Fresh & Easy Buzz: Search results for Safeway The Market San Jose, California

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Friday, January 30, 2009

Competitor News: Safeway Stores, Inc. Confirms Second Small-Format 'The Market' Unit to Be in San Jose, CA; Fresh & Easy Buzz Nailed it in June, 2008

Pleasanton, California-based Safeway Stores, Inc., which operates about 1,715 supermarkets in the U.S. and Canada, with about 1,000 of those stores located in the Western U.S., today publicly confirmed to Fresh & Easy Buzz a couple news reports published on January 27-28 in two San Francisco Bay Area , California newspapers (and way back in June, 2008 in Fresh & Easy Buzz) that it plans to open its second "The Market" small-format food and grocery store this summer. Those reports are here: Safeway to move into San Jose's 88 tower (Biz Journal); and here: Safeway coming to downtown San Jose, officials say (San Jose Mercury News).

The about 24,000 square foot store, to be called "the market by Safeway," will be located in downtown San Jose, California. It will be the ground-floor retail anchor of the "88," a new condominium tower (pictured at the top) located on San Fernando and Second Streets in the city's downtown, as we reported in our June, 2008 story. Safeway plans to open the store in the building in the mid-to-late summer of this year, it confirmed today.

Fresh & Easy Buzz nailed the San Jose 'The Market' in June, 2008 story

But this development shouldn't be a surprise to Fresh & Easy Buzz readers. We reported the news that Safeway was planning to open its second "The Market" small-format food and grocery market in the downtown San Jose condominium tower in this story [Breaking News: Safeway Stores, Inc. Nearing Negotiation End-Game For its Second Small-Format 'The Market' Store Site; This One in San Jose, California] on June 5, 2008. We even included a picture of the condo tower -- the one at the top of this story -- in the piece.

Additionally, It was over a year ago in January, 2008 when we first reported Safeway Stores, Inc. had hired the San Jose-based Cornish & Cary commercial real estate firm to locate about five sites in the Bay Area for the supermarket chain's initial "The Market" format stores in the region. We identified downtown San Jose as one of five potential sites then, naming the specific site later and then reporting and writing about it more fully in June, 2008.

The downtown San Jose condominium tower site will be the first Northern California or Bay Area site where Safeway will open one if its "The Market" small-format stores. As we've reported on and written about, the grocery chain's first "The Market" format store, "the market by Vons," opened in the fall of 2008 in Long Beach, in Southern California. Safeway is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Pleasanton, which is about a 45 minute drive from San Jose.

As we reported in our June, 2008 story about the downtown San Jose "the market by Safeway," it will be bigger than the "market by Vons" in Long Beach. That's because the Long Beach store went into an existing, older and smaller Vons banner supermarket. The San Jose space is being designed from the ground-up in existing retail space on at the bottom of the condominium tower. The Long Beach small-format store is about 15,000 square feet. Plans call for the San Jose "The Market" format store to be about 24,000 square feet, which is still much smaller than the average new Safeway supermarket, which ranges from 45,000 -to- 60,000 square feet.

The San Jose "the market by Safeway" also will feature some expanded sections, particularly basic grocery, produce, meat and non-foods, as compared to the Long Beach "The Market" format store. The reason for this is because although there is a supermarket just a half-block away from where "the market by Safeway" will be located in downtown San Jose, that supermarket, a Zanotto's store, has an upscale and specialty focus, although it also stocks a selection of basic food and grocery products. Zanotto's is a well-established, longtime multi-store independent grocery chain based not far from San Jose in the coastal city of Scott's Valley, California.

In this early December, 2008 story we wrote about how Safeway CEO Steve Burd said the supermarket chain was learning much about small-format food retailing from the Long Beach store. We can tell readers that Safeway plans to put much of what it's learned thus far from that store into changes in the San Jose "the market by Safeway" when it opens this summer. One hint from some recent reporting: Look for a greater selection of basic food and grocery items at value-oriented prices in the downtown San Jose "The market" store, as compared to the Long Beach, California "the market by Vons."

Having "the market by Safeway" so close to its downtown San Jose store could be a problem for Zanottos. The store has struggles in the location and even received a subsidy from the city's redevelopment agency in order to open in 1997.

Safeway continues to plan to open additional small-format "The Market" stores in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as in Southern California. The retailer is taking a slow and cautious approach its "The Market", using it as fill-in type format while remaining focused on its Lifestyle format supermarkets in terms of its primary retailing focus. [Read the December 12, 2008 story linked below for further details.]

We will have additional reporting, writing and analysis on Safeway's "The Market" and the upcoming new downtown San Jose, California store in a soon to come story.

Linkage - Below are some past, related posts from Fresh & Easy Buzz on Safeway's "The Market."

[December 12, 2008: Competitor News: Safeway CEO Steve Burd Says Small-Format 'The Market' Is 'Good' So Far But Not 'Great;' But Must Be 'Great' in Order To Expand...

June 5, 2008: Breaking News: Safeway Stores, Inc. Nearing Negotiation End-Game For its Second Small-Format 'The Market' Store Site; This One in San Jose, California... March 5, 2008: New Details and Analysis About Safeway's Small-Format Summer SF Bay Area Surprise for Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market...

May 15, 2008: Breaking News: Safeway Opens its First Small-Format 'The Market' Grocery Store Today in Long Beach, California... July 25, 2008: Breaking Competitor News: Safeway Stores, Inc. Plans to Open A Small-Format 'the market by Vons' Grocery Store in Downtown Los Angeles...

July 8, 2008: Southern California Market Report: Safeway Stores,'the market by Vons' Mass-Mails First Advertising and Promotional Flyer to Vons Club Card Members... June 6, 2008: More on Safeway's 'The Market' Format: 20-Year Food Retailing Industry Vet Offers Observations and Analysis on 'the Market by Vons,' Long Beach, CA.]

