New Stater Bros. Riverside replacement store opening

California. No non-grocery posts.
storewanderer
Posts: 14379
Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 3:54 pm
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 298 times
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: New Stater Bros. Riverside replacement store opening

Post by storewanderer »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: October 2nd, 2022, 12:59 pm
Now that you mentioned that, I think the reason is that Stater probably wants their stores within a 100 mile drive from their distribution center. That explains why they haven't gone to the Central Coast region, or into the heart of San Diego by acquiring divested Albertsons/Vons stores.
Stater's southernmost store is in Rancho Penasquitos (north San Diego neighborhood). That one is a former Lucky/Alpha Beta. That store was divested as Albertsons had a land site 2 miles up the street, and one down in Mira Mesa that they were planning to build on, which they did for both.
Stater may still have the Albertsons land site in Fallbrook, which they haven't built on yet. My guess is they are trying to keep out competition there.

Albertsons lost maybe a third of their pre-breakup store count within the county by today. Most of it was divestitures to Haggen.
I still think some of those Smart & Final Stores will come back to Albertsons someday...

Stater is likely staying away from Fallbrook due to Major Market. Major Market changed ownership a few years ago but it seems like the new ownership has kept it and its 80's Lucky interior humming along.
SamSpade
Store Manager
Store Manager
Posts: 1568
Joined: September 13th, 2015, 4:39 pm
Has thanked: 374 times
Been thanked: 57 times
Status: Offline

Re: New Stater Bros. Riverside replacement store opening

Post by SamSpade »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: October 1st, 2022, 8:45 pm The store on Vista Way in O'side still has a Lucky interior repaint. This one opened as a Lucky/Sav-on.
So. Much. Grocery! around there. Made my eyes :shock:
I had to manually locate the Stater Bros but saw Target, Walmart, Trader Joe's, Vons, Food4Less, some local "farmers market," Smart & Final Extra, and maybe even something I'm forgetting all along that corridor.
ClownLoach
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor
Posts: 2689
Joined: April 4th, 2016, 10:55 pm
Has thanked: 39 times
Been thanked: 289 times
Status: Offline

Re: New Stater Bros. Riverside replacement store opening

Post by ClownLoach »

CalItalian wrote: September 29th, 2022, 10:26 pm
storewanderer wrote: September 29th, 2022, 9:31 pm
CalItalian wrote: September 29th, 2022, 1:53 pm I thought Vons remodels were crappy. This takes the cake. Nothing was moved around. Lot of new paint, signage & they repolished the hideous concrete floors. Checkstands, self-checkout untouched. There was a Union Bank that closed over a year ago on the left side of the store next to the bakery & all they did was put up a low bank of refrigerated drinks. One aisle was taken out near the right side of the store to make a large aisle with bins.

One of the most disappointing remodels I've ever seen. Ralphs Murrieta, which was remodeled in late 2019, is a much nicer store.

There is no pharmacy at all in this large shopping center (previously a Target & Sav-on were in this center decades ago - now a Living Spaces & Ross) & they didn't even add that.

See my photos on Yelp. I uploaded them just now. Over 30 photos.

https://yelp.to/SACkNnK6Itb
I think this is on an equal level with the bad Safeway remodels that don't touch the floors. I was just in Sparks last night and noticing how the damaged all over/coming up Lifestyle floors around service deli/refrigerated solid dairy look quite awful against brighter lights and the Florida decor.

I wonder if they have a lease restriction against having a pharmacy.

This Ralphs- terrible. Great photos you took though. Terrible merchandising too. Looks like a downscale Smiths. The produce department looks okay. The rest of it- just- terrible. I cannot believe after two attempts to refinish the floor that it still shows glue marks all over the place from the old tile floor. Really- just put back in a tile floor or plank or whatever. It would make this place look infinitely better. The top shelves are for storage of excess inventory, they've done this at Smiths too. That is an old Safeway program from the 90's/00's to reduce out of stocks and works great. The painted decals on the floor like the ones in front of seafood are a first, I don't know where that idea came from but they take tacky to a new level of tacky, reminds me of when Raleys in the early 00's put special floor tiles in taking the space of like 8 tiles, with a big Q that said "enhancing the quality of life" or something- they removed them all when they changed their slogan....

I've been shopping more at Smiths lately for price reasons and it is interesting one store I shop in still has tile floors and fairly wide aisles and I still enjoy the atmosphere there. Another one I go to, has cement floors, narrow aisles, awful use of space throughout, and once I am past the bakery/deli/produce area (which is nice and spacious), I just want OUT of there; it is dreary and miserable.
A number of the ceiling tiles are discolored. You can see some over produce & over the beer aisle (at least the Vons in Temescal Valley & Sun City replaced or repainted them). They added track lighting into Aisle #1 (beer & liquor) because the lighting for liquor was poor. Darkest area of the store. That's the only additional lighting they added.

Vons Temescal Valley floring wasn't replaced during the remodel - except a small patch at each entrance where they added faux wood - and there are now flooring issues in front of checkstands & entrances. Sun City got all new flooring & it looks good. But they needed it.

Except for one aisle, that was removed, nothing was moved at Menifee Ralphs (these two aisles were consolidated into one). I found this store very cluttered prior to the remodel & it still is. It does have good business, though.

