Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

storewanderer wrote:
jamcool wrote: August 6th, 2022, 11:31 pm
Alpha8472 wrote: August 6th, 2022, 9:14 pm In the 90s, Payless in the San Francisco Bay Area had huge stores. They carried a huge selection of items. The Payless in Pleasant Hill, California was originally an Albertsons Payless Combo store. The 2 companies teamed up to create a super store that featured a supermarket and a variety store with many departments. The Albertsons eventually closed in the 70s, but the Payless continued with a huge food section and tons of departments.

Then around 1996 the huge Albertsons Payless Combo store was bulldozed and replaced by a smaller Payless and the land was big enough for Staples, Computer City, and other shops. The new Payless still had a huge outdoor garden center and a huge selection of items beyond a typical drugstore. The Thrifty across the street was closed and turned into a Dollar Tree. Then in 1998, Rite Aid took over. Eventually a Thrifty Ice Cream counter was added to the remaining Rite Aid.
Sounds similar to the Skaggs Albertsons operation in the Southwest.
It was unusual for the Albertsons with Payless in CA to share a common wall (some did). Usually they just opened in the same shopping center. I don't know of any others that were a combo store like the Pleasant Hill described was. At that time the Payless operation in question was a CA-based Payless that had nothing to do with the OR-based Payless. The CA-based Payless briefly ran a store in Reno and a store in Sparks in the late 70's but both were with Longs and downsized (still big stores) by the early 80's then CVS closed both without converting; there was a Payless in Elko, NV that was from the late 70's or early 80's and I am not sure if that was from the CA Payless or the OR Payless; that store was closed shortly after the Rite Aid conversion.
NorCal Payless locations developed in the 1950's and 1960's by the Oakland based entity were ad-hoc combo stores with a wall between the grocery and drug stores.The partnership with Albertsons commenced in the mid-1960's after abs acquired a smaller chain(the attached supermarkets weren't branded until then).Pleasant Hill was the first such combo store from around 1959,while additional NorCal sites were developed in the 1960's(citrus Heights was among those).Few if any of these combo store buildings remain intact to any extent.As late as the mid 1980's, shopping centers co-anchored by Albertsons and Payless were still being built in California though by then they were in truly separate buildings.

As the Tahoe basin is basically at the bleeding edge of the RAD West Coast presence,I really have to wonder if any of those locations are suddenly fair game considering that the staffing shortages have reared a an even uglier head than in urbanized areas of NorCal.

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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

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storewanderer wrote: August 6th, 2022, 10:27 pm
norcalriteaidclerk wrote: August 6th, 2022, 11:54 am All of the Wild Harvest Food is now 75% off. According to signs this sale started 7/24.
Quite a bit of short date on the Wild Harvest food items I am noticing. I guess it didn't work out too well. It didn't seem like there was much promotion on the line in the past year. I am surprised Supervalu/UNFI did not try harder to move more product through Rite Aid. 2,200 stores is 2,200 stores and even if they don't move much food, Supervalu/UNFI was just delivering to the Rite Aid distribution centers (not to the stores) so that was only a few deliveries to make.
Sort of surprising - I got 4 items today (all were the last of that particular item, all canned goods) - one (soup) is March of 2023, but the other three are all into 2024, one even as far as December.

That is the only Rite Aid close(ish) to me, there are a couple others but not in areas I tend to get to often any longer.
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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

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BillyGr wrote:
storewanderer wrote: August 6th, 2022, 10:27 pm
norcalriteaidclerk wrote: August 6th, 2022, 11:54 am All of the Wild Harvest Food is now 75% off. According to signs this sale started 7/24.
Quite a bit of short date on the Wild Harvest food items I am noticing. I guess it didn't work out too well. It didn't seem like there was much promotion on the line in the past year. I am surprised Supervalu/UNFI did not try harder to move more product through Rite Aid. 2,200 stores is 2,200 stores and even if they don't move much food, Supervalu/UNFI was just delivering to the Rite Aid distribution centers (not to the stores) so that was only a few deliveries to make.
Sort of surprising - I got 4 items today (all were the last of that particular item, all canned goods) - one (soup) is March of 2023, but the other three are all into 2024, one even as far as December.