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Planning A New, Third Store in San Jose, California

Northern California Market Special Report
Breaking Buzz

Don't bother asking Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market if it 'Knows the Way to San Jose.' It does. But so do many of its competitors and future competitors.

Tesco's small-format Fresh & Easy fresh food and grocery chain is planning a third store in San Jose, which is the largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a population pushing one million.

The location of the future San Jose Fresh & Easy market (Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store 1184) is at 1328 Saratoga Avenue (Saratoga and Payne), in 'The Plaza Shopping Center.'

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has applied to the California Alcohol Beverage Control department for a general off sale beer and wine sales license (#469249) for the future store. The grocer's application is in the "pending" stage at present. However, unless there's some serious objection by neighborhood residents or the City of San Jose to the offering of beer and wine for sale at the location, gaining approval of the permit shouldn't be a difficulty for Fresh & Easy.

The future store at 1328 Saratoga Avenue makes three units thus far for the grocery chain in San Jose.

Two of the thus far 12 Fresh & Easy stores Tesco plans to open in early 2011 are in San Jose. See story published earlier today for the locations. [September 22, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Plans to Open Two Additional Stores in Northern California in Early 2011.]

There are currently four major food and grocery stores in the Saratoga and Payne area: A Safeway supermarket, a Trader Joe's, a branch of the Berkeley, California-based salvage and discount grocery chain Grocery Outlet, and a Ranch 99 supermarket. Ranch 99 specializes in Asian foods but also offers a strong selection of basic groceries and fresh foods in its stores.

The Saratoga Avenue location in San Jose is the third new planned Fresh & Easy store in Northern California we've discovered and reported on in the last few months. In this May 29, 2010 story - Going Rural: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market to Build First Store in Los Banos, California - we reported on Tesco's plans to build one of its Fresh & Easy markets in the Northern California city of Los Banos, and on August 25, 2010 we reported on the retailer's plans to build a store in Sutter Creek, which is in Amador County, in the Northern California's foothill region. [See - August 25, 2010: Going Rural: New Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store Planned for Sutter Creek in Northern California.]

As we've written previously in Fresh & Easy Buzz, Tesco's Fresh & Easy has a mixed suburban, urban and rural store location strategy in Northern California. For example, the planned new store in San Jose is in an urban setting. Conversely, the Los Banos and Sutter Creek sites are both in smaller, rural towns.

Numerous grocers finding the way to San Jose

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market isn't the only grocer with its sites set on San Jose. Below is a summary of a number of other food and grocery retailers who've also 'Found the Way to San Jose':

Walmart Stores, Inc.: Walmart has plans for multiple stores in San Jose for its 20,000 'Neighborhood Market by Walmart' stores, which it plans to open throughout the Bay Area, elsewhere in Northern and Southern California and in other U.S. cities, as we reported in this July 6, 2010 story - July 6, 2010: Walmart Looking for Store Sites in Northern California For 20,000 Sq-Ft Neighborhood Market by Walmart Prototype Store.

Kroger Co.: as part of its plans to expand its FoodsCo discount chain in Northern California and the Bay Area, Kroger Co. is looking at store sites in San Jose. [See - 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.

Whole Foods Market: is planning to open its first store in San Jose - in the Blossom Hill neighborhood - in 2011, as we reported in this story earlier this year - 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. Whole Foods is currently searching for additional store locations in San Jose.

Sprouts and Henry's: If that's not enough for San Jose, two new entrants into the Northern California and Bay Area region food and grocery retailing market - Arizona-based Sprouts Farmers Market and Smart & Final-owned Henry's Farmers Market, which is headquartered in Southern California, both have their respective store location sites set on San Jose, as well as in cities throughout Northern California, with a focus on the Bay Area and Sacramento region.

Sprouts opened its first Northern California store, in the South Bay Area city of Sunnyvale (at 111 E El Camino Real), which is near San Jose, on June 2 of this year. [See - June 5, 2010:Sprouts Farmers Market Opens First Northern California Store in Sunnyvale; Strikes Up Partnership With Local Non-Profit Farm] The grocer plans to open a second Bay Area store, a 34,000 square-foot unit in downtown Dublin California in the East Bay Area, in early spring 2011. Sprouts Farmers Market also plans to open a third store in Roseville, near Sacramento, at about the same time next year. More stores are on the way.

Henry's Farmers Market opened its first Northern California unit in Elk Grove, which is also near Sacramento, on August 18. [See - 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] Like Sprouts Farmers Market, Henry's is looking for numerous store locations in Northern California, including the Bay Area.

In fact, Henry's plans to open its second store in Northern California, and its first in the Bay Area, in the East Bay city of Walnut Creek next summer. A developer, Hall Equities Group, currently has plans before the City of Walnut Creek for the development of a 2.8 acre parcel in the city, of which a 25,000 square-foot Henry's Farmers Market store would serve as the retail anchor. The Henry's market is planned to go into a vacant building on the parcel which was the former home of co-op grocery store. The developer's plans call for an additional 10,000 square-feet of retail shops to be situated around the anchor Henry's grocery store. The developer's proposal is currently working it's way through the city planning process and should gain approval soon, were told.

Target: Over the last 12 -to- 15 months discount retailer Target has added its 10,000-12,000 square-foot P-Fresh grocery and fresh foods markets-within-a-store, which include produce, meat, perishables, frozen and deli/prepared foods offerings, along with packaged food and grocery items, to seven of its stores in San Jose. This development amounts to about 100,000 new square-feet, but spread out throughout the city, of new food and grocery retailing space in San Jose in a period of about one year.

Safeway Stores, Inc.: Safeway is the food and grocery retail market share leader in San Jose, which is something it's not about to give up without a hearty food fight. It's also the market share leader in the entire nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. Safeway's headquarters is in the East Bay Area city of Pleasanton.

Safeway also opened its second 'The Market' small-format fresh food and grocery store in downtown San Jose in summer 2009. The first 'The Market' format and banner store opened in Long Beach (Southern California) in summer 2008.

