Large store format

[rwsandiego]

I blame the retailers first, for their short sightedness.

I blame the developers and the City as well.

It's unfortunate that mixed-use development works the way it does in metro Los Angeles. In San Diego, there is a huge Albertsons on the first floor of an apartment building downtown (East Village, to be exact), a Jimbos' (think Whole Foods) in the old Horton Plaza mall, also downtown, and at least one VONS (Mission Hills/Hillcrest) that's not exactly mixed-use, but a large store was built on what was a parking lot.

Chicago has had large supermarkets on the first floors of apartment buildings going back to the 1960's. The older ones were probably in the 40K square foot range, but more recently Jewel, Whole Foods, and Dominick's built very large (I'd guess >60K square foot) stores. Actually, Mariano's has two that are probably close to 100K square feet (Illinois Center and Greektown). Target has opened some large stores, too, including one in the historic Carson Pirie Scott building on State Street. The City of Chicago actively lobbied for many of these stores. Even Walmart opened a handful of stores in underserved neighborhoods where residents were open to having a store there.

I'd say NYC was late in catching on to this practice (except in the case of K Mart), but at least they did. Part of that was due to local sentiment and habit - they had crappy little grocery stores. It was a New York "thing." That changed, of course, once the big Whole Foods opened in Columbus Circle. New Yorkers hated it at first until they realized that shopping at a nice, clean grocery store was not so bad. Also, NYC (like Chicago) has large former department stores, which lend themselves well to a K Mart or a supermarket.

To @storewanderer's point, these areas are more densely packed and public transit is better than in LA.

......(except in San Francisco- and even there that public transit system has exorbitant pricing compared to similar systems in other US cities).

Not really. At $83 a month, Muni is pretty inexpensive compared to other cities. Chicago's (CTA) is $75, NYC is $127, Philadelphia is $96, and Seattle is $99 (for unlimited standard $2.75/trip rides). BART is priced more like commuter rail, but the Muni pass includes BART rides that begin and end in San Francisco. The system is creaky and in need of maintenance, but it is extensive.

I also blame Walmart and their distructive buisness model that fueled "The Backlash" against large footprint stores.

Yeah, Walmart did themselves no favors by doing that. Their crappy stores haven't helped them, either. The sad (for them) thing about Walmart is they have been at the forefront of recycling, building stores with solar panels on the roof and over parking lots, and implementing energy-saving practices in their stores, but they don't publicize it in a way that they can change public opinion. Then again, anti-anything zealots who make decisions based on emotion instead of facts will not change their minds.

...Whole Foods has (well they tried a large format in San Francisco but now that store is now closed)....

The failure of that store has more to do with the location than being a large-format store. Trinity Plaza has been a crime-ridden location for decades. Had they opened that store in or near the Target-anchored development on Geary (the old Sears) or around Stonestown things would have worked out differently.

[ClownLoach]

There is a lack of success with large format grocery stores in California that predates Walmart.

Vons believed in the 1980s that a large Wegmans type store was needed and bet that the future of their company would be those stores. They called them Vons Pavilions. We all know how that worked out - I'm confident all of the largest size boxes are either closed, downsized, or downgraded to a Vons.

Smiths saw the same opportunity and built a bunch of SoCal stores that failed.

The difference in California is that most people do have a car, and they spend a much higher percentage of their income on housing than most other places. For the person on the east coast who spends less than 25% of their income on their house they can afford to pay a few more cents for that bottle of Tide detergent at the nearby Wegmans to save a grip to Walmart across town. The California customer can't do that. If their general merchandise shopping needs will cost $25 more per basket at Stater Bros than Target they are going to shop both stores because they can't afford to spend more for convenience.

Since the majority of the extra space in larger supermarkets is general merchandise - which will not sell unless it is priced as low as Target/Walmart/Costco/Sam's - a large format store becomes doomed to fail with the high rents and labor costs in California.

The closest we have are true SuperTarget and Walmart Supercenters that were built with at least 150,000 Sq ft in the more suburban areas like the Inland Empire, and I suspect the only reason they thrive is because of the oft discussed failure of the conventional chains to chase the population and grow after the early 2000s. Winco has also been able to squeeze some large stores in, but many are also in areas that are under served and/or have lost many conventional grocery stores in the last couple years.

In general it seems the largest size conventional stores that remain open are between 50K and max out at 60K. I'm hard pressed to think of a Ralphs, Vons/Albertsons that exceeds 60K and remains open (maybe one Vons on Atlantic in North Long Beach if it hasn't downsized or closed yet; its twin in Laguna Niguel rebranded to Pavilions then shed 20K of space in a subsequent downsizing remodel). I would estimate the average SoCal conventional grocery store (big 3 chains Ralphs, Alb/Vons, Stater) is 35,000 Sq ft. Maybe a tad smaller.

And finally we all know that shrink is a major factor in California (LA the highest shrink in the USA and SF the second highest). The general merchandise items are more likely to be shoplifted than foods. Once again stores with a large GM area are going to incur greater losses which again render the store unprofitable. This isn't anything new and actually makes me wonder about some of the site selections made way back in the Albertsons-Lucky merger (where a smaller Lucky was kept instead of the larger Albertsons across the street in many cases around the LA area).

