Max Foods

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Ephrata1966
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Max Foods

Post by Ephrata1966 »

When did this chain start? Where do they have stores? All I know is it was owned by Albertsons.
Super S
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Re: Max Foods

Post by Super S »

I lived in Boise in the mid-80s. Located at Chinden & Glenwood in Garden City used to be a store called D'Alessandro's. This was a huge store for the time, it closed I believe due to financial problems brought on by a dishonest employee. Albertsons ended up buying the building soon after. Because there was an Albertsons nearby at State Street & Gary Lane, they decided to try something different here, and opened (note the spelling) Maxx Warehouse Food & Drug, it was a no-frills type of store but did have a pharmacy, bakery, and deli. When I left Boise in 1988 the store was still there, last time I drove by it in 2001 I saw it had been renamed Max Foods, but the store was closed. I have no idea what is currently there. I believe Albertsons was trying at the time to compete with Waremart with this store, it didn't look like they were successful in Boise, but opened a few more stores elsewhere.
Ephrata1966
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Re: Max Foods

Post by Ephrata1966 »

Super S wrote:I lived in Boise in the mid-80s. Located at Chinden & Glenwood in Garden City used to be a store called D'Alessandro's. This was a huge store for the time, it closed I believe due to financial problems brought on by a dishonest employee. Albertsons ended up buying the building soon after. Because there was an Albertsons nearby at State Street & Gary Lane, they decided to try something different here, and opened (note the spelling) Maxx Warehouse Food & Drug, it was a no-frills type of store but did have a pharmacy, bakery, and deli. When I left Boise in 1988 the store was still there, last time I drove by it in 2001 I saw it had been renamed Max Foods, but the store was closed. I have no idea what is currently there. I believe Albertsons was trying at the time to compete with Waremart with this store, it didn't look like they were successful in Boise, but opened a few more stores elsewhere.
I just saw that store here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/80071853@N00/2762943957/ So it closed in at least 1999. Amazing it still has a D'Alessandro's labelscar. Some Max Foods I think even had a Starbucks.
Super S
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Re: Max Foods

Post by Super S »

That's amazing that the D'Alessandro's labelscar shows up. The area around the signs used to be brown, when it was D'Alessandro's the part that read Max Foods used to read "whole world of shopping" I'm kinda surprised it has sat vacant that long, this is a very visible corner.
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Re: Max Foods

Post by storewanderer »

I don't know the exact story. Albertsons was involved with some stores under the name "Monte Mart" which I assume to have been warehouse format in CA as early as the 70s. Known locations include West Sacramento (very long gone), Salinas (now FoodsCo), Del Rey Oaks (now Safeway), and Hanford (opened in 1992- now closed), and Porterville (closed).

Meanwhile there were some warehouse format stores in Denver being run by Albertsons, I was in a lot of them and while some were clearly converted full service stores, at least one was opened under this concept perhaps in the early 90s, and the ones in Colorado Springs were Cub units purchased by Albertsons there in the early 00s. These seemed to mostly have "Grocery Warehouse" on the storefronts however they were advertising as Max Foods. I think all of these have closed, but there might be one left in Colorado Springs or somewhere run by LLC now.

I believe Texas and possibly New Mexico also had Max Food Stores. Klamath Falls, OR had a Grocery Warehouse... and the mid 90s Albertsons in Klamath Falls displays Albertsons standard signage with smaller Grocery Warehouse signage down below, but the interior of the store is a typical mid 90s blue grey.

SoCal also had some Max Foods Stores, I understand with actual Max Foods signage, many of which were divested in 1999 but some remained open.

There was also the ASC price impact Super Saver format later reborn briefly as an Albertsons price impact format and rapidly closed (except those two stores in Utah that continue to be run by LLC...).

