Marianos

[storewanderer]

The prospect of the Marianos operation getting split up is somewhat of a disappointment.

Some of these stores today are almost as great as they were when they were brand new before Kroger. Beautiful produce, meat,bakery, lots of prepared foods though fewer than before, in store bars with some traffic, and a massively improved center store thanks to Kroger. Very heavy staffing on perimeter especially meat and bakery. Products sold are not typical Kroger stuff.

Also pricing isn't bad at all. Very reasonable for the quality.

In situations where Marianos and Jewel are close together, it appears Marianos is doing as good or better than Jewel. Their offer really shines. While their center store pricing is above Jewel, thanks to Kroger strong private label and promotional programs that eases that blow somewhat. Some stores have Kitchen Place too. Center store is infinitely better, and also far busier, since Kroger took these stores over.

Now there are some locations, maybe former Dominicks, that just feel a little off. Far fewer customers, less to offer in fresh departments, and just sort of a lifeless vibe. Ironically these seem to be the locations where Jewel is a mile or so away so I expect these to not be divested.

Also curious is one store all of the bakery labels had Kroger logo from the scale printer and there are signs and displays all over that say Kroger.

There is no way C&S can maintain Marianos center store program at the level Kroger has it. I do not see things ending well for divested Marianos. I expect Jewel to develop a food service concept for the no divest Marianos units and basically continue them similar to now.

Also F4L is going to absolutely be subject to divests as some are right across from a Jewel and F4L already looks to be doing poorly in this market. These F4L have a poorly not regionalized mix, lousy perishables, and high prices (many higher than Jewel or Marianos). I noticed on their awful looking meat the labels note they are "Ralphs Grocery Company Compton, California" in the small print.

[rwsandiego]

The prospect of the Marianos operation getting split up is somewhat of a disappointment.

Some of these stores today are almost as great as they were when they were brand new before Kroger. Beautiful produce, meat,bakery, lots of prepared foods though fewer than before, in store bars with some traffic, and a massively improved center store thanks to Kroger. Very heavy staffing on perimeter especially meat and bakery. Products sold are not typical Kroger stuff.

Also pricing isn't bad at all. Very reasonable for the quality.

In situations where Marianos and Jewel are close together, it appears Marianos is doing as good or better than Jewel. Their offer really shines. While their center store pricing is above Jewel, thanks to Kroger strong private label and promotional programs that eases that blow somewhat. Some stores have Kitchen Place too. Center store is infinitely better, and also far busier, since Kroger took these stores over.

Now there are some locations, maybe former Dominicks, that just feel a little off. Far fewer customers, less to offer in fresh departments, and just sort of a lifeless vibe. Ironically these seem to be the locations where Jewel is a mile or so away so I expect these to not be divested.

Also curious is one store all of the bakery labels had Kroger logo from the scale printer and there are signs and displays all over that say Kroger.

There is no way C&S can maintain Marianos center store program at the level Kroger has it. I do not see things ending well for divested Marianos. I expect Jewel to develop a food service concept for the no divest Marianos units and basically continue them similar to now.

Also F4L is going to absolutely be subject to divests as some are right across from a Jewel and F4L already looks to be doing poorly in this market. These F4L have a poorly not regionalized mix, lousy perishables, and high prices (many higher than Jewel or Marianos). I noticed on their awful looking meat the labels note they are "Ralphs Grocery Company Compton, California" in the small print.

It is good to see The Kitchen Place having been added to some Mariano's. It just makes sense. Not sure why a similar department wasn't there in the first place.

I think only a handful of the acquired Dominick's stores have been remodeled into full-fledged Mariano's stores. The rest were either too small (Ukrainian Village, Sheridan Road) or there wasn't enough capital available pre-Kroger to do so.

I was reading an article in either the New York Times or the Washington Post about grocery stores and in-store dining that mentioned it seems to have lost popularity as the novelty wore off. In a place like Chicago, where there is no lack of local, good-quality, reasonably priced dining options, there is less of a need for in-store dining than there is in other markets. I'd say the same is true of New York, DC, and other large cities. A couple of Mariano's vendor-partners went out of business and Mariano's/Kroger had to scramble to replace them with in-house offerings. Of course, social media doesn't know the meaning of "facts" and so a Twitter storm about evil Kroger pushing local folks out ensued.

If only 14 Illinois stores are being divested and the Mariano's name is being sold to C&S, I don't see Food 4 Less stores being divested. It wouldn't make sense to have two or three Mariano's and it would make even less sense for C&S to re-brand Food 4 Less as Mariano's. Then again, I don't see only 14 stores being divested. What would make sense is for Cub to buy the Chicago-area Food 4 Less stores or for Food 4 Less being divested to C&S in addition to 14+ Mariano's, them maintaining the F4L name, and adjusting the pricing. Cub exited Chicago in advance of SVU (who owned the Chicago-area Cub stores) acquiring Jewel by way of acquiring Albertsons. There was concern that retaining Cub would result in anti-trust concerns.

[storewanderer]

Marianos center store under Roundys had pretty significant mix issues. They weren't using space effectively and had a somewhat odd product mix in place. The Marianos of old seemed to put all efforts into perimeter and center store was just sort of there, not shopped much, all of the action was on the perimeter/fresh departments. Kroger has really cleaned this up. Adding Kitchen Place is a perfect fit in these stores, many had the space for it, and with the way the stores are laid out (frozen on opposite side of store from bakery/deli/produce), the majority of customers in the store will walk past this Kitchen Place department so it gets great traffic.

I think the problem with F4L/Jewel overlap is in a lot of the neighborhoods where these two overlap, there aren't as many other stores around. In the areas with a Marianos/Jewel overlap there are usually other stores around (in a few cases that other store is an Amazon Fresh- how long will they be in business, will they even still be in business by the time this merger closes... nonetheless to FTC at this point in time they are being seen as a competitor), in many cases multiple other stores, a Whole Foods, some other local chain, H-Mart, Patel, Wal Mart, Meijer, etc.

I was so disgusted/underwhelmed with F4L that one side of me says those stores should just close and nobody would care. But in areas that already have few stores, I don't want to make comments like that because maybe these stores really do serve a purpose. Frankly I have no idea why anyone shops F4L- their prices are higher than Jewel on many items, mix is smaller, perishables look worse (some perishables are cheaper but you still probably aren't getting what you pay for), in stock condition on aisles is not good, really just lousy stores. At least they have self checkout. I guess the Kroger private label program counts for something but F4L doesn't have as many Simple Truth items or items in general as a standard conventional. Someone who wants Kroger product should just go to Marianos and not F4L. Better selection, better specials, way better atmosphere.

I think at this point in Chicago there is no point in F4L. It should just be closed. Ethnic operators or others will pick up some of the buildings and put better stores in place that have more to offer, will employ more people (due to larger perimeter/fresh offer), and ultimately better serve the neighborhoods. And more importantly they will provide stronger competition to Kroger-Jewel than a C&S operated F4L (which will be even worse than the Kroger version on mix/price based on how the CA F4L licensees that C&S supplies are). Of course Kroger was not born yesterday and they probably know this too, hence why they like C&S as a buyer...