Large conventional grocery stores just don't work well in California, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

[jamcool]

California was the birthplace of FedMart, which started as a government employee membership store that became a discount store with a full food department in 1963. Also was the home of Gemco-the membership store owned by Lucky.

[veteran+]

"(LA the highest shrink in the USA and SF the second highest)"

In total dollars not percentage wise.

Everyone I know here is very unhappy with the stock of grocery stores. Lack of parking, lack of variety, lack of customer service, poor attitude, corporate's deaf ears, congested stores, poor upkeep and the traffic that we navigate to jump around and get all we want.

We discussed this at a Neighborhood meeting recently. The best we have in a 5 mile radius is the well run and overpriced Pavilions.

[veteran+]

California was the birthplace of FedMart, which started as a government employee membership store that became a discount store with a full food department in 1963. Also was the home of Gemco-the membership store owned by Lucky.

Don't forget Giant by Ralphs.

[ClownLoach]

California was the birthplace of FedMart, which started as a government employee membership store that became a discount store with a full food department in 1963. Also was the home of Gemco-the membership store owned by Lucky.

Don't forget Giant by Ralphs.

I don't believe Giant was actually a "giant" format. If I remember correctly at least two of them are in use today, Long Beach (Traffic Circle) and Garden Grove (now Shun Fat, still has some remnants of old Ralphs decor). Both are about 40K which was much larger than the traditional Ralphs that operated at that time.

[ClownLoach]

California was the birthplace of FedMart, which started as a government employee membership store that became a discount store with a full food department in 1963. Also was the home of Gemco-the membership store owned by Lucky.

FedMart was before my time but I understand it was very similar to Fedco. Fedco was pretty much like a Mervyns with an electronics store and a small (maybe 20K Sq ft) grocery area. The only former FedMart stores I know I've shopped include Garden Grove Harbor Blvd. which was a very small Target until it was expanded a couple times in the 2000's. Since food is a sideshow in both of those I would not categorize them with traditional grocers in large format like Fred Meyer, the original Pavilions, Smiths and other grocery-first retailers. I would put FedMart and Fedco with Walmart and Target (who occupy most of their former sites anyway).

Gemco also before my time but several became the original Vons Pavilions such as Garden Grove and Long Beach. GG was listed as 55,000 Sq ft and I'd estimate LB is a hair smaller (maybe is 55 if you include all the storefronts attached to the front).

I can't think of any pure play grocer with big stores like the East coast Wegmans, ShopRite and so on that have had any level of success in SoCal. Even big flagship size Whole Foods were 60K.

[veteran+]

California was the birthplace of FedMart, which started as a government employee membership store that became a discount store with a full food department in 1963. Also was the home of Gemco-the membership store owned by Lucky.

Don't forget Giant by Ralphs.

I don't believe Giant was actually a "giant" format. If I remember correctly at least two of them are in use today, Long Beach (Traffic Circle) and Garden Grove (now Shun Fat, still has some remnants of old Ralphs decor). Both are about 40K which was much larger than the traditional Ralphs that operated at that time.

"The Giant by Ralphs In the mid 1980s it seemed that club stores were really big. The Ralphs Grocery Company tried to capitalize on their own version of a club store (without using a club card) with their chain, The Giant. The trouble was the prices were no different than Ralphs. They were just big, fancy (as well as EXPENSIVE) stores. They soon went out of business."

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-A ... -10-11.pdf

PAGE 48

[ClownLoach]

Don't forget Giant by Ralphs.

I don't believe Giant was actually a "giant" format. If I remember correctly at least two of them are in use today, Long Beach (Traffic Circle) and Garden Grove (now Shun Fat, still has some remnants of old Ralphs decor). Both are about 40K which was much larger than the traditional Ralphs that operated at that time.

"The Giant by Ralphs In the mid 1980s it seemed that club stores were really big. The Ralphs Grocery Company tried to capitalize on their own version of a club store (without using a club card) with their chain, The Giant. The trouble was the prices were no different than Ralphs. They were just big, fancy (as well as EXPENSIVE) stores. They soon went out of business."

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-A ... -10-11.pdf

PAGE 48

Well Garden Grove and Long Beach Traffic Circle both at one point had Ralphs Giant signs on them. Later on Garden Grove had a Ralphs Superstore sign but the Superstore went away shortly after. They had a strange facade that looked like a tubular structure with material stretched over it like a canvas. Almost like the original Pavilions had tubular structures around the building (it must have been popular in the 80s). They also had warehouse style ceilings which were not popular yet at that time. But neither store is anywhere close to 80-100K in size. And they failed which adds to my point that mainline grocers with East Coast size buildings don't work out in SoCal.

[pseudo3d]

Wegmans' 80k square feet store isn't really that large. Wegmans already dedicates a lot of space to perishables and seating, their center-store I've heard really isn't that great in terms of selection, and the extra space to accommodate crowds and two-story features (escalator wells, etc.) means that it's probably even functionally smaller.

I understand what you want—a full grocery store with quality perishables with a robust general merchandise department...but they're few and far between. The closest to that is maybe Fred Meyer. It isn't specifically your region per se.