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

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market today announced the opening dates for its first five stores in Northern California's Sacramento metropolitan region.

Fresh & Easy first announced its plans to enter the metro Sacramento market in early 2008, where it said it would open an initial 19 stores. (See here for details and a list of the numerous other planned stores we've uncovered in the region.)

It planned to start opening the first of those 19 stores beginning around late 2009 and no later than mid-2010. Those plans were postponed until now.

The grocer's announcement today confirms the opening dates for the first batch of stores in the Sacramento region we've had listed on our F&E Store Openings Q1 2012 link at the top of the blog.

Below are the locations and opening dates of the first five stores Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market plans to open in the Sacramento metro-region:

>Sacramento
Watt Avenue & El Camino Avenue
Opens March 7, 2012

>Sacramento
Mack Road and Franklin Boulevard
Opens March 7, 2012

>Lincoln
Lincoln and Sterling Road
Opens March 14, 2012

>Elk Grove
Elk Grove Florin Road and Calvine Road
Opens March 14, 2012

>Folsom
East Natoma Street and Blue Ravine Road
Opens March 14, 2012

Northern California - one year on

The opening of the first stores in metropolitan Sacramento, Tesco's newest market region with its Fresh & Easy chain, comes one year after the grocery chain began opening its first stores in Northern California.

There are 18 Fresh & Easy stores now open in Northern California - 15 units in the San Francisco Bay Area; one store in Fairfield, which is on the outskirts of the Bay Area off Interstate-80; one Fresh & Easy grocery market in Vacaville, which is about midway between the Bay Area and the Sacramento region; and a store in Modesto, which is in the Northern Central Valley.

There are 182 Fresh & Easy stores in California (138), Nevada (20 units), and Arizona (24 units). Of the 138 stores in California (the grocer opened two units in the Golden State yesterday), 106 units are in Southern California, seven stores are in the Bakersfield and Fresno regions in the mid and southern Central Valley, and 18 units are in Northern California.

Region's 'Big Three' (and unionized) grocery chains

Fresh & Easy's launch into the Sacramento-area market comes at a time when the region's three leading grocers - West Sacramento-based Raley's, Modesto-based Save Mart/Lucky and Pleasanton, California-based Safeway Stores, Inc. are in negotiations with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union over a new three-year labor contract.

The three supermarket chains are numbers one (Safeway), two (Save Mart) and three (Raley's) respectively in terms of market share in Northern California. In the metro-Sacramento market, Raley's is number one, followed by Save Mart and Safeway.

The old contract expired in October 2011, and the union locals and the "Big Three" Northern California grocery chains have been extending the dates since then. The negotiations continue.

Raley's and Save Mart/Lucky are family-owned, privately-held companies. Safeway Stores, Inc. is publicly-held.

The three chains negotiate with the union locals. Once a deal is made, the smaller unionized grocers in the region then generally accept whatever contract deal is cut and voted on and ratified by UFCW members.

There are about 52,000 unionized grocery clerks in Northern California, according to a spokesperson for Local 5. There are numerous other chains and independents in Northern California that are unionized and operating under the extended contracts.

Last week Raley's, which operates 131 stores in Northern California under the Raley's (superstores), Bel-Air Markets, Nob Hill Foods (supermarkets) and Food Source (discount warehouse) banners, broke out of the joint-talks with Save Mart/Lucky and Safeway, and is now negotiating independently with the union locals.

Raley's, which has been struggling financially and going through a reorganization since 2010, is asking the union for various concessions in the health and welfare benefit and pension areas.

Raley's CEO Michael Teel, who's family owns the privately-held chain, says the grocer needed to go out on its own in the negotiations because it wants a deal, with concessions, fast. Teel also says Raley's would not have had to close two stores recently, one in Modesto and the other in the Sacramento region, had the UFCW accepted its proposal. He also said additional store closures are possible if Raley's can't get the concessions its asking the union for.

An official of one of the Northern California UFCW locals told us recently that the concessions Raley's wants as currently stated "won't fly with our membership." As a result, the union and the chain have yet to reach an agreement that the union can take to its members for a vote, he says.

The contract extensions with all three chains run out before the end of this month.

Non-union grocers on the move

Meanwhile, Tesco's Fresh & Easy is just one of many non-union food and grocery retailers opening stores at a fast pace in Northern California in general and in the Sacramento region specifically. Others include Whole Foods Market, Sprouts Farmers Market and Sunflower Farmers Market. All three have new stores set to open in metro Sacramento this year.

Over the last year Tesco has been repositioning Fresh & Easy to be more of a specialty grocery store. All three of the chains mentioned above, and Fresh Market mentioned below, plus Trader Joe's, which has stores in the Sacramento region, are direct competition in that niche.

Safeway and Raley's, which both put a major focus on fresh foods and specialty as well as on the basics, are also direct competition for Fresh & Easy, including in the fresh-prepared foods category. Both chains offer extensive ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat fresh foods, as do Whole Foods, Sprouts and Sunflower. Save Mart/Lucky does as well, but to a lessor degree than the others.

Costco, which has customer demographics that cut across all income levels, is also a major food and grocery retailing force in the Sacramento metro-market, as are a number of smaller chains and independents, such as Woodland-based (about 12 miles from Sacramento) Nugget Markets, which has a number of stores in the region.

Additionally, as we previously reported, Walmart Stores, Inc. is locking up numerous locations for its smaller-format (26,000-to-45,000 square-foot) Neighborhood Market supermarkets in the Sacramento region, along with proposing a few new supercenters, and adding fresh food and groceries (hybrid supercenters) to some existing discount format stores.

Discount chain Target, which is non-union like all the others mentioned above, has been and continues to add its "P-Fresh" fresh food and grocery markets inside many of its existing target discount format stores in the region.

Another non-union grocery chain, North Carolina-based The Fresh Market, also has plans to start opening stores in Northern California - the Bay Area and Sacramento region is its focus - this year, as we've previously reported in Fresh & Easy Buzz.

Bottom line: Not only are all these non-union grocers, which are adding stores rapidly, added competition for the Sacramento region's "Big Three" unionized supermarket chain's - Raley's, Save Mart/Lucky and Safeway - they also will make Tesco's launch of Fresh & Easy in the region less than a month from today much more difficult and competitive (and expensive) than it would have been had the retailer started opening its stores back in 2009-2010 as it originally planned to so.

Why: The level of competition was much less then that it is now - and it's going to get even more competitive in the metro-Sacramento market over the next year and beyond, particularly as Walmart starts opening its smaller format Walmart Neighborhood Market supermarkets in the region, many of which - for example a Walmart Neighborhood Market is slated for Lincoln, California - are located not far from future Fresh & Easy locations in the Sacramento metropolitan region, along with in other parts of Northern California.

