Most of those seem to do better and are nicer stores. Colorado Springs also seems to be mostly okay... it is Denver and some suburbs that are a major problem.jamcool wrote: ↑February 28th, 2024, 9:17 am How do the Safeways in the Colorado Mountain towns do compared to Denver? I suspect that is the cash cow for that division, (the way smaller towns are for Safeway in AZ.) The only major rival in those mountain towns is City Market-whose stores are very different from partner King Soopers.
But some of the more rural towns that aren't high income resort type places are also a problem with very outdated run down stores, easily the most run down stores in the entire chain.
Every place I've seen Safeway go against City Market, City Market slaughters them. Take Canon City for example- City Market has had multiple remodels over the years. Safeway sitting nearby with a good sized store but still has mid 90's interior for whatever reason. Almost nobody shops there.
Another one is Gunnison. Safeway had this... just awful store. I guess mid 70s. It had mid 90's interior until very recently. Then they recently did a wall remodel to the Modern decor but they kept the old 70s floors down; solid color green, brown, orange, etc. Unbelieveable. Meanwhile City Market in Gunnison again remodeled multiple times over the years... large modern store.
So the above two examples Safeway has extremely outdated substandard facilities compared to City Market in those small towns.
But then there are the other weird rural Safeways- Burlington they did relocate into an old Pamida or Alco or something but that was a real trip back in time; La Junta another trip with the 80s interior but I think may have gotten a cheap Modern remodel last year; Walsenburg an old run down gable with the late 80's marketplace interior; Lamar a large store with the mid 90's interior that I think may be a former King Soopers (doesn't seem like an original Safeway in there)... they don't compete against Kroger in these towns yet their stores are still just junk.
Now- others may say- why remodel when you're the only store in town? And I would say that may be a valid question. But Safeway in CA, OR, WA, etc. did remodel into Lifestyle even if they were the only store in town, in almost every case. Because the old strategy was to get every store to be a Lifestyle store and they got like 95% of their stores remodeled to that. The lack of remodel activity in Denver Division with these very outdated rural stores speaks volumes as to the situation with that division back at the Lifestyle era.
