First Look at One of the Two Fresh & Easy Stores Opening In Sacramento Wednesday

Sacramento Bound

Pictured above is the Fresh & Easy grocery market at Watt Avenue & El Camino Avenue in Sacramento, which opens March 7. The photos were taken last week - the one at top during the day, the one above at night - as workers prepared the store for Wednesday's opening. [Photo credit: Fresh & Easy Buzz.]

Wednesday morning Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market will make its long-awaited - and long-postponed - launch in metropolitan Sacramento, California, opening two stores, at Watt Avenue & El Camino Avenue and Mack Road and Franklin Boulevard, in Sacramento.

The following Wednesday, March 14, Fresh & Easy will open three stores in three Sacramento-area cities - Folsom (East Natoma Street and Blue Ravine Road), Elk Grove (Elk Grove Florin Road and Calvine Road) and Lincoln (Lincoln and Sterling Road.)

In November 2011 Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market said it would open a sixth store in the region, at 34th Street and Broadway in Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood, before the end of March. Fresh & Easy hasn't announced an opening date for that store yet.

Fresh & Easy's Sacramento market region launch is long-awaited, as well as long-postponed, because it was in February 2008 when the fresh food and grocery chain announced its plans to enter the market, listing 19 store locations it said it would start out with.

United Kingdom-based Tesco originally planned to start opening Fresh & Easy stores in metro Sacramento as early as mid-to-late 2009, as part of a planned launch into Northern California. However it postponed the Northern California launch because of Fresh & Easy's poor performance.

Tesco and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market also decided not to launch into Northern California in 2010, again because of the chain's poor performance and numerous problems.

Finally, in March 2011, Fresh & Easy launched into Northern California. To date there are 19 stores in Northern California - 16 in the San Francisco Bay Area and one each in Fairfield, which is on the outer border of the Bay Area; Vacaville, which is about midway between Sacramento and the Bay Area; and Modesto, which is about an hour's drive from both Sacramento and the East Bay Area.

The opening of the first two stores in Sacramento on Wednesday, including the unit at Watt Avenue and El Camino Avenue pictured at top, comes a year and five days after Fresh & Easy opened the first two stores in Northern, in San Jose and Danville, as we reported here on March 2, 2011: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Opens First Two Stores in Northern California Today.

Coming this week

We'll have a piece in the blog later this week offering analysis on Tesco's move into the metro Sacramento market, along with a competitive analysis of the key food and grocery retailing players in the region.

Suggested reading below: A primer on Tesco's Fresh & Easy in the Sacramento metropolitan market region

February 9, 2012: Confirmed: First 2 Fresh & Easy Stores Open in Sacramento March 7; 3 in Metro-Area March 14

January 18, 2012: Fast-Growing The Fresh Market Chain On Track to Launch in California This Year

August 3, 2011: Fast-Growing Specialty Grocer The Fresh Market Targeting Mid-2012 For First California Store

August 31, 2011: Tesco Says Sayonara to Japan, Good Morning to Sacramento

August 29, 2011: Meaningful Move or Too Little Too Late? Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Planning Early 2012 Metro Sacramento Market Launch

January 12, 2011: First Northern California Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores Opening March 2; Nine More to Follow March-April

January 10, 2011: Sprouts Farmers Market to Open Second Northern California Store in Roseville No Later Than Mid-April

December 5, 2011: Dollar General Jump-Starts California Launch: Taking Over 5 Centro Mart Supermarkets For Early 2012 Openings

November 22, 2010: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Plans Five New Stores in Northern California's Sacramento Region

September 26, 2010: While Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Postponed, Target Opened 42 'P-Fresh' Fresh Food and Grocery Markets in Northern California

August 17, 2010: Henry's Farmers Market 'Beats' Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market to Northern California Despite Multi-Year Head Start; Elk Grove Store Opens Tomorrow [Henry's is now part of Sprouts Farmers Market. The Elk Grove store has been rebranded as Sprouts Farmers Market. Details here]

July 6, 2010: Walmart Looking for Store Sites in Northern California For 20,000 Sq-Ft Neighborhood Market by Walmart Prototype Store [Walmart is going to start opening Neighborhood Market stores in Northern California this year. More here.]