Suggested Reading

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

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

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

January 8, 2012: Tesco to Close Up to 12 Fresh & Easy Stores

January 9, 2012: Exclusive: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Closing 12 Stores; We Have the Locations

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

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

February 1, 2012: Tesco's Fresh & Easy By the Numbers ... In Case You Want to Keep Score at Home or in the Office

Welcome to the (Eclectic) Neighborhood: Second of Seven Fresh & Easy Express Stores Opens Tomorrow in Hermosa Beach, California

Retail Ethnography - Bright Lights, Eclectic Neighborhood: Welcome to the Neon Fresh & Easy Express

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is set to open its second 'Express' format store - 3,000 square-feet of selling space, with an edited and limited assortment of the products it offers in its 10,000 square-foot grocery markets - at Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and 8th Street in the coastal Southern California city of Hermosa Beach tomorrow morning.

We've been chronicling in words and pictures the creation of the soon-to-open Fresh & Easy Express store in what we've termed the eclectic Hermosa Beach neighborhood since December 13, 2011, when we published this piece - Welcome to the (Eclectic) Neighborhood: Hermosa Beach, California Fresh & Easy Express Set to Open Jan. 11, 2012 - which was the first story in our "Welcome to the (Eclectic) Neighborhood" trilogy.

A week later we updated you on how the Fresh & Easy Express store was 'doing' in the neighborhood, offering Part II of our "Welcome to the (Eclectic) Neighborhood" Hermosa Beach Fresh & Easy Express chronicles in words and pictures in this December 20, 2011 piece: Hermosa Beach, California Fresh & Easy Express Taking Shape For January 11, 2012 Opening.

The Christmas and New Year holidays have now come and gone and the Hermosa Beach Fresh & Easy Express store is set to be welcomed to the neighborhood tomorrow morning at 10 a.m, when the doors to the micro-small-format grocery market are opened.

Tonight a crew of Fresh & Easy employees are in the Fresh & Easy Express store preparing for tomorrow's grand opening.

The new neon sign on the front of the store is burning bright, as are the lights inside the store. The shelves are stocked but getting a touch up and facing, all in preparation for tomorrow's opening.

The Hermosa Beach, California fresh food and grocery market, which we've nicknamed the "Neon Fresh & Easy Express," will be the second 'Express' format store to be opened by the grocer.

The first Fresh & Easy Express market, at La Cienega Boulevard and 18th Street in Los Angeles, opened on November 2, 2011.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy plans to have seven of the small food and grocery markets, all located in Southern California, opened by the end of March 2012.

The next Fresh & Easy Express store set to open is the unit at Victory Boulevard and Buena Vista Street in Burbank, California. The store's opening date is set for one week from tomorrow, Wednesday, January 18. (You can see photographs of the Burbank Fresh & Easy Express store's construction in progress here.)

Tesco is hoping the new, 3,000 square-foot Fresh & Easy Express format stores will play a major role in its efforts to break-even with its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market chain in America, which is now four-plus years old and continues to lose a significant amount of money for the United Kingdom-based global retailer, which has operations in 14 countries and is the third-largest food, grocery and general merchandise retailer in the world.

The opening of the 'Express' store in Hermosa Beach tomorrow comes on the heels of an announcement Tesco's Fresh & Easy made late Monday (January 9, 2012) that it's closing 12 underperforming Fresh & Easy grocery markets, a story we broke on Sunday (see here) in Fresh & Easy Buzz, and followed up on Monday (see here), with a second story in which we listed the locations of the 12 stores the grocer is closing, along with reporting on the internal announcement about the store closings made to company employees by Tim Mason, CEO of Fresh & Easy and group deputy CEO of Tesco.

Mason made the announcement via an e-mail to selected employees of Fresh & Easy just a short time before we published our report on Monday. Following the publication of our story on Sunday and our follow up piece early Monday afternoon, in which we reported the stores to be closed, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market made the announcement of the store closures, although initial plans called for it to make the Wednesday.

One of the reasons Tesco CEO Philip Clarke and Mason are working hard to get the first seven Fresh & Easy Express stores opened before the end of March is because they hope the 3,000 square-foot grocery markets will perform well, and therefore help provide a key to breaking even financially with Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market by the end of Tesco's 2012/13 fiscal year, which begins in February of this year and ends in February 2012. This is something Clarke, who took over as CEO of Tesco in March 2011, says will happen.

Tesco will report the results of its 2011/12 fiscal year, which ends in February, in April of this year. Tesco reported a half-fiscal year loss of $112 million for Fresh & Easy earlier this year, on sales of $470 million.

The loss is 23% less than Tesco reported for Fresh & Easy for the same period a year earlier but still remains substantial. As we reported Sunday, the closing of the 12 underperforming Fresh & Easy stores is part of Tesco's strategy to achieve break-even with the chain by the end of the 2012/13 fiscal year.

But tonight, on opening eve, all eyes are on the "Neon Fresh & Easy Express, the soon-to-be-opened store on a busy stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway in the the eclectic neighborhood in Hermosa Beach, California.

And come tomorrow, the new Fresh & Easy Express store with its bright neon sign will join Learned Lumber, Sassy's, The Tendor Box and numerous other retail stores in the eclectic coastal Hermosa Beach, California neighborhood, each one offering what it offers to the eclectic mix of residents who live there.

Welcome to the (eclectic) neighborhood, neon sign and all.

[Related Stories: Read our extensive coverage and analysis of Fresh & Easy Express, including our story that broke the news on the retailer's plans to launch the format, here.]

[Editor's Note: All photographs credit Fresh & Easy Buzz, 01/10/2012.]

Tesco Opens Long-Awaited Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store in San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point Neighborhood

Nearly four years in the making, Tesco opened its Fresh & Easy store (above) in San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood yesterday. [Photo credit: Fresh & Easy Buzz.] Kevin, a Fresh & Easy Buzz reader who lives in Bayview-Hunters Point, e-mailed us this review (in the quotes below) he posted on the Yelp review site shortly after the store opened yesterday: "It's open. First new grocery store in the Bayview in decades; and it's a grand success. Organic offerings throughout the store - fresh, beautiful stuff. A true full-service grocery store, even offering a full line of wine & spirits. The Bayview in all it's multi-cultural glory is on display here - throngs of happy, smiling people mingling, laughing and honestly joyous about this long-awaited addition to the neighborhood. The staff is helpful and thoughtful - eager to help."

Tesco opened its long-awaited Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market fresh food and grocery store in the 5800 Third Street condominium development at 3rd Street and Carroll Avenue in San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood yesterday, completing a nearly four-year process that began when the retailer announced its plans in January 2008 to open a store in the low-income neighborhood underserved by grocery stores that offer a selection of fresh food and groceries at affordable prices.