I am not sure if there are any more Max Foods in operation. I guess Super Saver (two Utah Stores run by LLC) and Grocery Warehouse (one in Pueblo CO run by LLC) haven't quite died yet. But SuperValu seems to be using Lucky as their price impact banner in SoCal now, as two of them are converted Max Foods and one is a converted Super Saver.

Albertsons and ASC have a long history of developing multiple names for discount format stores, converting marginal conventionals over, and basically forgetting about them until they just linger around and eventually close.
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Super S
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Re: Max Foods

Post by Super S »

I want to say the interior of the Boise store was rather plain, I believe just white walls with a few small signs if anything. They carried some Albertsons private label products such as Janet Lee, and displayed items on the shelf in boxes. What I do not remember though is if they were a "bag your own" setup or if they bagged the groceries. They also used the exact same NCR cash registers that Albertsons used in the 80s. In the pre-WinCo days when the store opened, it looked like it was trying to take on Waremart, who, at the time, had two stores in Boise, the closest located at Cole & Ustick. I am curious though if it siphoned off business from the fairly close State & Gary lane store though, they did have lower prices than a typical Albertsons. My family had several Albertsons products they preferred, but we often drove to Maxx to get them because of the cost savings. It's almost as if Albertsons was competing with itself, especially after Buttrey and Smith's left. At the time the first Maxx opened, Fred Meyer had just recently opened it's first full-line store in Boise with groceries nearby and had not really established itself in the area as a serious grocery competitior.

Were there any other stores that used the "Maxx" spelling? I wonder if the change to "Max" occured after some tweaking to the original format of this store, then it was rolled out elsewhere. I do not believe they opened any more of these at all in Boise though.
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Re: Max Foods

Post by pseudo3d »

From some extant records, at least one Max Foods existed in Fort Worth in the mid-1990s briefly, which became a Winn-Dixie around 1997 and even served as a Kroger for a few years after Winn-Dixie left.

Grocery Warehouse existed since around 1979 when Albertsons introduced the banner by converting some stores, but Monte Mart seems to have been more a general-merchandise concept that turned into grocery over the years, with some of the 1960s-built stores reaching 120k square feet, something Albertsons stores I don't think ever had (and still don't). Given by the mid-2000s when the last Monte Mart closed under SuperValu's watch, you'd think it would have been converted to Albertsons (much like the fate of Lucky and Buttrey)...
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Re: Max Foods

Post by luckysaver »

To straighten this out:

"Albertsons Grocery Warehouse" was both a banner and division under the old Albertsons Inc, which included a variety of names of the price-impact warehouse format - Grocery Warehouse, Max Foods, Maxx Food & Drug, Albertsons Grocery Warehouse, and Monte Mart. They were primarily in California and Colorado and functioned similar to Kroger's Food4Less or other no-frills type stores and had layouts similar to WinCo. Not sure when Albertsons started the warehouse format but I assume it was the late 1970s or early 1980s.

The LLC (mostly lower performing Albertsons/Grocery Warehouse and ASC stores) took over what was left of the Grocery Warehouse division, primarily in the Denver and Mountain West regions. The Supervalu-owned "New Albertsons Inc" did not include the warehouse stores as there was already Cub Foods, several warehouse formatted Shoppers, and franchised Cubs/Supervalu Foods).

"Extreme Inc" was the Albertsons Inc subsidiary in that operated the reborn "Super Saver" no-frills chain, which happened before the company split in half. The Super Saver name originated from American Stores Company, which they bought in 1999. They had over 20 stores in the division, mostly in the Southern US, then they closed most of it prior to the Safeway merger, leaving only 2 remaining stores in Salt Lake CIty (renamed "Super Saver by Albertsons" under the present day Albertsons Companies). A couple of years ago, the 2 remaining "Super Saver by Albertsons" in Salt Lake City were renamed "Lucky-The Low Price Leader" and still operates as a warehouse format as of today.

Also under Albertsons Inc on the drug side was "Health & Home", a warehouse format specialty pharmacy chain with a handful of standalone locations that specialized in home health care supplies. This was a carryover from American Stores Company, which created that format/division in 1997. The standalone stores were sold to CVS Health during the big split in 2006.

