La Jolla Vons to be converted to Pavilions

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Re: La Jolla Vons to be converted to Pavilions

Post by ClownLoach »

veteran+ wrote: January 29th, 2023, 1:01 pm I know several people that Work from Home. Good people and a mix of family and friends.

I must say that after being a boss (high level management and/or owner) for so many years I truly believe this is not a good thing. There are exceptions that are due to exceptional people.

I find these folks I know are taking advantage and doing too many personal things on the clock. I also strongly believe that those "multi -task" claims are B.S. The majority of people who claim that they are all that with multi-tasking is just NOT true. And there are recent studies that indicate multi tasking is a myth.

Multi tasking is the antithesis of focus. Are there some rare people who can do this? I m sure there is.
The real estate market is also playing a part in this for companies leasing or renting space. Where jobs exist that can be done productively remote they're reducing the size of the offices and making the WFH permanent. Why pay for an office when you can dump the cost on the employee and increase profits at the same time?
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Re: La Jolla Vons to be converted to Pavilions

Post by storewanderer »

veteran+ wrote: January 29th, 2023, 1:01 pm I know several people that Work from Home. Good people and a mix of family and friends.

I must say that after being a boss (high level management and/or owner) for so many years I truly believe this is not a good thing. There are exceptions that are due to exceptional people.

I find these folks I know are taking advantage and doing too many personal things on the clock. I also strongly believe that those "multi -task" claims are B.S. The majority of people who claim that they are all that with multi-tasking is just NOT true. And there are recent studies that indicate multi tasking is a myth.

Multi tasking is the antithesis of focus. Are there some rare people who can do this? I m sure there is.
The biggest problem I see with work from home, and I spent the entire pandemic doing that successfully, was what happened to new employees. New employees just did not engage and were not trained properly. No matter how hard you tried, how many Teams meetings you set up, how often you called them, the engagement was just... not usually there. Many did not stick around and I think had it been an in person arrangement more of the new employees would have stuck around. There is always a lot of churn like 50%, but not the 90% churn I saw during work from home.

Multi-tasking is not really acceptable. The only way to measure work from home is to continue to measure how long projects should take, what the deadline is, and if the deadline is being met with a quality product. If the work from home employee is at their terminal for 14 hours because they screwed around for 4 hours, worked for the other 8, and wasted the other 2 hours in the start/stop going between "multi task" and their project, that is on them I guess, but will fail long term. Some companies, I have heard (have not personally experienced) require their work from home employees to have the camera turned on at all times during office hours (say 8-4 9-5 etc.) and take scheduled breaks (camera off obviously) I think if you feel the need to have that kind of a policy/rule, you probably need to just tell people to get back into the office.
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Re: La Jolla Vons to be converted to Pavilions

Post by veteran+ »

Well explained storewanderer and Clownloach!
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Re: La Jolla Vons to be converted to Pavilions

Post by Bluelightspecial »

If...and that's a big if, this merger goes through, to think that Kroger would keep one of their bannered stores instead of a better located Albertsons/Safeway store would be a bad business decision. There is no way that a combined Kroger/Albertsons would let La Jolla become part of Spinco. They would keep it and get rid of their Fresh Fare in La Jolla if they had to. The locations aren't even comparable. They might get rid of the Pavilions banner, but the location of that store is worth more than 4 Ralphs stores.
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Re: La Jolla Vons to be converted to Pavilions

Post by storewanderer »

Bluelightspecial wrote: January 31st, 2023, 5:23 pm If...and that's a big if, this merger goes through, to think that Kroger would keep one of their bannered stores instead of a better located Albertsons/Safeway store would be a bad business decision. There is no way that a combined Kroger/Albertsons would let La Jolla become part of Spinco. They would keep it and get rid of their Fresh Fare in La Jolla if they had to. The locations aren't even comparable. They might get rid of the Pavilions banner, but the location of that store is worth more than 4 Ralphs stores.
I think they could try to keep both but SpinCo has to get some good stores to be viable too...

Do you really think the La Jolla Pavilions is a better fit for Kroger than the current very high volume oversized Ralphs in La Jolla (a former Smiths)? I would not be surprised if the smaller Pavilions is more profitable despite being lower volume due to its location/sales mix.

That Ralphs in La Jolla is one of the rather small group of "typical Kroger" type stores Kroger even has in SoCal. I do not under any circumstances see that La Jolla Ralphs being divested and if they got put to the wall and said you have to divest something I am sure they'd divest the Pavilions first.