The opening of the Fresh & Easy store yesterday - Tesco's second unit in San Francisco, 13th store in Northern California, 128th market in California and store number 177 in total - at 3rd Street and Carroll Avenue in San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point kicked off at a 10 a.m with presentations by Tim Mason, the CEO of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and deputy CEO of parent company United Kingdom-based Tesco (pictured below), San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee, David Chiu, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Malia Cohen, who represents the neighborhood on the board, and Sophia Maxwell, who formerly represented the area on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and was instrumental in getting the grocer to locate a store in the new 5800 Third Street development, which opened early this year.

Mayor Lee, who is being challenged next year for the city's top elected office by Chiu and numerous others, presented a check for $1,000 to the Bayview-Hunters Point YMCA, which was chosen by the employees of the store to receive the donation Fresh & Easy gives to a local non-profit group each time it opens a new store, while the other San Francisco politicos, Mason and members of his senior executive team encouraged him on.

"I made a commitment to the community to improve Bayview-Hunters Point and make it a place that is safe and healthy for families," Mayor Lee said during his presentation this morning. "This project is a cornerstone in our broader efforts to revitalize the neighborhood by bringing healthy food, vibrant businesses, and new shoppers to Third Street."

Lee is San Francisco's former chief administrator, which is a non-elected position. He was appointed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors early this year to fill the remaining term of then mayor Gavin Newsom, who was elected California's Lieutenant Governor in November 2010 and took office in January 2011.

It was during Newsom's term as mayor, in 2007, that Tesco agreed to locate a store in the 5800 Third Street development, which at the time was a vacant piece of land and the site of a former Coca-Cola bottling plant.

At the time of his appointment - and up until a few weeks ago - Lee said he would not run for mayor in 2012. However he recently announced he will run for the top office in the city and is being supported by local political heavyweights like Senator Dianne Feinstein and former San Francisco Mayor and California State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. Both Feinstein, also a former mayor, and Brown are long time residents of and political players in San Francisco.

It was during Brown's two terms as mayor that the city's long-delayed plans to revitalize the low-income Bayview-Hunters Point District began to take shape

As mayor, San Francisco first African American to be elected to the office, Brown pushed through a plan to extend San Francisco's Muni light rail system into the historically majority-African American Bayview-Hunters Point  neighborhood, which previously had been neglected by most elected officials at City Hall, although Brown's close friend, former Mayor George Moscone, who was assassinated in the 1980's along with Supervisor Harvey Milk by another then-Supervisor, Dan White, made some efforts during his tenure to improve the neighborhood. Feinstein, who was President of the Board of Supervisors at the time, replaced Moscone as mayor, then later went on to become one of California's two U.S. Senators.

Above and below: Shoppers browse the aisles yesterday. [Photo credit: Fresh & Easy Buzz.]

The extension of Muni into Bayview-Hunters Point - there's a major stop right in front of 5800 Third Street where the Fresh & Easy store is located - paved the way for what is becoming a slow but steady revitalization of the neighborhood, which was essentially created during World War two when shipyards were built in the area to build ships for the two-front war effort in Europe and Japan, which created numerous jobs at the time.

Post-World War II  Bayview-Hunters point has seen a steady decline in income and opportunities for its 35,00-40,000 residents. Part-and-parcel of this phenomenon has been a lack of grocery stores in the neighborhood, which is considered a "food desert."

Newsom, who was supported by Brown and replaced him as mayor, continued to put a focus on Bayview-Hunters Point during his nearly two terms in office. That focus included working with former supervisor Maxwell and others to bring the 5800 Third Street development to Bayview-Hunters Point along with the Fresh & Easy store, which Tesco owns rather then leases.

Ironically, when it comes to grocery chains - there is a Foods Co discount warehouse grocery store owned by Kroger Co. located in Bayview-Hunters Point - local chains like Safeway Stores, Inc., which is headquartered just 30 miles from San Francisco in Pleasanton and is the leading food retailer in San Francisco with 14 supermarkets, weren't interested in the neighborhood. Instead, the grocer from across the pond, Tesco, ended up being the first grocery chain to open a new store in Bayview-Hunters Point in two decades. It was about 20-years ago when the Foods Co store was opened in the neighborhood.

About 200 customers, according to our count, attended the grand opening during its opening couple hours, including numerous residents of the 5800 Third Street development who told us they were extremely pleased to finally have the Fresh & Easy store open so they can do their grocery shopping on-site.

Along with the customers, about a dozen protesters attended the store opening, including those representing the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union (Fresh & Easy is non-union) and a neighborhood group, Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice, that has asked Tesco's Fresh & Easy to remove alcoholic beverages from the store.

The group is also protesting about the fact that Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market doesn't except WIC Vouchers in any of its stores besides a single unit in South Los Angeles, which is a story Fresh & Easy Buzz has been in the lead about since early 2008.

Fresh & Easy's CEO Mason however says the grocer has applied to except WIC Vouchers at the store in Bayview-Hunters Point (which is something we first said here in 2008 the grocer should do when it opened the store) and plans to start excepting the vouchers, which provide fresh and healthy foods to mothers for their children, soon.

The Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice supports AB 183, which as we've reported extensively about would if passed by the California State Senate and signed by Governor Jerry Brown banned the sales of alcoholic beverages at self-service checkout lanes in retail stores in California. Tesco's Fresh & Easy uses an all self-checkout model in its 177 stores in California (128 stores), metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona (28 units) and metro Las Vegas, Nevada (21 stores).

Reverend Carol Been, a senior organizer for the group, says though that the organization is going a step beyond AB 183 and wants Fresh & Easy to stop selling alcoholic beverages entirely in the Bayview-Hunters Point store, siting among other reasons the alcohol-infused violence that broke out during last Saturday's football game at nearby Candlestick Park (about a mile away from the store) between the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders.

Numerous stores in the neighborhood sell alcoholic beverages, as does the ball park itself. For example, according to the City of San Francisco's Economic Development Department their are about 90 liquor stores operating at present in Bayview-Hunters Point.

Therefore its unlikely Tesco's Fresh & Easy will remove the adult beverages from its shelves just because it's being singled out by the group for such action. The grocer went through the full process of obtaining an alcoholic beverage license, which was granted to it by the State of California. The City of San Francisco didn't object to the granting of the license either, which municipalities have a right to do in California.

The neighborhood group says its singling out Fresh & Easy to remove alcoholic beverages because of its self-service only checkout policy. However, if AB 183 does become law, it will likely make that a moot point because as the legislation is currently written it would require the grocer to at a minimum have one full-service checkout in each of its California stores because the bill, which we've nicknamed the "Son of Tesco Fresh & Easy Law," requires face-to-face interaction between a store clerk and customer whenever alcohol is purchases.