The San Jose store is about 24,000 square-feet. The Long Beach 'The Market' unit is 15,000 square-feet. In early 2008, Safeway hired the Cornish & Carey commercial real estate firm to find it a total of five locations for the small format store, all in San Jose and the surrounding South Bay Area. To date, the downtown San Jose store is the only one of the five locations opened by Safeway. The main reason for this is because Safeway CEO Steve Burd has been less than impressed with the performance of the two 'The Market' stores to date.

However, the five 'The Market' locations in the South Bay region were in part inspired as a counter move to Tesco's Fresh & Easy, which at the time planned to start opening its Northern California stores in late 2008/early 2009. As we've written about extensively, Tesco postponed the launch, and now plans to open the first batch of 12 Fresh & Easy stores, including two in San Jose and one in nearby Sunnyvale in early 2011. As such, it will be interesting to see if Safeway goes forward with any of the four locations in the region now that Fresh & Easy plans to open the stores in five to six months.

Safeway's focus in the Bay Area currently is on big stores in the 45,000 -to- 55,000 square-foot range - expanding current smaller stores in major remodels and when building new ones going big. Additionally, with nearly three years observing Fresh & Easy in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona, combined with the fact Tesco continues to loose a couple hundred million dollars a year with the chain, Safeway's sense of urgency about having numerous small-format-killer stores of its own in its home Bay Area region is minimal, compared to what it was in late 2007/early 2008, when the first Fresh & Easy stores were just opening.

Other grocers are also expanding in San Jose, including the Grocery Outlet chain mentioned above, local multi-store independent Zanottos Family Markets and a couple others.

In 1968, singer Dionee Warwick had a huge hit with the song 'Do You Know the Way to San Jose,' written for her by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. When it comes to finding the way to San Jose in 2010, it's clear Tesco's Fresh & Easy, and a whole bunch of other groceries have done so without a doubt.

Our 2010 'Northern California Market Special Report' series

September 22, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Plans to Open Two Additional Stores in Northern California in Early 2011

September 21, 2010: A Look Inside Whole Foods Market's Newest Store, A Mall Location in Santa Rosa, California

September 20, 2010: About Today's Walmart Stores, Inc. Smaller Stores Media Frenzy: We Scooped it On July 6, 2010

September 19, 2010: Whole Foods Market Gives Itself A 30th Birthday Present: 299th Store Opens This Week in Santa Rosa, California

September 14, 2010: Eight Plus One: Napa Unit Added to Eight Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores Opening in Northern CA in Early 2011

September 5, 2010: BevMo Chain Ends Full Time Employment For Store Workers; They Say No Way and Join With UFCW Union to Demand 'A Better BevMo'

September 3, 2010: How the California Grocers Association and its Members Can Snatch Victory From the Jaws of the Defeat of California's Plastic Bag Ban

August 25, 2010: Going Rural: New Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store Planned for Sutter Creek in Northern California

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.]

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Breaking News: Safeway Stores, Inc. Nearing Negotiation End-Game For its Second Small-Format 'The Market' Store Site; This One in San Jose, California

Safeway Stores, Inc. is negotiating with the developer of the 88, a new 22-story high-rise condominium tower (pictured at left) in downtown San Jose, in Northern California's San Francisco Bay Area, to put one of its new "The Market" small-format grocery stores on the ground floor of the urban residential tower, Fresh & Easy Buzz has learned.

The 88 high-rise residential tower, located on San Fernando Street in downtown San Jose, is being developed by a partnership of San Francisco-based WMS Group and CIM Group. The residential tower will open this month.

Despite the residential housing bust hitting most parts of the U.S., downtown San Jose is experienced a boom, with about 1,000 new residential units coming on line in the last year. There are about 4,000 more in various stages of development for the downtown.

Safeway isn't confirming the negotiations with the high-rise condominium developer.

However, Fresh & Easy Buzz has checked with two commercial real estate industry sources in the region--one was the one who gave us the initial tip about Safeway looking for locations in the San Jose area for a small-format grocery store concept which we published in a piece in December, 2007--and both confirmed Safeway and the developer of the 88 urban residential tower in downtown San Jose are negotiating over Safeway's putting a "The Market" small-format grocery store on the building's ground floor to serve as the retail anchor of the project.

Additionally, we talked with the real estate agent selling units in the new condominium project. She confirmed the negotiations were going on and said she has told potential residents that what she called a "mini Safeway" was likely going to anchor the building's ground floor.

As we reported in January, Safeway Stores, Inc. hired the Cornish & Carey commercial real estate firm to find the grocery chain up to an initial five locations in the South Bay Area region for its "The Market" format stores. It looks like the new 88 condominium high-rise residential tower in downtown San Jose will become one of those five sites, based on the information our sources have provided. [Read a recent, March, 2008, update on Safeway's small-format activity here. This was before the first "The Market" store opened in Long Beach, California two weeks ago.

As we reported on May 15 here, Safeway opened its first small-format "The Market" format store in Long Beach in Southern California on May 15. That 15,000 square foot store, called "the Market by Vons" because Vons is the banner Safeway operates in Southern California, is located in a former Vons supermarket building which the grocer decided not to convert to its Lifestyle supermarket format--which it's doing to all of its supermarkets in the U.S.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market plans to open 18 of its small-format, combination grocery and fresh foods grocery markets in the San Francisco Bay Area beginning either at the end of this year or more likely in early 2009. The leases for the 18 stores are inked, and the stores are being either built or empty buildings the retailer acquired for the stores are in the process of being renovated for the Fresh & Easy format.

Nearly all of the produce items merchandised in the Long Beach, California "the Market by Vons" are bulk, unlike Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, which pre-packages nearly all of its produce in plastic tubs or plastic bags.

Four of the 18 Bay Area Fresh & Easy stores will be in the South Bay region: two in San Jose, one in nearby Sunnyvale, and one in Mountain view.