October 8, 2008: Putting the 'Neighborhood' in Neighborhood Market: 'Localism' and Tesco's Proposed Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Sacramento's Oak Park

February 28, 2008: News & Analysis: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Confirms 19 Store Locations for the Sacramento-Vacaville Region in Northern California

See these links - Fresh and Easy Northern California, Northern California Special Report, Fresh and Easy Sacramento, Fresh and Easy Sacramento Metropolitan Region, Vacaville-Sacramento region - for additional background reading.

Going Rural: New Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store Planned for Sutter Creek in Northern California

Above is the parcel in the Sutter Creek Crossroads center where Tesco plans to build a Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store. Notice the close proximity to the Walgreens, which is opening today. [Photo credit: Photographs exclusive for Fresh & Easy Buzz by Anthony Spinetta.]

Northern California Market Special Report

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood plans to build a store in the Northern California town of Sutter Creek, in the Sutter Creek Crossroads shopping center being developed by Sacramento, California-based Petrovich Development Company. The center is at Hwy 104 and Hwy 49.

Sutter Creek, a small town of about 2,500 that's often called the 'Jewel of the Gold Country,' is 47 miles from Sacramento, in Amador County near Jackson, in Northern California's historic Gold Country region. The town takes its name from John A. Sutter who owned the sawmill in nearby Coloma where gold was first found in the Mother Lode region in January of 1848, ushering in the California Gold Rush.

Petrovich Development company says the Sutter Creek Crossroads shopping center is designed to draw from a ten-mile radius. The population within the 10-mile radius of the center is about 29,500. It includes the nearby towns of Jackson and Martel, as well as an unincorporated area.

The Sutter Creek Planning Commission and City Council are currently considering a couple amendments recently presented by representatives of Petrovich Development Company that are required in order for the future Fresh & Easy store to be built. The amendments to the developer's plans, which were drawn up long before Fresh & Easy was considering the location, involve basic things like boundary lines and drainage issues, according to the Sutter Creek Planning Commission.

The planned Tesco Fresh & Easy market is to be located on an about 14,000 square-foot parcel (pictured at top) across from a new Walgreens drug store, which is set to open today, in the Sutter Creek Crossroads center.

According to our sources, Tesco has either already bought the parcel in the shopping center or plans to do so soon. Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market bought a parcel from Petrovich Development some time ago in Elk Grove, California, at Florin & Calvine, for a future store in the Sacramento suburb. It's one of the two Elk Grove stores in the original 19 stores in the Sacramento/Vacaville region announced by the grocery chain in 2008.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy has yet to begin construction on that El Grove store. Based on our information, we don't expect the grocer to start construction on the Sutter Creek unit this year. Of the eight Northern California stores Tesco plans to start opening early next year, none are in the Sacramento region. As such, the grocer has plenty of stores - 19-plus units in the region - that have been in the pipeline since early 2008 to open before it begins construction on future units like Sutter Creek.

[Read our August 21, 2010 story: April 2010 Prediction Correct: February 2011 Target to Open First Eight Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores in Northern California; and August 19, 2010 report: Tesco Will Open its First Eight Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores in Northern California in 'Early 2011;' for details on Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's planned 2011 Northern California launch.]

The Walgreens Drug store opening today is the first major retail store in the Sutter Creek Crossroads shopping center, as you can see in the photograph above.

A Safeway supermarket, which opened in 2006 in the nearby town of Martel, is about a mile away from the center and future Fresh & Easy store, and a Save Mart supermarket is located just slightly farther away on Highway 88 ,near Martel.

The towns of Sutter Creek, Jackson and Martel are all close together. Jackson and Martel get grocery shoppers from Sutter Creek because Sutter Creek-proper has no supermarkets, according to Anthony Spinetta, a veteran of the food and beverage distribution business in the area and a resident of Sutter Creek.