The group also says Fresh & Easy didn't hire locally for the Bayview-Hunters Point store. However, the grocer actually hired 40 employees for the store, which is almost double the number (20-25) it normally hires to staff one of its small-format grocery markets.

In addition, Mason said yesterday - and he told the same thing to Mayor Edwin Lee - that 52% of the 40 store employees are from the Bayview-Hunters Point Neighborhood. Additionally, earlier this year Fresh & Easy held a job fair at the neighborhood YMCA, which it donated $1,000 to yesterday, which is where many of those employees were hired from.

Above: The bakery department in the Bayview-Hunters Point store, which includes an oven where fresh breads and pastries are baked in-store. Fresh & Easy started adding the in-store bakeries to its existing 176 stores in July. All new stores will include the departments. We broke the news about the in-store bakeries in this May 18, 2011 piece. Below: Frozen foods in the 3rd Street and Carroll Fresh & Easy store are displayed in upright cases with glass doors. This is another change for the grocer, which is replacing the reach-in frozen food cases in its stores with the more modern units, which is also news we broke in the May 18 piece.

From a business perspective the hiring of 40 employees instead of the 20-25 Fresh & Easy normally hires per-store is difficult to understand. We've predicted the Bayview-Hunters Point store will be one of the grocers top stores in terms of average weekly sales. However, it doesn't need 40 employees to staff it in our analysis. All of Fresh & Easy's store workers are part-timers, working 20-35 hours week, accept for the store managers, assistant managers and team leaders, although in some cases they too work part time.

The grocer way be creating a potentially damaging situation for itself in hiring so many workers for the store in that (1) it could likely result in the workers getting fewer hours - they get health benefits if they work 20 hours or more a week - and even more serious could be that (2) Fresh & Easy will find itself to high of a labor expense number at the store down the road a bit and have to layoff some of the 40 employees, which will likely lead to damaging its reputation in the neighborhood.

Mason also made a little news at the opening, saying the grocer plans to open its third store in San Francisco - the unit at Silver Avenue & Goettingen in the Portola District which like the Bayview-Hunters Point store it acquired  in late 2007 and announced in January 2008 - in early 2012, confirming our previous reports that it would be the next Fresh & Easy store to open in the city.

As we've previously reported, Fresh & Easy also has a fourth store in the works in San Francisco. That unit will be in the former Delano's IGA Market store at 1245 South Van Ness Avenue in the city's Mission District. Based on our current information we expect that store to open in early-to-mid 2012. (See here for details.)

Tesco is also looking for additional locations in San Francisco for both its 10,000 square-foot Fresh & Easy stores as well as for its smaller footprint (3,000-4,000 square-foot) new "Fresh & Easy Express" format, as we've previously reported.

We've been reporting on and writing about Tesco's plans to open a Fresh & Easy market at the Bayview-Hunters Point location since the grocer first announced its intention to do so in January 2008. We said then and still suggest it will be one of the top performing Fresh & Easy stores in the chain.

In our analysis it should be among the top 10%-15 in average weekly sales among the current 177 stores in operation in California, Nevada and Arizona. Additionally, excepting WIC Vouchers at the store will in our analysis provide at least 5%-10% more sales than if the grocer doesn't except the vouchers, which is currently the case at the store, as it is with all but one of the Fresh & Easy markets, the unit in South Los Angeles.

If we're right, and we believe we are, that's good news for Tesco. But the United Kingdom-based global retailer will need much more than a good location in Bayview-Hunters Point in order to achieve its goal of breaking-even with Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, which it lost about $300 million on in its latest fiscal year ended in February 2011, by the end of its 2012/13 fiscal year, which is just 18 months away.

That's something we will continue to explore in Fresh & Easy Buzz in the coming months. Stay tuned.

Related Stories

>We've reported on and written extensively about the Fresh & Easy store at 5800 Third Street in San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point Neighborhood. Click on these link - 5800 Third Street, Fresh and Easy San Francisco Bay Area, Fresh and Easy Northern California - to read those stories and analysis.

>We were the first publication to point out that Tesco's Fresh & Easy doesn't except WIC Vouchers in its stores. Following our extensive reporting and analysis, which included a focus on the store in South Los Angeles, the grocery chain began excepting the vouchers in that store. We also first said in a couple stories in 2008 (and since then) that Fresh & Easy would be making a mistake and missing an opportunity if it didn't except the vouchers in the Bayview-Hunters Point store when it opens. You can read those stories at these links - WIC Vouchers, California WIC, Central and Adams Fresh and Easy, Fresh and Easy 1025 East Adams South LA, Fresh and Easy Central Valley, Fresh and Easy Southern California.

>AB 183 is the latest of three legislative bills in California that beginning in 2008 have been designed to ban the sale of alcoholic beverages at self-service checkouts in grocery and other retail stores in the GOlden State. We've reported on and written extensively about the legislation, including a recent piece last week. See those stories at this link - AB 183.

[Editor's Note: Photo of Tim Mason courtesy Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.]

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Opens Eighth Northern California Store Today in Pleasanton

Tesco's Fresh & Easy in Northern California - 2011

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market opened its eighth Northern California store today, in the East San Francisco Bay Area city of Pleasanton, which among other things is where Safeway Stores, Inc., Northern California's leading supermarket chain, has its corporate headquarters.

The Pleasanton Fresh & Easy grocery market is in the Rose Pavilion Shopping Center on Santa Rita Road and Rosewood Drive.

Until last year the shopping center was without a grocery store anchor. There are now two - a 99 Ranch Market supermarket that opened in the center last year and the Fresh & Easy store, which opened this morning at 10 a.m..

We reported in an April 2009 story - April 19, 2009: 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 - that Fresh & Easy had signed a lease for the Pleasanton location. However, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market didn't publicly announce its plans to open a store at the location until last summer, when it announced it would open 11 stores in early 2011 in Northern California.

We first identified Pleasanton as a city where Tesco's Fresh & Easy would open a store in this January 24, 2008 story:  Fresh & Easy Locking-Up Leases For Northern California Invasion.

Tim Mason, the CEO of United Kingdom-based Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, which is headquartered in the Southern California city of El Segundo, attended the Pleasanton store opening today. Mason, who's based in Southern California, is also Tesco's deputy CEO, a position in which he reports to the global retailer's CEO, Philip Clarke, as his deputy.

Mason wasn't the only grocer wearing a suit and tie at the Pleasanton store opening today. A Fresh & Easy Buzz correspondent spotted two Safeway corporate employees at the store today. One even had a Safeway Stores, Inc. plastic name card attached to his belt. Safeway's corporate headquarters office complex is just a short drive from the Fresh & Easy market in the Rose Pavilion Shopping Center.

