Associated opens new independent in Colorado City, AZ

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Associated opens new independent in Colorado City, AZ

Post by storewanderer »

This is a real upgrade from the previous Bee's store which was sort of a makeshift sort of store a couple miles outside Colorado City in a warehouse type of building around the intersection of Central and Airport. The old store in the middle of Colorado City which was a Foodtown closed in 2012 by the group that controlled the store and controls much of the real estate in the town, and is currently a hardware store. I believe this new store is controlled by a different group.

This also marks the first Arctic Circle in Arizona.

https://www.afstores.com/bees-marketpla ... new-store/

https://www.stgeorgeutah.com/wp-content ... scaled.jpg

Good looking grand opening there, nice to see people smiling and enjoying the new store.

https://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archi ... d-opening/

Completely off topic for this message board to comment further but Colorado City is worth researching the history of to better understand the somewhat vague descriptions in the first paragraph of this message.
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Re: Associated opens new independent in Colorado City, AZ

Post by veteran+ »

Looks like a big happy "family".

:)
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Re: Associated opens new independent in Colorado City, AZ

Post by storewanderer »

veteran+ wrote: April 1st, 2021, 5:31 am Looks like a big happy "family".

:)
Beyond the location and such factors, I do think it is a nice looking store with a lot of features for its size and considering this is a single store independent grocery store. It should be helpful for this community to keep more of its spending within the community vs. driving over the state line into UT where there are larger stores.

I did go through this town about four years ago and went into their previous location. This town really needed this larger replacement store. I have to think Associated somehow is paying or supporting these independents to build these stores because how can a single store independent afford to build this, build a new gas station (will also be the only gas station in the town), buy an Arctic Circle franchise, buy a Beans n Brews franchise, run a pharmacy in the store as a single store independent, etc.

Pretty significant growth out of Associated and its independents in this Southern Utah market which I would call this a part of. You have this new independent, a new Lin's (AFS Corporate) in St. George a few years ago, and a new Harmon's in Santa Clara, UT. The Harmon's is by far the nicest of the 3.
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Re: Associated opens new independent in Colorado City, AZ

Post by SamSpade »

Off Topic
Yes, Colorado City and Hildale have quite the history. ;)
It's interesting to me that there is going to be (by the glass) beer, wine, and a coffeehouse available. Utah really is changing for the better, in my opinion. Even as recently as a few decades ago, many communities had blue laws.

I understand there's a border/this is AZ but immediately adjacent. The photo of the outdoor area was beautiful, definitely could see my family loitering as tourists in the area.

Looking at the map, Dollar General is next door.
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Re: Associated opens new independent in Colorado City, AZ

Post by storewanderer »

SamSpade wrote: April 3rd, 2021, 5:40 pm
Off Topic
Yes, Colorado City and Hildale have quite the history. ;)
It's interesting to me that there is going to be (by the glass) beer, wine, and a coffeehouse available. Utah really is changing for the better, in my opinion. Even as recently as a few decades ago, many communities had blue laws.

I understand there's a border/this is AZ but immediately adjacent. The photo of the outdoor area was beautiful, definitely could see my family loitering as tourists in the area.

Looking at the map, Dollar General is next door.
Actually the religious group in Colorado City is allowed to consume alcohol and coffee freely. It is one of the differences they have with other religious group more common throughout Utah. So it makes sense this store has those offerings.

This may be part of why they settled in Colorado City, AZ just over the state line from Utah as well to not have to deal with those blue laws back then.

Dollar General had recently opened when I was there. Surprised a Family Dollar didn't pop up.

It is very nice terrain there, yes. And the store took full advantage of it with a second floor seating, large rounded glass window area upstairs, outdoor seating. They really worked here to make a store that takes advantage of the surrounding terrain.
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Re: Associated opens new independent in Colorado City, AZ

Post by storewanderer »

Was able to go to this store. Very interesting store. Basically it is a straight AFS build layout (same layout as newer Ridleys Stores and also the corporate Lin's in St. George-Mall Drive).

Chevron station out front run by the store (surprised not a Sinclair), Drive Through Pharmacy also run by the store.

First thing was the parking lot was about 80% full which shocked me and a tour bus was there with international tourists, probably drove through from Zion or on the way to Zion and was using this as a bathroom stop.

Store has concession Beans & Brews (some UT Starbucks knockoff) and Arctic Circle both of which were busy but only had a couple employees each. There is also seating upstairs and a bar type area up there which was busy. Store has a deli with mostly ready to eat food, salads etc., some sushi prep in store from a sushi company, and had 2 employees. Store had bakery which was not staffed, was too large/didn't have its space filled too well and appears to be a full scratch operation. Produce had too much product out and isn't moving product or rotating product well. Meat looked pretty good, not too much out, but enough. Center store spacing is oddly allocated, they have a surprisingly large assortment of non-food items which are probably not moving well (Dollar General is across the street). Pricing on center store seemed too high. Dairy had a lot of milk SKUs and one door was "RAW MILK" at $6/gallon and produced at a dairy right down the street from the store, with some kind of warning posted about it. The store had quite a few employees with self checkouts, 2-3 regular cashiers, and a couple other employees around the front end.

It appears this is actually a successful store. I didn't think there were enough people in this town to support this store but there seem to be a lot more people around than it looks like.
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