That is the only Rite Aid close(ish) to me, there are a couple others but not in areas I tend to get to often any longer.
Nothing significantly short dated among whatever remaining wild harvest spices remain in stock at 5409 sunrise,as the only thing coming even close is the vanilla extract with a best by date of January 2023.

Interestingly though such items are never outdated, I earlier this week actually sold a big box of tugaboos diapers(house brand for baby items)that had a internal warehouse sticker on them dated in the spring or summer of 2017(don't remember the precise month off hand)when 7900 Arcadia was obviously still in business.Hopefully it just sat undetected at the Woodland DC for years instead of sitting on my store's shelves (or backroom)for that long.

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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

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norcalriteaidclerk wrote: August 7th, 2022, 7:27 pm Nothing significantly short dated among whatever remaining wild harvest spices remain in stock at 5409 sunrise,as the only thing coming even close is the vanilla extract with a best by date of January 2023.

Interestingly though such items are never outdated, I earlier this week actually sold a big box of tugaboos diapers(house brand for baby items)that had a internal warehouse sticker on them dated in the spring or summer of 2017(don't remember the precise month off hand)when 7900 Arcadia was obviously still in business.Hopefully it just sat undetected at the Woodland DC for years instead of sitting on my store's shelves (or backroom)for that long.

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What I found short dated or outdated, at multiple stores, was various coffee items, snack type items (fruit and grain bars, fruit sticks) and some bagged snacks.

Back when they were running the 75% off the various non-core categories I bought one item from the kitchen electrics area that had a warehouse tag on it from 2015 or something like that. It worked fine.
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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

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norcalriteaidclerk wrote: August 7th, 2022, 1:42 am

As the Tahoe basin is basically at the bleeding edge of the RAD West Coast presence,I really have to wonder if any of those locations are suddenly fair game considering that the staffing shortages have reared a an even uglier head than in urbanized areas of NorCal.

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Given the lease on South Lake Tahoe is up soon I think it will be pretty clear pretty fast... curiously that store as of late has longer hours than any other surrounding stores (Gardnerville, Truckee, Kings Beach). The South Lake Tahoe was in really bad shape on hours last summer (things were totally normal at Gardnerville and Kings Beach back then, but Truckee was already having trouble...).

I also see the Grass Valley pharmacy is closing at 6 PM, but it is open 7 days a week. That is one of the busier stores in the entire chain, it absorbed the Kmart pharmacy (which was open past 6 PM...), and previously looked like it had so much activity that it was not large enough physically to handle all of the volume it was doing.

There are some other Rite Aid stores with pharmacy currently only open until 6 PM Monday-Friday:
What I find interesting is all of these locations have competitor pharmacies that are open 7 days a week and most of these are places that are somewhat rural and CVS is present (CVS isn't overly present in most of the rural areas out west like Rite Aid is).

Truckee (Safeway, CVS- 7 days a week pharmacy)
Gardnerville (Smiths, Walgreens, Wal Mart- 7 days a week pharmacy; Raleys pharmacy closed Sunday only)
Yreka (Raleys- 7 days a week pharmacy, Wal Mart pharmacy closed Sunday only)
Fort Bragg (CVS and Safeway- 7 days a week pharmacy)
Crescent City (CVS- 7 days a week pharmacy; Wal Mart pharmacy closed both Saturday and Sunday... first time I've ever seen that... Safeway pharmacy closed Sunday only)

What I find interesting is all of these locations have competitor pharmacies that are open 7 days a week.

Also they own the building in Crescent City.