My guess is they fight to keep both and generously agree to divest the Vons at 7788 Regents, 3993 Governor, and 4725 Clairemont.
Really Governor probably doesn't need to be divested but it is a dog store, the worst performing and worst condition of those 3, so may as well just go ahead and divest that dump too.
1702 Garnet Vons is going to be a tough store to divest. That is a good one.
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Re: La Jolla Vons to be converted to Pavilions

Post by Bluelightspecial »

I agree. The Ralphs's is actually not that close to the Pavilions in La Jolla....but the Pavilions has a much better location.
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Re: La Jolla Vons to be converted to Pavilions

Post by ClownLoach »

Bluelightspecial wrote: January 31st, 2023, 5:23 pm If...and that's a big if, this merger goes through, to think that Kroger would keep one of their bannered stores instead of a better located Albertsons/Safeway store would be a bad business decision. There is no way that a combined Kroger/Albertsons would let La Jolla become part of Spinco. They would keep it and get rid of their Fresh Fare in La Jolla if they had to. The locations aren't even comparable. They might get rid of the Pavilions banner, but the location of that store is worth more than 4 Ralphs stores.
They'll never let go of that weird Ralphs in La Jolla. My understanding is it is 2nd to the Westwood store in overall volume in the Ralphs chain. Yes the location and parking sucks but they keep packing them in. The Pavilions is in a completely different neighborhood and area on the complete opposite side of town and serves a completely different clientele.

All of these skeptical divestiture proposals I keep reading basically cancel out the merger entirely. If we keep deciding that there are two stores in one area and one has to divest then there isn't a merger benefit. Kroger is going to have to get divestitures below 10% of the Albertsons Cos store count to make this worthwhile.

The only place that I expect to see any real pushback is where no other competitors exist. That Ralphs has a Whole Foods across the street and shares a wall with Trader Joe's. Personally I think that brings more business. If there is a Walmart, Target, Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Aldi, Grocery Outlet, etc. they will have the right to say they are not a monopoly in the area. Their argument is that all those are competitors which is why they're merging in the first place. Give me a city where there is literally nothing but a Ralphs and say a Albertsons for many miles then let's talk about divests. Our armchair engineering keeps divesting 40% to 60% of the stores being acquired.
Last edited by ClownLoach on February 3rd, 2023, 11:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: La Jolla Vons to be converted to Pavilions

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 11:23 pm

They'll never let go of that weird Ralphs in La Jolla. My understanding is it is 2nd to the Westwood store in overall volume in the Ralphs chain.

All of these skeptical divestiture proposals I keep reading basically cancel out the merger entirely. If we keep deciding that there are two stores in one area and one has to divest then there isn't a merger benefit. Kroger is going to have to get divestitures below 10% of the Albertsons Cos store count to make this worthwhile.
I don't see what is weird about the Ralphs in La Jolla. It is just a big former Smiths that Ralphs had thrown a ton of money at. It is very high volume. It used to have a 24 hour pharmacy (I don't think Kroger does those at all anymore). It has a good Kosher department. Merchandised with the fullest possible merchandise mix. It is like a typical Frys, Smiths, King Soopers, etc. as opposed to like a Ralphs.
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Re: La Jolla Vons to be converted to Pavilions

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 11:27 pm
ClownLoach wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 11:23 pm

They'll never let go of that weird Ralphs in La Jolla. My understanding is it is 2nd to the Westwood store in overall volume in the Ralphs chain.

All of these skeptical divestiture proposals I keep reading basically cancel out the merger entirely. If we keep deciding that there are two stores in one area and one has to divest then there isn't a merger benefit. Kroger is going to have to get divestitures below 10% of the Albertsons Cos store count to make this worthwhile.
I don't see what is weird about the Ralphs in La Jolla. It is just a big former Smiths that Ralphs had thrown a ton of money at. It is very high volume. It used to have a 24 hour pharmacy (I don't think Kroger does those at all anymore). It has a good Kosher department. Merchandised with the fullest possible merchandise mix. It is like a typical Frys, Smiths, King Soopers, etc. as opposed to like a Ralphs.
It's pretty funky but it works. Parking is horrible. Layout is weird. Ceiling is super low. I find it weird that a store with so many negatives is such a massive success. People put up with a lot to shop there in my opinion. I love the expanded assortment. Reminds me of a Smith's or Fred Meyer like you said.
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Re: La Jolla Vons to be converted to Pavilions

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 11:53 pm

It's pretty funky but it works. Parking is horrible. Layout is weird. Ceiling is super low. I find it weird that a store with so many negatives is such a massive success. People put up with a lot to shop there in my opinion. I love the expanded assortment. Reminds me of a Smith's or Fred Meyer like you said.
It is a bit strange, it doesn't really seem like a Smiths, other than that it is big (and the way the main entrance is like a cave). I wonder what that place looked like when it was a Smiths. I saw it physically as a Smiths but did not go in. Thought it was odd at the time in the 90's to see a Smiths in a good area like that.

I'm not sure what the low ceiling is all about. The layout is odd, the store seems shallow but I'm not sure if it is actually shallow or that is just how it feels.
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