The resurrected Lucky name first began during the Supervalu era with the conversion of the Max Foods in Alhambra CA and kept the warehouse format until it closed (now the Asian grocer Cali-Mart). The other Lucky stores in SoCal were in Van Nuys (Lucky), El Centro (Lucky) and South Gate (Lucky-Savon) and are simply a rebrand from Albertsons with the old Lucky 1998 decor package. The Van Nuys store closed first (now Super King), and El Centro recently closed. It was also during the Supervalu era that the Max Foods in Montebello CA was fully converted to Albertsons.

As for today's Albertsons Companies (includes New Albertsons Inc, Safeway Inc, United Supermarkets, Haggen, Andronicos groups), the 3 remaining NorCal Pak n Save stores (which began as Safeway's warehouse format) is now simply a Safeway store with a lifestyle package and is now called "Pak n Save Foods by Safeway". I would also regard the couple of "Trading Company" outlets in Alaska in the Carrs division as warehouse formats.

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Re: Max Foods

Post by Steve Landry »

I'm pretty sure there was a Maxx supermarket in Miami near the Dadeland Shopping Center.

If so, it later became one of the top Publix Markets in Florida (I worked there in the early 2000s).
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Re: Max Foods

Post by rudyvalencia »

There was a Grocery Warehouse in Greeley, CO on West 10th Street between 26th and 28th Avenues. It was originally an Albertsons with an independent/Skaggs/Osco/Payless/Rite Aid drug store next to it. I think it may have opened as an Albertsons around 1970 and changed to Grocery Warehouse when they moved in 1989 to their second, now closed store on 23rd Avenue. No idea when it closed though.

The interior was classic Albertsons angled paint with Clarendon signage until the end. The only thing they changed was the "Thank you for shopping..." from Albertsons to Grocery Warehouse.

The building has since been divided as follows Aaron's Rent-to-own and Family Dollar took the drugstore's space; the Albertsons/Grocery Warehouse is now subdivided into multiple tenants; a currently vacant space (was an electronics repair shop), a Rent-a-Center, a bingo hall, a Cricket cellular phone store and another vacant space (formerly a small used car dealership).
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Re: Max Foods

Post by storewanderer »

There was a new construction Grocery Warehouse in Farmington, NM in the 00's. It was converted to Albertsons a decade ago. That was probably the last new construction store under that name. It has its original interior. I have seen this interior in a few other Albertsons locations.

Supervalu did get remnants of Grocery Warehouse/Max/Monte Mart in SoCal. Some of those converted to Lucky (like El Centro and a few others) but ultimately those have all closed.

Also in Klamath Falls, OR there was a mid 90's build Albertsons that had both an Albertsons sign and a blue Grocery Warehouse sign out front. At some point the Grocery Warehouse sign was removed. It was a standard mid 90's blue/gray Albertsons inside.

The Pak N Saves in San Leandro and Madera still have the warehouse format (but Safeway pricing, club card, etc.) and their 90's interiors.

Also don't forget the Lucky format that is being used in Utah. That is really the old Grocery Warehouse / Max Foods format- distinct from the rest of the chain with no loyalty card.
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Re: Max Foods

Post by pseudo3d »

From what I can find Max Foods started in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the early 1990s when Jewel-Osco was purchased (link). Despite American Stores still owning Jewel-Osco, there was a brief period of time when Albertsons took them over. The conversion was quick, just a brief closure in the nighttime hours to change systems, so by morning, there were still mostly Jewel pricetags and products. I believe the Texas stores closed around 1994 but by that time Max Foods was in Fresno...however, Grocery Warehouse continued in Pueblo as late as the early 2000s, it was converted to Albertsons in the late 2000s before closing in 2018. (There used to be some good Flickr photos but these seem to have vanished).
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