Another store with lease expiring 9/30/2022 is Pacifica-Fairmont.
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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

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A Walmart Pharmacy that closes on Saturday and Sunday would mean that the pharmacy is not doing that much business or that the pharmacy really wants to save money. Crescent City has a very small population of about 6,673. I would assume that there are 2 pharmacists at that Walmart Pharmacy and in order to not have any overtime at all, they are closed on the weekends. Normally there would be a pharmacist that would float from store to store to fill in on weekends, but if that store is so remote there is no floater pharmacist since there are no other Walmart stores around for 100 miles. I assume the Walmart in Eureka has no extra pharmacists to spare. Walmart would not want to pay a pharmacist to drive to that Walmart from the next nearest Walmart in Redding.
Last edited by Alpha8472 on August 7th, 2022, 11:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

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Alpha8472 wrote: August 7th, 2022, 10:58 pm A Walmart Pharmacy that closes on Saturday and Sunday would mean that the pharmacy is not doing that much business or that the pharmacy really wants to save money. Crescent City has a very small population of about 6,673. I would assume that there are 2 pharmacists at that Walmart Pharmacy and in order to not have any overtime at all, they are closed on the weekends. Normally there would be a pharmacist that would float from store to store to fill in on weekends, but if that store is so remote there is no floater pharmacist since there are no other Walmart stores around for 100 miles. Walmart would not want to pay a pharmacist to drive to that Walmart from the next nearest Walmart in Redding.
Crescent City Wal Mart was a real old rundown Division 1 Store that got a major expansion some years ago that basically expanded each side of the store and the front and the back, and it came out quite nice, new ceiling and everything, the only thing that made it obvious it was an older store is it kept its white tile floor (maybe that is gone by now). Crescent City is a miserable city, and not a place I would suggest spending much time, and also suggest being very observant of all surroundings. There was once a Kmart in Crescent City, a Home Depot sits where it was. Though its population is small, the Crescent City Wal Mart draws from a bit of a radius north and south, plus tourists who go there because they assume it is a nice place being on the ocean (guilty...), and though there is a very busy Fred Meyer in much nicer Brookings, there isn't a whole lot of competition. Ray's Food Place previously had 5 stores between Crescent City and Brookings (3 pharmacies I think before they closed all of those) and has closed all 5 stores. Even if those were very low volume stores, I'm sure they still collectively did about $700k a week in sales and that was a lot of sales to give to basically Wal Mart, Crescent City Safeway, Fred Meyer, and a couple Grocery Outlets (I suspect Smith River and the Crescent City Rays did under $100k a week, the Brookings Rays probably did considerably more but still closed for some reason, the Harbor Shop Smart probably didn't do much over $100k a week, and I'm guessing the Crescent City Shop Smart did closer to $200k a week before Wal Mart expanded).

Rite Aid is the only store that is present in both Crescent City and Brookings though since you cross into OR I am guessing those are two different regions/districts for Rite Aid. One would be a union store and the other not union, and probably could not trade pharmacists across state lines. The Rite Aid pharmacy in Brookings (Harbor) is open 7 days a week.
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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

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The Walmart in Yreka on Google Maps Street View has 2007 dated imagery. The store back in 2007 was not a supercenter and had a red, blue, and gray color with the old Wal-mart logo without the star.
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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

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Alpha8472 wrote: August 7th, 2022, 11:30 pm The Walmart in Yreka on Google Maps Street View has 2007 dated imagery. The store back in 2007 was not a supercenter and had a red, blue, and gray color with the old Wal-mart logo without the star.
Yreka did get renovated but not expanded and is a Supercenter now. Those Division 1 converted to Supercenters without expansion don't work too well. Ray's Food Place did close 2 stores in Yreka after Wal Mart did its expansion (a very low volume Ray's at Montague offramp which seemed to be an old Safeway with the old interior, and a larger higher volume Price Less near the Yreka Rite Aid which seemed like a Fry's Store in layout but I don't think that it was possibly one). As it stands Raleys is the only conventional grocer in Yreka. That Raleys is on the lowest possible price scale Raleys has.