Inside "the Market by Vons," Long Beach, California. the design and merchandising scheme pictured above is the basic interior package for Safeway's "The Market" format.

During the grand opening of "the Market by Vons" in Long Beach on May 15, Safeway Stores' Rojan Hasker, president of Lifestyle stores and new concepts for the grocery chain, said the retailer is currently looking at an initial 25 locations to start for its small-format grocery stores. Not all those locations will be in California. Some also will be in the food retailer's other market regions such as Arizona, the Pacific Northwest, Colorado and elsewhere.

The "Signature Cafe," like the one pictured above in the Long Beach, California "the Market by Vons," is fresh, prepared foods central in the small-format food stores.

The way "The Market" format stores will work is they get their full name based on the banner Safeway operates in a particular market, hence "the Market by Vons" in Southern California. In Northern California, as well as in the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, Arizona and the Washington D.C./Maryland/Virgina region, all markets where Safeway operates under the "Safeway" banner, the small-format stores, which average about 15,000 -to- 20,000 square feet, will be called "the Market by Safeway." In Chicago they will be "the Market by Dominick's;" in Alaska "the Market by Carrs," and so on.

The Long Beach "the Market by Vons" is getting a generally positive but also somewhat mixed reaction by customers. Most store shoppers we've spoken with say they like the format, it's design, feel and ambiance. Most also said they liked the product selection: a combination of basic store brand and national brand grocery items, specialty, natural and organic foods, fresh produce and meats, cheeses, wines and some non-foods items. "The Market" format also has a cafe called the "Signature Cafe," which is the name of Safeway's upscale store branded fresh, prepared foods items sold in its Lifestyle format supermarkets. The cafe features fresh, prepared foods for take out.

Specialty and gourmet cheeses are merchandised in display cases like the one pictured above in the Long Beach, California "the Market by Vons," in Safeway's "The Market" small-format grocery stores.

A number of customers of "the Market by Vons" weren't too pleased with the pricing however, saying it is much higher than Trader Joe's or Tesco's Fresh & Easy in their analysis. A few even mentioned they thought the pricing higher than a traditional Vons supermarket in Southern California.

We compared the prices on some items from "the Market by Vons" with those at a Trader Joe's outlet and a Tesco Fresh & Easy store not to far away from the Long Beach store. The prices on "the Market by Vons" items were higher; about 13% higher than the comparable items at Trader Joe's and about 15% higher than those comparable items at Fresh & Easy.

Safeway's 15,000 square foot "The Market" format grocery stores, like in "the Market by Vons" in Long Beach, California pictured above, feature wood burning hearths in-store in the bakery area. The hearths are used to bake fresh bread, cooked-to-order pizzas and other prepared foods items right in-store.

However, "The Market" format is much more upscale than either Trader Joe's or Fresh & Easy. It's a small-format extension of Safeway's evolving Lifestyle format, which is looking more like a Whole Foods Market store with each new Lifestyle format store the retailer opens. Therefore, we aren't sure of Safeway is too concerned that their prices are 15% or so higher than the two small-format food and grocery retailers mentioned above. While we were in the store, a number of shoppers referred to it as a "mini Whole Foods market."

In fact, Safeway's communications vice president Brain Dowling told us the positioning of "The Market" small-format stores is as secondary, "fill-in" shopping venues rather than as primary ones like Tesco wants its Fresh & Easy small-format grocery stores to be, or as specialty and natural foods category-killer store like Trader Joe's markets are.

And of course, the first store, "the Market by Vons" in Long Beach, has only been open about two weeks, which gives Safeway plenty of time to play around with its retail pricing scheme, as well as the format's merchandising selection, just like Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is doing.

Photo Credits: From top-to-bottom. The first "the Market by Vons" photo is courtesy: Los Angeles Times. The remaining "the Market by Vons" photos are courtesy: Orange County Register.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Safeway Shelving 'The Market' Small Store Format; Won't Be Part of its Strategy Going Forward

Breaking Buzz - News & Analysis

Smaller format stores, except its soon to be shelved 'marketside by Walmart,' may be in at Walmart but Pleasanton, California-based Safeway Stores, Inc. is sticking with a single-format strategy - its"Lifestyle"format supermarkets, which average 43,000-55,000 square-feet, with some exceptions - and saying no to further development of its two-store small-format 'The Market' fresh food and grocery venture.

Safeway Stores' CEO Steve Burd confirmed yesterday what we've been saying in Fresh & Easy Buzz for well over a year - which is that Safeway's 'The Market' will not be a part of the grocer's retail format strategy going forward.

In a conference call yesterday as part of Safeway's reporting of its third quarter 2010 results, Burd said the grocery chain does not plan to build the two-store (Long Beach and San Jose, California) "The Market" into a chain of small-format stores.

Here's what the Safeway chief said:

"The good news is that we’re batting a thousand. We built two ['The Market'] stores and they both make money. I think there is no one else that’s created a store that small that can boast that kind of a batting average. At the same time when we went into the small store format we said that we weren't going to make it a big piece of our strategy unless we thought it represented a very significant opportunity. I would tell you that if you can’t build 300 of these for a company like us, then it’s not meaningful, say, over a five-year period.

"So, we think that we learned a lot from the smaller store and some of those concepts we are applying to our main fleet of stores. I think we might have communicated at the last Investor Conference or maybe in one of these earnings calls, we don’t see creating 300 small stores as a basic part of our strategy. Will we occasionally build a store that might be 20,000 square feet, I would say occasionally in some pretty unique circumstances, but we learned enough to conclude that for us it was not a new format that we were going to try to grow and make a big piece of our offering."

The San Jose, California 'The Market' format store - 'The Market by Safeway' - which opened in 2009 - is 21,000-24,000 square-feet. The Long Beach store - 'The Market by Vons' - which is in a building that previously was a standard Vons supermarket, is about 15,000 square-feet. It opened in May 2008.