"The town of Sutter Creek contains only one independent convenience store and no other grocery store or supermarket of any sort," Spinetta says. "There used to be an independent grocer across the street from the Fresh and Easy site, but that grocery store closed at least ten years ago. Fresh and Easy will compete directly for business with Safeway and Save Mart for the city of Sutter Creek and the many households on Ridge Road to the east."

"The entire Jackson/Sutter Creek area is probably overbuilt in terms of supermarket square footage per-capita," Spinetta says. "The Jackson city limits include a full line Raley's, and a Cost Less Foods discount supermarket. Safeway moved their store from Jackson to the current site in Martell due to the obsolescence of their Jackson store and a lack of suitable parcels for relocating within the city. Martell includes the fairly new Safeway, a Kmart, which is dying a slow death but still open, a Walmart that's steadily increasing its food selection, the Save Mart, and now the proposed Fresh and Easy." Cost Less Foods Company is a nine-store, privately-owned grocery chain based in Modesto, California.

The Sutter Creek location demonstrates what Fresh & Easy Buzz wrote about over a year ago, which is that Tesco's Fresh & Easy is following an urban, suburban and rural/small town store location strategy in Northern California. For example, most recently, in May, we reported on a planned Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market location in the city of Los Banos - May 29, 2010: Going Rural: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market to Build First Store in Los Banos, California - which is a city in a rural part of the Central Valley.

In our August 21 piece - April 2010 Prediction Correct: February 2011 Target to Open First Eight Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores in Northern California - we said Tesco will continue to acquire future Fresh & Easy store sites in Northern California prior to opening its first eight stores in early 2011. The Sutter Creek location in the latest one - and there are more to come. Stay tuned.

Below are the stories thus far in our '2010 Northern California Market Special Report' series:

August 23, 2010: Hybrid 'Good Eats' Market-Cafe From Raley's CEO Michael Teel & Company Opens Today in Sacramento CA

August 22, 2010: The Insider: Challenges & Opportunities: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Will Supply its Northern CA Stores From its Riverside County DC in Southern CA

August 21, 2010: April 2010 Prediction Correct: February 2011 Target to Open First Eight Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores in Northern California

August 19, 2010: Tesco Will Open its First Eight Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores in Northern California in 'Early 2011.'

August 17, 2010: Henry's Farmers Market 'Beats' Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market to Northern California Despite Multi-Year Head Start; Elk Grove Store Opens Tomorrow

July 29, 2010: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Putting Together List of Managers Interested in Transferring to Northern California

July 25, 2010: Safeway to Start Construction on New Pleasanton, California Flagship Store Soon; Thanksgiving 2011 Target Opening

July 22, 2010: 'The Insider' - After Four Years in the High Weeds in Northern & Central California, Kroger Co. is Emerging to Grow its Foods Co Chain

July 21, 2010: Vacant Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store in Pacifica, California Has the City's Mayor in a Pickle

July 18, 2010: 'The Insider' - When it Comes to Northern California - its Competitors are Rome Burning and Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is Nero Playing the Fiddle

July 14, 2010: Tony Bennett Has Nothing on Whole Foods Market When it Comes to Loving San Francisco...That City By the Bay

July 6, 2010: Walmart Looking for Store Sites in Northern California For 20,000 Sq-Ft Neighborhood Market by Walmart Prototype Store

June 28, 2010: Smart & Final to Open its New Format SmartCo Foods Stores in California and Arizona

June 26, 2010: Tesco Planning to Announce in July When First Northern California Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores to Open

June 14, 2010: Newly-Named Whole Foods Market CO-CEO Walter Robb Comes Full Circle With the Opening of the New Store in Mill Valley CA

June 5, 2010: Sprouts Farmers Market Opens First Northern California Store in Sunnyvale; Strikes Up Partnership With Local Non-Profit Farm

May 29, 2010: Going Rural: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market to Build First Store in Los Banos, California

May 28, 2010: First Phase of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market-Anchored Condo Development in San Francisco's Bayview Set For Completion in June

April 19, 2010: Tesco Debating Whether to Launch Fresh & Easy Into Northern California This Fiscal Year... or Wait