I think the Yreka Rite Aid is a former Safeway (so is the Fort Bragg Rite Aid, and the Mount Shasta Rite Aid).
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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

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storewanderer wrote: August 7th, 2022, 10:24 pm
norcalriteaidclerk wrote: August 7th, 2022, 1:42 am

As the Tahoe basin is basically at the bleeding edge of the RAD West Coast presence,I really have to wonder if any of those locations are suddenly fair game considering that the staffing shortages have reared a an even uglier head than in urbanized areas of NorCal.

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Given the lease on South Lake Tahoe is up soon I think it will be pretty clear pretty fast... curiously that store as of late has longer hours than any other surrounding stores (Gardnerville, Truckee, Kings Beach). The South Lake Tahoe was in really bad shape on hours last summer (things were totally normal at Gardnerville and Kings Beach back then, but Truckee was already having trouble...).

I also see the Grass Valley pharmacy is closing at 6 PM, but it is open 7 days a week. That is one of the busier stores in the entire chain, it absorbed the Kmart pharmacy (which was open past 6 PM...), and previously looked like it had so much activity that it was not large enough physically to handle all of the volume it was doing.

There are some other Rite Aid stores with pharmacy currently only open until 6 PM Monday-Friday:
What I find interesting is all of these locations have competitor pharmacies that are open 7 days a week and most of these are places that are somewhat rural and CVS is present (CVS isn't overly present in most of the rural areas out west like Rite Aid is).

Truckee (Safeway, CVS- 7 days a week pharmacy)
Gardnerville (Smiths, Walgreens, Wal Mart- 7 days a week pharmacy; Raleys pharmacy closed Sunday only)
Yreka (Raleys- 7 days a week pharmacy, Wal Mart pharmacy closed Sunday only)
Fort Bragg (CVS and Safeway- 7 days a week pharmacy)
Crescent City (CVS- 7 days a week pharmacy; Wal Mart pharmacy closed both Saturday and Sunday... first time I've ever seen that... Safeway pharmacy closed Sunday only)

What I find interesting is all of these locations have competitor pharmacies that are open 7 days a week.

Also they own the building in Crescent City.

Another store with lease expiring 9/30/2022 is Pacifica-Fairmont.
Pacifica Fairmont shares a center with a pharmacy-less Safeway and is one of 2 locations in town(Linda Mar is presumably a former Thrifty).The Manteca lease also expires at the end of September,South Lake Tahoe on Halloween(no pun intended),and Los Banos at the end of November.All are former Payless units that downsize remodeled into the Wellness 2.0 decor around the mid-2010's.The futures of Los Banos(Grocery Outlet occupies at least part of the old supermarket tenant space)and South Lake Tahoe(former Lucky/Albertsons is now a Ross)are both interesting based on the fact that those centers have lacked a traditional supermarket tenant for years.

Also this fall,two dark leases on California locations that were among the first closures of the year will come off the books:the lease on 2727 South Mooney in Visalia(closed in January)will formally lapse at the end of this month,while that of 5575 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles(closed by mid-March)will do likewise at the end of September(same time as the Manteca and South Lake Tahoe leases unless either or both are renewed).

As with Crescent City,the North Highlands Payless building(partial sublease available since the downsize Wellness 2.0 remodel within the past eight years)is also owned outright.It appears that they did sell off the relatively old(1960's era based on the tower sign predating the oval version of the Thrifty logo)downtown Ontario Thrifty building(store closed after New Years,it nominally had the 'Rediscover Thrifty' decor but with 2000-ish RAD aisle markers).

Lastly,another quiet Portland closure with the past month:the 'other' Aloha store at 20225 Southwest Tualatin Valley Highway was a former Payless in a center shared with Safeway.It appeared to be remodeled first into the RA-1 format and then the Wellness 2.0 decor.The pharmacy-less Safeway across the lot still has the ribbon-leaf logo and has yet to remodel out of the mid-1990's decor.
For your life,Thrifty and Payless have got it.
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