Additionally, one of Safeway's two supermarkets in Pleasanton isn't far from the Fresh & Easy store either. Safeway is currently constructing a brand new flagship supermarket in Pleasanton. [See - July 25, 2010: Safeway to Start Construction on New Pleasanton, California Flagship Store Soon; Thanksgiving 2011 Target Opening.

In addition to the 99 Ranch Market store in the shopping center and the Safeway supermarket not far away, there's also a Trader Joe's store just down the street from the new Fresh & Easy market at Santa Rita Road and Rosewood Drive.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is set to open three more stores in Northern California this month, on April 27. Those stores are at the following locations in the following cities: Hayward (Mission Blvd. & Rousseau St.), Napa (Imola Ave. & Jefferson St.) and San Jose, at Saratoga and Payne. All three cities are in the San Francico Bay Area.

Additionally, the Tesco-owned fresh food and grocery chain, which now operates 173 stores in California (124 units), southern Nevada (21 units) and metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona (28 units), will soon announce the opening dates of at least four more fresh food and grocery markets in Northern California. Those stores are in San Francisco (at 32nd Street and Clement; and 5800 Third Street at Carroll Avenue), Antioch and Fairfield, as we've reported here and here.

Fresh & Easy has opened 18 stores so far this year - 10 units in Southern California and eight stores in the north.

The grocer hasn't opened any new stores in Nevada or Arizona so far this year, and has no openings planned for April in either state. In November 2010 Fresh & Easy closed six underperforming stores in metro Las Vegas, Nevada and six similar units in metro Phoenix, Arizona.

Below are the locations (and dates opened) of the eight stores Fresh & Easy has opened in Northern California so far this year:

March 2nd, 2011

>Bird Ave. & Minnesota Ave., San Jose, California

>Diablo Blvd. & Hwy 680, Danville, California

March 9th, 2011

>Cabrillo Hwy. & Linda Mar Blvd., Pacifica, California

March 16th, 2011

>Clayton Rd. & Ygnacio Valley Rd., Concord, California

>Elmira Rd. & Nut Tree Rd., Vacaville, California

March 23rd, 2011

>Oakdale Rd. & Lancey Dr., Modesto, California

>Ygnacio Valley Rd. & San Carlos Rd., Walnut Creek, California

April 13th, 2011

>Rosewood Dr. & Santa Rita Rd., Pleasanton, California

Click on the following links - Fresh and Easy Northern California, Fresh and Easy San Francisco Bay Area, Northern CA Launch, Northern California Market Region, Tesco's Fresh and Easy in Norcal 2011 - to read stories about the stores opened thus far, along with our extensive coverage of Tesco's Fresh & Easy in Northern California, its competitors, and the overall market.

Tesco Opens First Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store in California's Northern Central Valley Today - in Modesto

A long line of shoppers waited this morning for the opening of the Fresh & Easy store in Modesto, California, as you can see in the photograph above, and in the next two photos below.

[Related Story: March 19, 2011: Preview: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is Headed to Save Mart Supermarket's Hometown of Modesto]

A big crowd of shoppers braved the wind and rain this morning to attend the grand opening of Tesco's first small-format Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store in Modesto, California.

The store's not only Tesco's first Fresh & Easy market in Modesto (population 205,000), it's also the retailer's first store in the Northern Central Valley, which runs from San Joaquin County to Merced County, and is home to about 1.3 million people. (We'll explain why it's significant for Fresh & Easy to be opening its first store in the Northern Central Valley in an upcoming piece.)

The Modesto Fresh & Easy store, which opened this morning at 10 a.m. and is the first of four units Tesco thus far has planned in Modesto and nearby Ceres, is located in a shopping center at 1717 Oakdale Road (at Lancey Drive). The store is about a half mile from a Save Mart supermarket and an equal distance from a Raley's Superstore.

Prior to Tesco's Fresh & Easy acquiring the location in 2008 [See - November 6, 2008: Upcoming New Markets News: Tesco Will Open A Second Fresh & Easy Store in Modesto, California], the store was previously a supermarket operated by Modesto-based Save Mart Supermarkets. Save Mart closed the store a few years ago when it built and opened a larger and more modern supermarket half-a-mile away. Fresh & Easy renovated the building into the about 12,000 square-foot market it opened to a solid crown of shoppers this morning.

The opening of the Fresh & Easy store at Oakdale Road and Lancey Drive in Modesto was kicked off shortly before 10 a.m, when Modesto Mayor Jim Ridenour and the store's manager (both pictured here) cut the ceremonial ribbon, which was good news to the crowd waiting outside in the wet weather because they were allowed to enter the store shortly thereafter.

The store had a steady stream of shoppers following the 10 a.m opening. A Fresh & Easy Buzz correspondent who attended the opening said a second wave of shoppers showed up between 10:30 a.m. and 11 a,m., keeping the store's aisles fairly packed until noon, when a fresh batch of shoppers, many who work at the nearby businesses, showed up to take a look at Modesto's newest grocery store.

United Kingdom-based Tesco, which is the third largest retailer in the world, is the second major global chain to open a grocery store, Fresh & Easy, in Modesto in the last couple years.

In 2008 Walmart Stores, Inc., the world's largest retailer, opened its first Supercenter in Modesto. That supercenter, which has about 80,000-90,000 square-feet of selling space, also happens to be Walmart's first - and to date only we're aware of - hybrid supercenter located in what was an existing vacant big box building.

The supercenter, which is located on McHenry Drive in Modesto, previously contained a warehouse format supermarket and a drug store. Walmart converted the building into a "hybrid supercenter" in an existing building, something the Bentonville, Arkansas-based global-retailer is now doing elsewhere in California and in other regions in the U.S. The average new construction supercenter is about 170,000 square-feet, although Walmart is currently building some as small as 125,000-145,000 square-feet.

Walmart also has a discount format store in Modesto. The store isn't currently on Walmart's list of those in California it plans to expand and add food and grocery sections to, however.

Despite Walmart's opening of the hybrid supercenter in 2008 and now Tesco's entry into Modesto with its first Fresh & Easy store, the city's dominant food and grocery retailers remain locally-based.

The top grocer in the city of 205,000 is Modesto-based Save Mart Supermarkets, which has seven stores in Modesto - five Save Mart banner supermarkets, one Food Maxx discount warehouse store and a Maxx Value Foods discount supermarket.

Maxx Value Foods, a take off on its bigger cousin Food Maxx, is Save Mart's newest format. The Modesto headquartered grocery chain, which has 241 stores throughout Northern California, northern Nevada and as far south in the Central Valley as Bakersfield and about $5 billion in annual sales, converted a former Save Mart supermarket on Paradise Road in west Modesto into the Maxx Value Foods discount supermarket, which currently is the only one in operation. The format is a test for Save Mart and if it succeeds the retailer could convert some of its older, existing Save Mart stores located in lower income neighborhoods, which Paradise Road in Modesto is, into Maxx Value stores.