May 9, 2010: A Whopping 15 of Whole Foods Market's 41 New Stores in Development are in California - And Nine of The 15 Are In Northern CA

May 8, 2010: Sprouts, and Likely Henry's to Beat Fresh & Easy to Northern California Despite it's Big Head Start

May 6, 2010: Going Smaller & Getting 'Hybrid': Walmart's Smaller Supercenter in Vacant Retail Buildings Strategy Began in 2008

April 19, 2010: Tesco Debating Whether to Launch Fresh & Easy Into Northern California This Fiscal Year... or Wait

[Also: click here , here and here for a selection of past stories on Fresh & Easy and Northern Calfornia.]

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Adds Another Store to its Sacramento-Vacaville Market Region Portfolio in Northern California

Upcoming New Market News: Northern California--Sacramento/Vacaville Region

Tesco has locked-up a lease for an additional future Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market grocery store in the Sacramento-Vacaville Metropolitan region in Northern California.

That store, which will be number 20 thus far in the region, will be located in the Sunset Shopping Center in Suisun City, which is in Solano County near Napa and located approximately on the border of what is considered the San Francisco Bay Area and the Sacramento Valley region, Fresh & Easy Buzz has learned from the Solano County Economic Development Corporation.

This will be Tesco's first Fresh & Easy grocery market in Suisun City. The store in the Sunset Shopping Center will be located in one half of a vacant former Albertson's supermarket in the center. The Fresh & Easy store will use about 13,000 -to- 14,000 square feet of the building, according to a spokesperson for the county's economic development corporation who has been involved in attracting new retail tenants to the shopping center.

Wiengarten Realty, which manages the center at Sunset Avenue and State Hwy 12, says there is a population of 92,900 people within a three mile radius (60,000 within two miles) of the center, with an average income of $68,354.

Tesco has publicly confirmed it plans to open 19 of its small-format, convenience-oriented Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market combination basic grocery and fresh foods stores in the Sacramento/Vacaville Metropolitan region in Northern California. The first stores should open in early -to- mid 2009. [The graphic below shows where those 19 confirmed Fresh & Easy stores are located in the region.]

Vacaville is located about 35 miles from Sacramento. The region between Vacaville and Sacramento has increasingly become urbanized over the last 15 years or so from its once mostly rural past. In the 35 -to-40 mile stretch through the Sacramento Valley are cities such as Winters, Woodland, Davis and West Sacramento, all of which have nearly doubled in population in the last 15 years.

Vacaville also is about one hour's drive from the San Francisco Bay Area, where Tesco thus far plans to open 21 Fresh & Easy grocery stores beginning next year. The retailer has confirmed 18 of these 21 locations. Fresh & Easy Buzz has discovered an additional three, one in the city of Pacifica and two in the city of Vallejo, through our reporting. The combined population of the Bay Area and Sacramento/Vacaville region is about 10 -to- 11 million.

As we've discussed in previous pieces in Fresh & Easy Buzz, Tesco's strategy with its small-format Fresh & Easy grocery chain is to locate a "critical mass" of the stores in selected market regions, which to date include Southern California, Metropolitan Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Phoenix, Arizona Metropolitan region. There are 78 Fresh & Easy stores opened to date in these three market regions.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy is following this same strategy in Northern California. It's focusing on the nine-county Bay Area, then out to the Sacramento Valley via Fairfield and Vacaville. It's about a two hour drive for example from downtown San Francisco to downtown Sacramento.

From the Sacramento area, Tesco then is focusing on moving down Hwy. 99 into the Northern San Joaquin Valley, through the cities of Galt, Stockton, Manteca, Tracy and Modesto.

As we reported here, Tesco plans to open one store so far in the city of Modesto, which has a population of about 210,000. Additionally, a Fresh & Easy store also will open in Galt.

Tesco is locating its Northern California distribution center in the Stockton area, as we reported here. Thus far we haven't discovered any Fresh & Easy store sites in Stockton, Manteca or Tracy yet. But based on the retailer's "critical mass" store location strategy and plan for Northern California, we believe it's only a matter of time until we do.