While Burd didn't say at the most recent Safeway Investor conference earlier this year that "The Market" would not be a part of a multi-format strategy for the grocery chain going forward, he hinted at it at the conference, as he has in the past, at least for those of us who watch Safeway closely.

In fact, Burd spelled out the metrics required from the format in order for Safeway to go forward with it as early as the end of 2008

In December 2008 at that year's annual investor's meeting, eight months after the first "The Market" store in Long Beach, California opened, Burd said the results to date were less than thrilling, as we reported in this story - December 12, 2008: Competitor News: Safeway CEO Steve Burd Says Small-Format 'The Market' Is 'Good' So Far But Not 'Great;' But Must Be 'Great' in Order To Expand. His then assessment on the performance of the first small-format 'The Market' store eight months on was that it's: "good, not great."

At the 2008 meeting he said Safeway planned to open at least two more of the small-format 'The Market' stores in 2009.

However, the grocer opened just one additional store in 2009, the unit in downtown San Jose, California, and hasn't opened any additional stores in the format since then. We wrote about what was the then planned third store in this July 25, 2008 story: Breaking Competitor News: Safeway Stores, Inc. Plans to Open A Small-Format 'the market by Vons' Grocery Store in Downtown Los Angeles.

In December 2008 the Safeway CEO said once the additional two 'The Market' format stores are open, "Unless the results go from 'good to great' and we feel we can open 30 -to- 50 of these per year, it won't make enough difference for these stores to be more than an experiment."

As Burd said yesterday, Safeway may occasionally build a store in the 20,000 square-foot range. But providing his own question and answer in a sentence he qualified that rather clearly, saying: "Will we occasionally build a store that might be 20,000 square feet? I would say occasionally in some pretty unique circumstances."

'The Market" as a multi-store second format for Safeway Stores, Inc. is history.

We're told there are no plans at present to close either the San Jose or Long Beach stores though. As Burd said, they are making (some) money. In the case of the two, we can tell you this: The San Jose store is doing much better than the Long Beach unit.

In early 2008 Safeway had the Cornish & Carey commercial real estate team help it find five or six locations in the San Francisco Bay Area - the downtown San Jose site was one of the locations - for its "The Market" format, which it had only recently finished developing at the time. The firm and Safeway located the sites but the downtown San Jose location is the only one to be built and opened.

A key reason Safeway souoght out the locations was because in January 2008 Tesco announced its plans to open an initial 37 Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market fresh food and grocery stores in Northern California - 19 in the Sacramento region and 18 in the Bay Area.

Safeway had first-hand experience with Tesco. United Kingdom-based Tesco was the first major chain in the world to establish a food and grocery e-commerce site and combine the online ordering element with home delivery. In the 1990's, when Safeway was interested in doing the same, it partnered with Tesco in Groceryworks, which was Safeway Stores' initial online/home delivery grocery service. The partnership didn't last long. The two chains parted ways and Safeway took the business in-house, which is where it remains today.

As a result of this first hand experience, along with the fact Tesco is a very respected global retailer, Safeway, which already had been considering a small-format of its own, ratched up the development process, creating 'The Market,' and sought out the various store locations in its home-turf San Francisco Bay Area, where it's headquartered, in part as a defensive move against Tesco, which was supposed to open the first Fresh & Easy stores in the region in early 2009. That never happened. Tesco now plans to open the first batch of its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores in the Bay Area in early 2011.

In the nearly three years since the first Fresh & Easy stores opened - there are currently 168 units; soon to be 155 after Tesco closes 13 stores by November 2, 2010 - Tesco has struggled with Fresh & Easy, losing hundreds of millions of dollars and is closing in on a billion dollar loss. The retailer says it will become profitable in its 2013 fiscal year, at which time it says it plans to have 400 of the 10,000 square-foot Fresh & Easy markets open and operating. But since its projecting a loss in the $250 million range for its fiscal 2010/11 year which ends in February 2011, that's going to be a tall order to achieve. [See: 13 Closing Fresh & Easy Stores List.]

Tesco's struggle with Fresh & Easy has no doubt played some part in Safeway's decision to drop 'The Market' from its future strategic plans, in our analysis, although Burd clearly laid out the metrics back in December 2008. It was a test - in fact a by-the-book test - and as is the case with tests, a decision has now been made.

Additionally, Safeway Stores' CEO Steve Burd is on the record as early as March 2008, saying at the time, as we reported in this story - March 12, 2008: Safeway CEO Steve Burd: 'I'm Not Particularly Worried About Tesco's Fresh & Easy Grocery Stores in California' - that Tesco's Fresh & Easy venture doesn't worry him much as a competitor.

The bottom line is Safeway doesn't really need a dedicated 15,000 square-foot store format in order to sell fresh-prepared foods; it does it just fine in its supermarkets. And if a particular urban location requires a smaller store, it can do a 20,000 square-foot version of its "Lifestyle" format, which "The Market" is essentially a smaller version of anyway.

In a series of stories so far this year we've offered a roadmap to where Safeway Stores, Inc. is going in terms of its format strategy: 43,000-55,000 square-foot "Lifestyle" format stores with expansive fresh food departments and a combination of price/value focused and more upscale food and grocery merchandising elements.

For example, read these three recent pieces from the blog:

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

>August 2, 2010: Safeway Unveils Plans For New 'Lifestyle' Format Store Designed to Fit Today's Berkeley, California Lifestyle

>April 8, 2010: The Branded 'Signature Cafe' in Safeway Stores' Soon to Open 'Social Safeway' in Washington D.C. Should Turn A Few Heads

Like Safeway with its 'The Market' fresh food and grocery store concept, Walmart is preparing to put an end to its 'marketside by Walmart' combination fresh food and grocery format, as it begins to launch a new generation of smaller format stores. [See - September 23, 2010: Revisting 'marketside by Walmart': Format As We Know it On the Way Out But Some or All Of the Four Stores Could Be Converted and October 13, 2010: Simon Says: Walmart U.S. CEO Outlines Smaller Store Strategy and Plans; Walmart to Offer Groceries Online in USA.