West Sacramento-based Raley's is Save Mart's leading competitor in Modesto. It has four stores, all under the Raley's banner. [ See - March 19, 2011: Preview: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is Headed to Save Mart Supermarket's Hometown of Modesto.]

The big turnout at this morning's Fresh & Easy store opening was likely due to a number of factors, including the fact the grocer mailed its weekly ad flyer, which included a coupon good for $10-off purchases of $20 or more and another offering a free reusable canvas shopping bag for purchases of $10 or more, to homes throughout the immediate area, along with to those located in neighborhoods at least as far as two and a half-to three miles from the 1717 Oakdale Road store.

Additionally, Modesto has a very high unemployment rate. the city and Stanislaus County, which it's the county seat of, currently suffers from a joblessness rate of nearly 19%, compared to California's overall 12.4 unemployment rate.

The city and county also have among the highest housing foreclosure rates in the country. Stanislaus County has rated among the top five U.S. counties for residential foreclosures since 2008. The median value of a home in Modesto has dropped by about 40% since 2005.

As a result of these continuing economic struggles, a grocery store grand opening is the perfect venue for the unemployed - a decent outing without a ticket price - and for those looking for a good deal on groceries. A number of shoppers told our correspondent just that this morning.

Lastly, over the last few years grocery store openings have simply become rather popular outings, particularly for the people who live in the neighborhoods where the new stores open. After all, from sociological and anthropological perspectives, grocery stores are far more than merely places to buy food. Their "third places" in which much of the needs of societies and neighborhoods, along with individuals, are met.

Before and after: Pictured above is the inside of the Fresh & Easy store at 1717 Oakdale Road in Modesto on January 31, 2001. Below is the store this morning at the grand opening.

Walnut Creek

In addition to opening the store in Modesto today, Tesco also opened a Fresh & Easy market in Walnut Creek, which is in the eastern part of the San Francico Bay Area. Walnut Creek is next door to Concord, where the grocer opened a store last Wednesday. Walnut Creek is about 65 miles from Modesto.

There are now seven Fresh & Easy markets in Northern California, all opened between March 2 of this year and today. Four additional stores are scheduled to open in Northern California in April.

With the opening of its two newest stores in Modesto and Walnut Creek today, Tesco's Fresh & Easy now operates 171 stores in California, Nevada and Arizona. The majority of the stores, 122 units, are in California. Of the 122 California Fresh 7 Easy stores, 108 units are located in Southern California. In addition to the seven stores in Northern California, there are seven Fresh & Easy markets in the Bakersfield metropolitan region and seven units in the Fresno area.

[Photo credit: Fresh & Easy Buzz, March 23, 2011.]

Related Stories

Readers: See (click on) the following links - Fresh and Easy Modesto CA, Fresh and Easy Northern California, Modesto California market, Northern California Market Region, Raleys, Save Mart, Tesco's Fresh and Easy in Norcal 2011 - for related stories in Fresh & Easy Buzz.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Opens Stores in Concord and Vacaville Today; Makes Five Markets in Northern California

Tesco's Fresh & Easy in Northern California - 2011

United Kingdom-based Tesco opened two of its small-format Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores today in Northern California.

The two stores, in the East Bay Area city of Concord (at Clayton & Ygnacio Valley Road) and at 615 Elmira (Elmira & Nut Tree) in Vacaville, which is midway between the Bay Area and Sacramento, are Tesco's fourth and fifth Fresh & Easy markets in Northern California and the grocer's first in each of the two respective cities.

Both stores opened at 10 a.m. this morning and held grand opening celebrations all day.

Ryan Gizdich, the store manager at the Vacaville Fresh & Easy market, told Fresh & Easy Buzz that a good crowd of people showed up for the grand opening this morning and that business was steady for most of the day.

Another Fresh & Easy Buzz correspondent who was at the Concord opening reports that shoppers and the mere curious started flowing into the store when the doors were opened at 10 a.m.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy, which now has 169 stores in California, metropolitan Las Vegas, Nevada and metro Phoenix, Arizona, has so far this year opened five of its fresh food and grocery markets in California.

On Wednesday, March 2 the retailer opened two Fresh & Easy stores in the Bay Area cities of San Jose and Danville. Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market followed the openings up last Wednesday (March 9) by opening its store in Pacifica.

The Northern California store openings continue next Wednesday (March 23) when Fresh & Easy opens two stores - one at Ygnacio Valley Road & San Carlos Road in Walnut Creek, which is next door to Concord, and another unit at Oakdale Road & Lancey Drive in Modesto, which is in Stanislaus County in the Northern Central Valley. Modesto is a little over an hour's drive from Walnut Creek and Concord.

Following the two store openings on March 23, Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has four stores scheduled to open in April - one unit on April 13 and three stores on April 27. The stores, locations and opening dates are:

April 13th, 2011
>Rosewood Dr. & Santa Rita Rd., Pleasanton, California

April 27th, 2011
>Mission Blvd. & Rousseau St., Hayward, California
>Imola Ave. & Jefferson St., Napa, California
>Saratoga Ave. & Payne Ave., San Jose, California

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason didn't make it to the Concord and Vacaville store openings today, like he did on March 2 when he opened the San Jose store in the Willow Glen Village shopping center, because he's currently at Tesco's global headquarters in the United Kingdom.

Mason, who this month was given the added title of Tesco group deputy CEO, reporting to new Tesco CEO Philip Clarke, also was given, in addition to his position running Fresh & Easy USA, a couple added responsibilities for Tesco's global operations. The two areas of responsibility are for Tesco's corporate branding and its climate change initiatives.

In addition to meetings with Tesco CEO Clarke, who took over in early March from Terry Leahy who retired, and others at UK corporate headquarters, We've learned Tim Mason met yesterday in London with representatives of three of Tesco's marketing/advertising/communications agencies - EHS, RBR and DHA - and today visited Tesco stores and those of its competitors, including a Sainsbury's supermarket in Stanway, UK.

Back in America, in the Northern California cities of Concord and Vacaville specifically, Tesco's Fresh & Easy held a variety of events throughout the day, as it does with all of its new store openings, to welcome shoppers to its two newest stores in the region. Those events included food sampling, music and in-store contests. Free reusable canvas shopping bags were also given to shoppers who bought $10 or more worth of groceries today.