This Ralphs keeps their carts inside the store. But you can only get them from the right entrance side. I never understood that & they didn't fix it with the cheap remodel.

Next time I'm in I'll take pics of all the painted floor decals. There's a lot of them.
Ralphs sent postcards about this Menifee remodel all the way to the far Southwest corner of Murrieta, which defies all logic. I think this is nearly 10 miles from this Murrieta area which already houses the recently remodeled Ralphs Marketplace on Washington St. Although that is a nice building I find it to be a very poorly executed store, especially fresh departments. Bakery is abysmal thaw and bake goods that are always either grossly under baked or practically blackened. Seafood counter absolutely reeks and meat is poorly cut. Not one multi pack of any steaks has two that are the same thickness so you can't buy these and have a nice barbecue for the family as each piece of meat will have a wildly different cook time. Produce is poorly merchandised, dates never rotated on any packaged salads, and overall despite being by far the closest store to my house it is my store of last resort. Why would I drive past this dump to drive ten miles and go across two different freeways to go to this Menifee remodel going past I can't count how many Albertsons, Stater Bros., Grocery Outlet, Baron's, Costco, and a SuperTarget?

I've never been to this Menifee Ralphs, but I have driven past it several times and couldn't help but notice the signage. The Ralphs logo has horribly off center and almost "twisted" lettering. I have jokingly called it the bootleg Ralphs. It is the worst misprint of a sign I've ever seen for any major brand, and it is misprinted in every sign in the center. Check it out next time you're there. It's like the sign says R-alp-hs. Looks like the same folks who couldn't reproduce the logo also merchandise the store.

The recent Ralphs remodel in Foothill Ranch supposedly turned that store into a Fresh Fare, but you couldn't tell from the outside because it didn't get a Fresh Fare sign. Same old Ralphs sign it had before. Same dozens of weird Kroger logos spray painted to the poorly executed concrete floor. Where they're remodeling right now they are not replacing the fixtures, not really moving anything, basically just new wall decor that in every case is a downgrade from the previous design package. I've notified in the Menifee pictures that they have cheapened the already lousy "local" design package and it has less overall lettering and graphics affixed to the wall than the stores that got this around 2018-2019. So basically now the walls are mostly blank paint with some occasional lettering. The Menifee pictures really show how cheapened this is compared to previous ones. For example the previous ones had big cupcakes on the wall next to the Bakery Shop signage, now it's just the letters. It is really cheap and bleak, can't repeat that enough.

I was in Portland and Seattle recently and can't figure out why the Kroger decor package most Fred Meyer stores received a few years ago never made it to Ralphs. It's a pretty good looking sign package with strong contemporary colors and bold consistent lettering. This ugly "local" package at Ralphs has terrible outdated colors that look like they were chosen by a color blind person.

Check out this photo on Yelp
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/EoO9eQE ... lp-android
storewanderer
Posts: 14379
Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 3:54 pm
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 298 times
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: New Stater Bros. Riverside replacement store opening

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: October 3rd, 2022, 11:11 pm I was in Portland and Seattle recently and can't figure out why the Kroger decor package most Fred Meyer stores received a few years ago never made it to Ralphs. It's a pretty good looking sign package with strong contemporary colors and bold consistent lettering. This ugly "local" package at Ralphs has terrible outdated colors that look like they were chosen by a color blind person.

Check out this photo on Yelp
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/EoO9eQE ... lp-android
Smiths remodeled Sparks, NV around 2019 to what I think is the Fred Meyer package you are referring to. This was a store that got literally no capex unless you count used fixtures from SoCal and a terrible wall job done around 1995 from about 1987-2010 then got a real cheap job in 2010 so this Fred Meyer package was basically the first major remodel this store received. I like it in the fresh departments but the painted on dairy sign is so cheap looking...

Now in 2022 Smiths remodeled Reno-Lemmon and Dayton, NV to the "local" package. Both of these stores had previously had major remodels and were newer to begin with. I actually think Lemmon looks pretty good. For some reason I don't think Dayton looks as good.

Generally speaking I am not liking many of the supermarket decor packages lately. I really like Raleys ONE decor package (about the only thing I like about Raleys ONE). I find the Albertsons Florida package to be boring but there is nothing off putting about it. There is a small chain called Holiday that built a replacement store in Auburn and I like their decor package there. Given Holiday's last new store build in Cool used used Ralphs fixtures and a store manager from closed stores they've sure come a long way. Holiday is building a replacement store in Redding on Hartnell currently, I will be interested to see how that looks inside.
User avatar
retailfanmitchell019
Assistant Store Manager
Assistant Store Manager
Posts: 891
Joined: November 10th, 2019, 11:17 am
Location: 760 area code
Has thanked: 39 times
Been thanked: 57 times
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: New Stater Bros. Riverside replacement store opening

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

storewanderer wrote: October 2nd, 2022, 8:35 pm Stater is likely staying away from Fallbrook due to Major Market.
That Albertsons lot in Fallbrook was originally a Vons lot that they planned to build on. Vons closed their Fallbrook store in the early 90s (former Safeway), hoping to build on that site.
Post Reply