Safeway's 'The Market,' Walmart's 'marketside by walmart' and Tesco's 'Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market' are all three very similar formats - all three are small-format stores that focus on fresh foods with limited assortments of groceries and perishables, for example - and all were launched at about the same time - late 2007 for Fresh & Easy, and mid-2008 for Safeway and Walmart's small-store ventures.

Time will tell if it's a positive development for Tesco to have its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market small-format fresh food and grocery chain as the remaining one of the three similar formats. But unlike Safeway and Walmart, Tesco doesn't currently have any other formats to fall back on in the U.S. should that development be a negative and not a positive one.

Related Stories:

March 5, 2008: New Details and Analysis About Safeway's Small-Format Summer SF Bay Area Surprise for Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

March 12, 2008: Safeway CEO Steve Burd: 'I'm Not Particularly Worried About Tesco's Fresh & Easy Grocery Stores in California'

May 15, 2008: Breaking News: Safeway Opens its First Small-Format 'The Market' Grocery Store Today in Long Beach, California

June 5, 2008: Breaking News: Safeway Stores, Inc. Nearing Negotiation End-Game For its Second Small-Format 'The Market' Store Site; This One in San Jose, California

July 8, 2008: Southern California Market Report: Safeway Stores,'the market by Vons' Mass-Mails First Advertising and Promotional Flyer to Vons Club Card Members

June 6, 2008: More on Safeway's 'The Market' Format: 20-Year Food Retailing Industry Vet Offers Observations and Analysis on 'the Market by Vons,' Long Beach, CA

July 25, 2008: Breaking Competitor News: Safeway Stores, Inc. Plans to Open A Small-Format 'the market by Vons' Grocery Store in Downtown Los Angeles

January 30, 2009: Competitor News: Safeway Stores, Inc. Confirms Second Small-Format 'The Market' Unit to Be in San Jose, CA; Fresh & Easy Buzz Nailed it in June, 2008

Friday, July 25, 2008

Breaking Competitor News: Safeway Stores, Inc. Plans to Open A Small-Format 'the market by Vons' Grocery Store in Downtown Los Angeles

Safeway Stores, Inc. plans to open the second or third (see our June 5 report about a potential "the market by Safeway" store in downtown San Jose, California here) store of its small-format (15,000 square foot) "The Market" grocery stores in downtown Los Angeles, Fresh & Easy Buzz has learned.

As we mentioned in our May 15 piece when we were one of the first publications to report on the upcoming grand opening (which Safeway kept under wraps) of Safeway's first small-format store, "the market by Vons," in the Belmont Shores neighborhood in Long Beach (Southern) California (the inside of which is pictured at the the top), the grocery chain had plans to also open "The Market" small-format food stores in urban locations. [Read our report on Safeway's plans to open a "the market by Safeway" in a new high-rise residential development in downtown San Jose in the San Francisco Bay Area here.]

We haven't been able as of yet to determine the precise location of the "market by Vons" store slated for downtown Los Angeles. We have some strong leads from sources but aren't ready to report a location until we are able to further confirm it.

For decades, downtown Los Angeles has been what is termed a "food desert," meaning that the vast urban downtown has been without food and grocery stores that offer a decent selection of basic groceries and fresh foods, especially fresh produce, at affordable prices.

Although the downtown is still underserved by such grocery stores, it's beginning to change primarily as the result of lots of new residential development that's been occurring in the city's urban core in recent years.

For example, a year ago this week, Southern California-based Ralphs supermarkets, which is a banner owned by Kroger Co., opened one of its first new Fresh Fare format supermarkets in what was then a brand new residential loft development in downtown Los Angeles.

The one-year old downtown Los Angeles upscale Ralphs Fresh Fare supermarket at 645 West 9th Street, which isn't a small-format grocery store but rather is a 50,000 square foot urban giant, was the first full-service supermarket to open in downtown Los Angeles in decades.

The Ralphs Fresh Fare stores are more upscale than the Ralphs conventional supermarkets, hundreds of which are located throughout Southern California. And as the "Fresh Fare" name implies, the stores feature an expanded selection of "fresh" foods, including produce, meats, dairy and fresh, prepared foods. The stores also have a greater selection of natural, organic and specialty food and grocery items than conventional Ralphs supermarkets do.

Although Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is based in Southern California and has stores in Los Angeles, the grocery chain has yet to open one of its small-format (10,000 -to- 13,000 square foot) combination basic grocery and fresh foods markets in downtown Los Angeles. Based on our sources, who are good, Tesco's Fresh & Easy currently doesn't have any downtown Los Angeles stores in the new store opening pipeline either.

Ralphs, and now Safeway Stores, Inc. with its small-format "market by Vons" future downtown Los Angeles store, aren't the only grocers looking to the city's urban core for new business.

Hispanic consumer-focused, family-owned Southern California-based Liborio Market has opened a couple new supermarkets in downtown Los Angeles recently.

Liborio Market opened its first store in Southern California on February 6, 1966 in Los Angeles with $1,400 of initial capital, which was the collective savings of Enrique J. Alejo, Jr., Enrique B. Alejo, Sr., Randy M. Alejo, Berta Alejo and Nancy Alejo. The first store1,200 sq. ft. and had only $800 in beginning inventory, according to members of the family-owned grocer.

Liborio Market currently operates 9 full-sized supermarkets in Southern California, Nevada and Colorado. Two of those 9 supermarkets are in downtown Los Angeles. (five of the 9 stores are in Southern California where the grocer is headquartered.) One of the stores is in Las Vegas, Nevada. The remaining three supermarkets are located in Colorado: one each in Colorado Springs, Aurora and Commerce City.