Related Stories

March 15, 2011: San Francisco, Antioch and Fairfield Stores Next Up in Northern California For Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

March 14, 2011: Opening of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store at 5800 Third Street in San Francisco Held Up Pending Approval of Liquor License

March 11, 2011: First Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Billboard Spotted in Northern California

March 9, 2011: Northern California Launch: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Opens Store in Pacifica Today

March 7, 2011: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, Superior Grocers, Mollie Stone's All Opening New Stores in California Wednesday

March 2, 2011: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Opens First Two Stores in Northern California Today

March 1, 2011: Two Years On: Tesco Opens First Two Northern California Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores Tomorrow

February 14, 2011: First Look: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store in Northern California's Danville Set to Open on March 2

February 3, 2011: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Spokesman Confirms Our South-to-North Distribution Reports in Talk to Pacifica, California Group

December 27, 2010: First Look at the Pacifica, California Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store, One of the First Opening in Northern California in Early 2011

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, Superior Grocers, Mollie Stone's All Opening New Stores in California Wednesday

The ribbon-cutting at the grand opening of the Fresh & Easy store in Danville, California last week. [Photo credit: Art Armstrong/for Fresh & Easy Buzz.

Grocery Store Openings as Theatre: Why Not?

One of the few business sectors that's continued growing substantially in California over the last three-plus recessionary years is the food and grocery retailing industry.

Despite high unemployment (12.4% statewide in February; a slight improvement over January), severe under-employment and various other less-than-stellar economic indicators which continue to afflict the Golden State, food and grocery retailers of all formats, sizes and ownership structures continue to open new stores in California, which has nearly 40-million residents, all with stomachs to feed and pantries in need of stocking on a regular basis.

And in these less-than-stellar economic times, grocery store openings have become a form of free entertainment for many California residents, including the millions who are unemployed and have extra time on their hands, along with the many cash-strapped bargain hunters looking for freebies and hot opening day deals, who perhaps even if they can afford it would rather check out a grocery store grand opening instead of forking over big bucks to see an afternoon movie matinee. Then, of course, there's the just plain curious - those folks who regardless of their economic situation just love to check out anything new - including the opening of a new grocery store.

For example, last week, On Wednesday, March 2, Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market opened two stores in the San Francisco Bay Area, in San Jose and Danville. Opening day was packed at both stores, as we reported here: March 2, 2011 - Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Opens First Two Stores in Northern California Today.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy baked cakes in the design of its clock logo, which it calls a clapple, for the grand openings of its first two stores in Northern California.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy continued its grand opening festivities at the San Jose and Danville stores from Wednesday through Sunday, offering free food samples, promotions, sweepstakes giveaways and other activities for shoppers.

A Fresh & Easy Buzz correspondent visited the San Jose store in the Willow Glen Village shopping center on Friday morning at 11 a.m. and said business inside the store was fairly brisk.

Another Fresh & Easy Buzz correspondent visited the Danville Fresh & Easy market on Saturday afternoon, reporting that it was busy during the time he spent touring and observing inside the store, which was holding various extended grand opening events, such as those noted in the sign located near the entrance, pictured above.

[For details about the Danville and Willow Glen/San Jose Fresh & Easy stores, see the stories linked here - March 1, 2011: Two Years On: Tesco Opens First Two Northern California Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores Tomorrow; February 14, 2011: First Look: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store in Northern California's Danville Set to Open on March 2; and January 17, 2011: First Look at the Willow Glen-San Jose Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store Set to Open March 2, 2011.]

Two weeks earlier, on Wednesday, February 16, 2011, Whole Foods Market opened its newest store, in San Francisco's historically famous Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. In addition to a jam-packed grand opening day on the 16th - which was more like a "Human Be-In" than a grocery store opening - in which Whole Foods featured a myriad of activities, starting with its traditional bread baking store opening ceremony in the morning, the grocer actually began its grand opening festivities (pre-grand opening) in the parking lot a week before the new market opened.

Whole Foods' Northern California division kicked off the store's pre-grand opening on February 9, when it had its very own Whole Foods Market Taco Truck (pictured above) in the parking lot of the then yet unopened store on Stanyan and Haight, offering grilled cheese sandwiches and soup for sale at discount prices, along with handing out promotional information and free coupons for the store opening.

On February 12 and 13, Whole Foods once again utilized the parking lot of the unopened store to sell a variety of fresh flowers and rose bouquets in advance of the February 14 Valentine's Day holiday and store's opening on February 16. The grocer donated 25% of the day’s flower sales to the neighborhood-based Grattan School’s Edible School Garden project.

Lastly, three days before the store's February 16 opening, Whole Foods Market held what it called a "Good Food Celebration" on Sunday, February 13, in the store's parking lot.

The event, which Whole Foods Market sponsored and invited neighborhood residents to attend from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., featured ethnic foods made and sold by La Cocina, a local non-profit business incubator program for low-income food entrepreneurs, and an assortment of specialty beers from the Magnolia Brewery micro-brewery, which is in the neighborhood, along with other food and drink items from local businesses and non-profits.

Admission to the parking lot celebration was free. All the food items, which were produced and sold by La Cocina and the other local groups for fundraising, were priced under $5. All the profits made from the beer sales went to La Cocina to support its incubator programs for low-income food entrepreneurs.

As the Fresh & Easy and Whole Foods examples demonstrate, the state-of-the-art of grocery store grand openings not only is becoming rather elaborate, it's also becoming much more of a prolonged activity or event.

For example, in Fresh & Easy's case in San Jose and Danville, the store grand openings are nearly a week-long, packed with various activities.

And in Whole Foods Market's case, its grand opening for the Haight-Ashbury store in San Francisco started in the parking lot with various activities a week before the store even opened, continued on opening day, February 16, and in the days following throughout the weekend.

When it comes to grocery store openings in California, this week is no different than last. At least three grocery chains are opening new stores in the Golden State this week, all on Wednesday, March 9. Here's the rundown:

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

Just one week on the heels of opening its first two fresh food and grocery markets in Northern California, in San Jose and Danville in the San Francisco Bay Area, Tesco's Fresh & Easy opens its third store in the region on Wednesday, March 9, in Pacifica, which is about 10 miles from San Francisco on the coast. [See - December 27, 2010: First Look at the Pacifica, California Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store, One of the First Opening in Northern California in Early 2011.

A big grand opening is planned at the Pacifica store starting Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. And like the Danville and San Jose openings, activities will run from Wednesday -to- Sunday at the new Pacifica Fresh & Easy, which will be United Kingdom-based Tesco's 167th small-format (10,000-12,000 square-foot) Fresh & Easy market

Of the current 166 Fresh & Easy stores, 117 units are in California. There are 101 Fresh & Easy markets in Southern California, 14 units in the mid and southern Central Valley (seven each in the Fresno and Bakersfield metro regions respectively) and two stores in Northern California.

The Pacifica Fresh & Easy store will employ between 20-25 workers. [See - December 27, 2010: First Look at the Pacifica, California Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store, One of the First Opening in Northern California in Early 2011.]

Superior Grocers

The next new store opening this week belongs to Southern California's fast-growing Superior Grocers chain, which is opening its newest store on Wednesday in the desert community of Palmdale. The new about 40,000 square-foot supermarket, which among other features includes a full-service bakery, fresh meat and seafood counter and large produce department, is at 38360 20th Street East in the city.

