Diego-area stores built a loyal customer base over the course of years and years. It's hard to build that base in a short timeframe when the store doesn't offer the things that retained those customers.
This is a really good observation. I don't know much about Sprouts but back when Sunflower, Henry's, and Sprouts were all there competing against each other I always said Sprouts was by far the worst of the three in terms of its mix and execution. Sprouts Stores also seemed to run with the lowest volumes and the lowest labor, compared to Henry's and Sunflower.

Henry's I thought was the best. Their stores were the busiest, best stocked, had the best perimeters, best promotions, and seemed to have good staffing levels. Always lots of great deals at Henry's and I typically left with more than I went in for. I liked Henry's a lot.

Sunflower seemed to really try hard and I did enjoy Sunflower's product mix and service, but there was something about Sunflower and maybe it was intentionally this way but Sunflower just felt sort of not well put together or amateur. Sunflower also seemed rather inconsistent by market which again maybe was by design but the ones in CA did not even feel like the same store/chain as the one I went into in OK. Product quality at Sunflower also had some issues, I am not quite sure how some of them were supplied but something tells me the supply point was very far from the stores. I think Sunflower had a lot of the same issues as Lucky's Market had.

In the midst of the Sprouts thing I feel like Sprouts picked up quite a few practices and programs from Henry's. Sunflower not so much. But then at the same time Sprouts seemed to apply some of its boring or sterile practices on Henry's, watered down the perimeters, in recent years has really increased the prices, and seems to have inconsistent service/staffing levels. I often walk out of Sprouts with less than I intended to buy due to out of stocks or poor quality perimeter.
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Re: Sprouts Closing 11 Stores, to focus on "smaller concept."

Post by rwsandiego »

The only Sunflower I shopped was the one at Lomas and San Mateo in Albuquerque. It was OK, but you are right - it seemed amateurish. Not sure whether that was intentional, though. The friend who lived in ABQ said she liked shopping there but preferred Henery's. She also noted it declined after being subsumed by Sprouts.

IMO, Henry's seemed more professionally run because it had been in business for a long time. They were also a unit of Wild Oats for quite a while before being sold to the group who owned Smart and Final. Although the bakery and meat immediately suffered after Sprouts acquired Henry's the produce improved 1,000%. Everyone in San Diego knew that you did not stock up on produce at Henry's. It always looked like you had to eat it as soon as you got home else you would have bad produce the very next day.

To me, Sprouts expanded too far too quickly. Here in Phoenix, they have several 35K square foot former Alpha Beta/Lucky/ABCO stores. I'm sure that's what was available, but that's too darn big.
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