Although the grocer's stores focus on Latino customers, the downtown Los Angeles stores also offer basic food and grocery items in order to reach the many non-Hispanics who live in the downtown neighborhoods. All of the Liborio Market supermarkets have full-size fresh produce, meat and grocery departments, along with having in-store bakeries and fresh, prepared foods departments.

The majority of the new residential growth in downtown Los Angeles is coming from younger professionals, who are moving into the numerous new multi-unit residential loft, apartment and high-rise condominium developments that have been built in the downtown core in recent years, and continue to be built despite a bit of slowing do to the credit crunch and the poorU.S. and California economies.

These young, mostly college educated professionals are moving to downtown Los Angeles for a variety of reasons, including to be closer to the office buildings where they work, to enjoy the excitement of the urban core, which is becoming an arts and restaurant and club mecca, and for a variety of other personal and professional reasons.

Downtown Los Angeles, as is downtown San Francisco and San Jose in Northern California, is luring numerous retired baby boomers in there late fifties to mid-seventies into the new, upscale lofts and condos rising throughout the city's urban core.

Many retired baby boomers who've lived in the suburbs for decades now find themselves with their children grown and out of the house, retired from their primary careers and perhaps working as consultants or in other second full-time and part time careers (or merely retired), as well as being "house rich" from twenty to thirty years of built-up equity as a result of historically fast-rising California housing values.

Many are "cashing out" and leaving the suburbs for urban centers such as Los Angeles' for a variety of reasons, ranging from desiring a simple change of lifestyle, to being able to be in the center of the city where they can drive less and walk to restaurants, cafes, restaurants and art galleries, for example.

Safeway's fairly upscale "The Market" format food and grocery stores, which feature fresh, prepared foods, fresh produce and meats, along with a selection of basic and natural and specialty food and grocery items, fit this "new urban" lifestyle well, although in the case of downtown Los Angeles, where the majority of residents are still low-income, the store's price points as they currently are in the Long Beach store, will need to come down if the store is going to cater to all levels of income in the downtown Los Angeles neighborhood where it is located.

However, since urban living usually means shopping more frequently because often residents in the urban core walk to the store or take public transportation, the fact that elements of the small-format "The market" format strores are designed for that type of shopping could make it a success in downtown Los Angeles.

Safeway has positioned its "The Market" format stores for "fill-in" shopping since the grocery chain also operates hundreds of full-size supermarkets in Southern California and elsewhere in the United States.

Therefore, unlike Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, which the retailer has positioned to appeal to all consumers and wants to be used by consumers as a primary shopping neighborhood grocery store, Safeway can live by design with only attracting a certain segment--generally higher income--of consumers. In fact, that's the strategy behind the small-format, fairly upscale "The market" format stores.

To look at it in a related way, Safeway is using a multi-format food retailing strategy, with its "The Market" stores as secondary and tertiary shopping venues (its supermarkets being primary), while Tesco is using a single-format strategy currently, with its small-format Fresh & Easy stores designed to appeal to all shoppers and to be primary and to a limited extend secondary grocery shopping venues.

As we've reported previously, Safeway plans both a suburban and urban strategy in locating its small-format "The Market" food and grocery stores. [The name of the stores depends on the supermarket banner the retailer operates in a given market region. For example, it operates the Vons banner in Southern California. Therefore the stores are called "the market by Vons." In Northern California it uses the Safeway banner. Therefore those stores will be called "the Market by Safeway.]

The future store in downtown Los Angeles, along with the potential store in downtown San Jose we reported on here, demonstrates Safeway plans to put as much emphasis--at least thus far--on urban locations as it does on suburban ones. This makes sense because urban neighborhoods, regardless of demographics, are seriously underserved by quality food and grocery stores.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy realizes this trend as well, which is why it's mixes an urban and suburban store location strategy into its mix in California, Nevada and Arizona.

Small-format food and grocery stores are the ideal urban format. You will see even more urban stores from Safeway and Tesco's Fresh & Easy, as well as from other food retailers; not just in California but throughout the United States.

It's taken the grocery retailing industry a long time to see the potential of urban stores, and the changing suburban to urban demographics have helped that realization along in the last few years. However, numerous major grocery chains and independents are now seeing the potential of opening small-format stores in the city core. In fact, we see opening urban small-format grocery stores of various formats as being on of the top initiatives of the U.S. food and grocery retailing industry over the next few years.

Recent Related Posts From Fresh & Easy Buzz:

May 15, 2008: Breaking News: Safeway Opens its First Small-Format 'The Market' Grocery Store Today in Long Beach, California

June 5, 2008: Breaking News: Safeway Stores, Inc. Nearing Negotiation End-Game For its Second Small-Format 'The Market' Store Site; This One in San Jose, California

July 8, 2008: Southern California Market Report: Safeway Stores,'the market by Vons' Mass-Mails First Advertising and Promotional Flyer to Vons Club Card Members

July 16, 2008: Former NBA Great Earvin 'Magic' Johnson is Working His Business Magic in Urban, Inner City Neighborhoods; We Offer An Idea For Tesco's Fresh & Easy

June 6, 2008: More on Safeway's 'The Market' Format: 20-Year Food Retailing Industry Vet Offers Observations and Analysis on 'the Market by Vons,' Long Beach, CA

Friday, November 5, 2010

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Queuing Up Three Additional Stores in Northern California For Early-to-Mid 2011 Openings

Breaking Buzz

Northern California Market Region Special Report

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is queuing three more stores in Northern California for an early-to-mid 2011 opening, Fresh & Easy Buzz has learned.

The three stores and their locations are:

>Pleasanton - Santa Rita Road & Rosewood Drive

>Hayward - Mission Boulevard & Rousseau Street

>San Jose - Saratoga Avenue & Payne Avenue

All three of the stores are in the San Francisco Bay Area. Pleasanton and Hayward are in the East Bay Area; San Jose is in the South Bay Area.

Tesco has had the Hayward location since 2007 and the Pleasanton store site since late 2008-early-2009. The San Jose unit was obtained this year.