Superior Grocers' Emily Kaye says the grand opening will run from March 9 -to- March 13. Among the numerous activities following the ribbon-cutting on Wednesday morning and continuing through March 13 will be free food samples, sweepstakes giveaways, kids' activities and more, according to Kaye.

Superior Grocers decks out its stores, including using scores of balloons, for its grand openings, like the one in May 2010 in Buena Park, California, pictured above. See more photos from the grand opening here. [Photo credit: Superior Grocers.]

35-store (all in Southern California) Superior Grocers, which is a privately-owned independent chain started in 1981, will also award a $25,000 donation to a local Palmdale school, Cactus Intermediate School, at the grand opening ceremony on Wednesday. The chain makes a similar-sized donation to a local non-profit organization or school each time it opens a new store. Emily Kaye says the City of Palmdale selected the local school as the recipient of the donation.

Superior Grocers, which operates a combination low-price and customer service-focused format, as well as being neighborhood and community oriented, plans to open three more new supermarkets in Southern California this year. Those stores are in the cities of Lancaster, Oxnard and Baldwin Park.

The Palmdale store opening on Wednesday will employ nearly 100 workers.

Mollie Stone's Markets

Back in the San Francisco Bay Area, another privately-held independent chain, Mollie Stone's Markets, is opening a new store in San Francisco's Castro District on Wednesday. The store is the grocer's ninth market and is going into the building of what until November of 2010 was a market operated by another multi-store Bay Area-based independent, Delano's IGA Markets.

Recently-hired employees (pictured above) of Mollie Stone's Markets' new store, which opens Wednesday in San Francisco's Castro District, attended an orientation session inside the store today. [Photo credit: David Bennett.]

Mollie Stone's only officially took over the store in late January 2011. But as we've reported, the Marin County-based grocer been rapidly transforming the small-format (about 9,000 square-feet of selling space) market for its opening in two days. [See - March 1, 2011: Mollie Stone's Markets Will Open its New Store in San Francisco's Castro District On March 9; January 13, 2011: Mollie Stone's Markets Taking Over Closed 18th Street Delano's IGA Market in San Francisco's Castro District, and January 28, 2011: Mollie Stone's Markets Confirms Our January 13 Report; Announces New San Francisco Store Via Twitter & Facebook.]

According to Mike Stone, the co-owner of Mollie Stones, the grocer has hired about 25 employees to staff the new Castro District store in the City-by-the-Bay. The new market is Mollie Stone's third in San Francisco and ninth store overall.

Grocery store openings as theatre

This week's new store openings amount to added business and expansion for the three grocery chains noted above, plus additional growth to California's food and grocery retailing industry. The openings also provide an economic shot in the arm to the three cities where the new grocery markets are opening, along with providing new jobs to those people hired by each of the retailers to staff their respective stores.

But if you're reading this and are curious about new things, and have some extra time on your hands and happen to be looking for something to do in Palmdale, San Francisco or Pacifica on Wednesday then you might want to attend one of the store grand openings.

After all, grocery store openings are not only sociologically significant - the supermarket is the crossroads of humanity in America after all - but have many theatrical elements about them, including: the symbolism of the ribbon-cutting ceremony (or in Whole Foods Market's case the baking and breaking of bread), the high-oratory by officials of the grocery chain and local political dignitaries, product displays that often are the merchandising equivalent of theatre, samples of food and drink (just like at a symphony concert's intermission or art gallery exhibition) and more.

Put all these elements together, including the freebies, grocery deep-discounts and sweepstakes giveaways (just like a game show combined with a shopping spree), and you've got theatre in a retail setting. And the cost of attendance, nearly zero, isn't bad in these slowly-improving but still less-than-stellar economic times either.

There's a famous saying on Broadway that's said among financial backers and producers on the opening night of a play. That saying - "Open Big, Close Bigger" - is equally applicable for a grocer when it opens a new store.

A big, jammed-pack store grand opening is great, as it is for the opening night of a new play on Broadway. But in the grocery business, what's even more important is how that new store performs throughout its lifetime. And unlike a Broadway play, a grocer doesn't expect to ever see a new store close, unless it's to replace it with a new one. So in that regard, one might say to the three grocers and any others opening new stores on Wednesday: "Open Big, Thrive and Never Close."

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Hits - and Passes - 100-Store Milestone in Southern California Today

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market will open two new stores in Southern California this morning at 10 a.m., taking the fresh food and grocery chain to - and then over - the 100-store milestone in the Golden State's southland region.

The two new stores - at 655 East Bonita Avenue, in San Dimas, and 2249 Los Posas, in Camarillo - will mark the 100th and 101rst Fresh & Easy markets opened and operating for Tesco in Southern California.

After the stores open later this morning, Tesco will have 164 Fresh & Easy small-format fresh food and grocery stores operating in California, Nevada and Arizona.

The majority of the 164 Fresh & Easy stores, 115 units, are in California - the 101 stores in Southern California and seven stores each respectively in the Bakersfield and Fresno metro regions in the Central Valley - followed by 28 units in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, and 21 units in metro Las Vegas, Nevada.

Tesco opened its first Fresh & Easy stores in Southern California in November 2007, although the units in Hemet had a soft opening in October 2007.

On March 2, the grocer plans to open its first two stores in Northern California, something Tesco originally planned to begin doing in early 2009, but instead has postponed until next month because of the less than stellar performance of its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market chain to date. Tesco has lost over half a billion dollars on its operations of Fresh & Easy, and that doesn't include start up costs, since the first stores opened in November 2007.

But its 2011 and Tesco's Fresh & Easy is putting nearly all of its new store opening focus for the year in California. After tomorrow's openings, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market will have thus far opened nine new stores this year, all in Southern California. A tenth new store in the region, at Atlantic Avenue and 33rd Street in Long Beach, is set to open on March 30.

Additionally, as we've previously reported, Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has 11 stores scheduled to open in March-April in Northern California, beginning with a store in San Jose and another unit in Danville, on March 2, 2011.

Related Stories

February 16, 2011: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Celebrates Three-Store Opening Trifecta Today in Southern California.

February 14, 2011: First Look: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store in Northern California's Danville Set to Open on March 2

February 10, 2011: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Breaks Ground Today For Second Store in South Los Angeles

February 9, 2011: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Opens Three New Stores in Southern California Today

January 23, 2011: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Looking For Locations For New, Smaller-Format 4,000-to-5,000 Square-Foot Stores

January 14, 2011: Tesco 'Banking' on California in 2011 For Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market USA

January 17, 2011: First Look at the Willow Glen-San Jose Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store Set to Open March 2, 2011

December 10, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason Says 70 New Stores Possible in Los Angeles Area