As we've previously reported, Tesco's Fresh & Easy currently has 11 units in the queue to be opened in Northern California in the first quarter of 2011.

The 11 stores are:

>San Francisco - Third Street & Carroll Avenue

>San Jose - Bird Avenue & Minnesota Avenue

>Danville - Diablo Boulevard & Highway 680

>Pacifica - Cabrillo Highway & Linda Mar Boulevard

>Vacaville - Elmira Road & Nut Tree Road

>Modesto - Oakdale Road & Lancey Drive

>Walnut Creek - Ygnacio Valley Road & San Carlos Drive

>Concord - Clayton Road & Ygnacio Valley Road

>Napa - Jefferson Street & Imola Avenue

>San Francisco - 32nd Avenue and Clement Street

>Sunnyvale - Tasman Drive and Fair Oaks Avenue

[See our September 22, 2010 story - Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Plans to Open Two Additional Stores in Northern California in Early 2011 - for details on the 11 stores.]

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has publicly announced the first eight of the 11 stores listed above, saying in August, 2010 that it would be opening the units in Northern California in early 2011. [See - August 21, 2010: April 2010 Prediction Correct: February 2011 Target to Open First Eight Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores in Northern California and August 19, 2010: Tesco Will Open its First Eight Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores in Northern California in 'Early 2011.']

Our reporting on the additional three stores (out of the 11) is based on information we obtained from multiple sources.

The three units - Napa, San Francisco (32nd & Clement) and Sunnyvale - are, like the other eight, currently set by Tesco's Fresh & Easy to be opened before the end of the first quarter of 2011, according to our sources and research. We stress that the time-frame is based on our current information. Tesco is known for delaying openings, particularly in Northern California, where the first batch of the 37 stores announced in January 2008 was originally set to be opened in early 2009.

We've reported on and written about all three of the latest stores focused on in this piece - Pleasanton (Santa Rita Road & Rosewood Drive), Hayward (Mission Boulevard & Rousseau Street) and San Jose (Saratoga & Payne), in Fresh & Easy Buzz.

The Hayward store at Mission Boulevard & Rousseau Street is one of the original 37 Fresh & Easy units - 19 in the Sacramento Metro region and 18 in the San Francisco Bay Area - that Tesco announced in early 2008. Its one of two stores Tesco announced at the time for Hayward. [See our Northern California Fresh & Easy Store List. Also: January 30, 2008: Fresh & Easy Goes On the Record: Announces 18 Northern California Stores in the Bay Area.]

We first reported on the future Pleasanton unit at Santa Rita Drive & Rosewood Drive, in the Rose Pavilion Shopping Center, in a January 24, 2008 piece: Fresh & Easy Locking-Up Leases For Northern California Invasion.

Additionally, on April 19, 2009 we reported on and detailed Tesco's plans to open a Fresh & Easy market at the location in Pleasanton in this story: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Signs Lease For New Store in Pleasanton, CA; We Reported 15 Months Ago the SF Bay Area City Was in its Strategic Sites.

The Saratoga Avenue & Payne Avenue (1328 Saratoga Avenue) future Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market unit in San Jose is one of Tesco's most recently obtained Northern California Fresh and Easy store locations, as we reported in this September 22, 2010 piece: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Planning A New, Third Store in San Jose, California.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is gearing up to make the first half of 2011 a California-focused new store-opening period.

For example, in addition to launching into Northern California early next year as we've detailed, Tesco's Fresh & Easy is opening 10 new stores in Southern California in the first quarter of 2011, as we first reported in mid-October 2010. [See our story from yesterday - November 4, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Confirms Our October Reports On 10 New Stores Opening in Early 2011.

Additionally, the fresh food and grocery chain continues to lock up future Fresh & easy store sites in the Northern California region, including the six locations we've reported on from May-November of this year, which are featured in the stories linked below:

>November 3, 2010: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Plans New Store in Northern Central Valley, California City of Ceres

>November 1, 2010: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Planning to Build its First Store in Northern California City of Brentwood

>October 26, 2010: Going Semi-Rural: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Buys Property For New Store in Northern California Town of Clear Lake

>September 22, 2010: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Planning A New, Third Store in San Jose, California

>August 25, 2010: Going Rural: New Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store Planned for Sutter Creek in Northern California

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

Meanwhile, Tesco has closed its 13 under-performing Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores - six each in Metro Los Vegas, Nevada and in Metro Phoenix, Arizona; and one in Southern California - it announced it was shuttering on October 5, 2010. [See 13 Closing Fresh & Easy Stores List for the addresses of the 13 closed units.]

There are now 155 Fresh & Easy stores located in California (Southern California and the Central Valley), Metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, and Metro Las Vegas, Nevada. [Click here to see a breakdown by number of stores for each of the market regions.]

Linkage: 2010 'Northern California Market Region Special Report'

November 3, 2010: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Plans New Store in Northern Central Valley, California City of Ceres

November 1, 2010: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Planning to Build its First Store in Northern California City of Brentwood

October 30, 2010: Raley's Launches New 'Raley's TO GO' Pre-Packaged, Refrigerated Fresh-Prepared Foods Line

October 27, 2010: Save Mart CEO Bob Piccinini Poised to Make it to the 'Bigs' as Member of Golden State Warriors' Ownership Group

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

September 22, 2010: Sunflower Makes Three: Sunflower Farmers Market's First Northern California Store Will Be in Roseville

September 22, 2010: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Planning A New, Third Store in San Jose, California

September 22, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Plans to Open Two Additional Stores in Northern California in Early 2011

September 21, 2010: A Look Inside Whole Foods Market's Newest Store, A Mall Location in Santa Rosa, California

September 20, 2010: About Today's Walmart Stores, Inc. Smaller Stores Media Frenzy: We Scooped it On July 6, 2010

September 19, 2010: Whole Foods Market Gives Itself A 30th Birthday Present: 299th Store Opens This Week in Santa Rosa, California