Old Ralphs interiors.

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » 07 May 2006 12:17

The Ralphs I mentioned in the first post, they started to tear down the other day (Friday), and you could see inside the store once again, and all its large fruit, dark trim glory was revealed. I drove by yesterday with camera in tow, and its completely down to the ground. Dammit.

kr.abs.swy · Post by **kr.abs.swy** » 07 May 2006 17:56

The Jackson, Wyoming, Smith's has the same interior as the pictures shown that opened in Reno in 2002-2004. The Jackson Smith's has only been open for a few years. It has a false ceiling. It also has the sayings like "USDA" and "Fresh, oh so fresh" printed on the walls around the store. The Smith's and Kmart here follow the pattern of having a unique exterior to blend into Jackson better, then having the exact same interior as any other store in the chain. The Albertsons is pretty much one-of-a-kind inside and out, although the interior does borrow pretty liberally from the style in some other Albertsons built around the turn-of-the-century.

The Idaho Falls Smith's has the same interior as the Carson City (or closed Reno) Smith's pictures shown in Storewanderer's second post with pictures. That remodel replaced the original decor, which had the enormous funny-looking lower-case letters. The store still has the grid floor and the unique overhang over the checkstands. They painted over the dozens of little Smith's logos though.

storewanderer · Post by **storewanderer** » 08 May 2006 02:18

I remember the large letter decor Smiths had before. The walls were quite colorful as I recall, too. When they remodeled the now closed Reno one, quite a few of the wall letters were missing, especially around the deli.

The other thing they did in the remodel was remove half of the checkstands. They still had (and have, in the Sparks and Carson City ones) the overhang covering what used to be all checkstands, but is now half checkstands and half product display bins.

These are old stores that I wish would be gutted and remodeled completely. No exciting design aspects. Just terribly ugly.

kr.abs.swy · Post by **kr.abs.swy** » 09 May 2006 21:27

Has Smith's always been that marginal of an operator in Reno? I'm surprised that they only have two stores there. It seems like they'd just leave the market.

Who has the highest market share out of Alby's, Safeway and Raley's down there?

jamcool · Post by **jamcool** » 10 May 2006 00:38

kr.abs.swy wrote:Has Smith's always been that marginal of an operator in Reno? I'm surprised that they only have two stores there. It seems like they'd just leave the market.

Yet Smith's is #1 (or close) in Las Vegas[/quote]

storewanderer · Post by **storewanderer** » 10 May 2006 03:53

Smiths for years had three stores from 1987 to 1995 or so: Reno, Sparks, and Carson City. Then in 1995 they opened a store in Gardnerville. Around 1996 they had plans to open a new store in South Reno and another store in Sparks, but sold the Sparks store site to Albertsons (stupid, stupid, stupid move; the site was 8 miles out of town and the Albertsons which opened around 1997 has done phoenominal). Around 1999 they built a new store in Dayton, which has panned out to be one of their best volume stores in the chain. Then out of nowhere in 2002 they opened a store about 6 miles north of Reno. Finally in 2004 they built the South Reno Store, and at the same time closed their central Reno Store which hadn't been doing very well lately. The neighboring casino (Atlantis) actually bought their lease (which was set to expire in 2008 or 2007) in order to demolish the store and surrounding shopping center and build an "upscale arts and entertainment venue." The former Smiths is currently for lease. So much for the planned redevelopment.

The highest share here is supposedly Scolaris, but I don't believe it. Raleys is supposedly second. Albertsons third (with more stores than Raleys). Nobody talks about what type of share WinCo (2 stores in Reno both doing well over a million a week) or Wal Mart (4 supercenters in Reno/Sparks and 2 in Carson City) have here, but I figure it is quite high with both probably being in the top three. Safeway and Smiths are way down there in share around here.

Smiths has been growing in this market, but very slowly. The South Reno Store isn't doing too well, but seems to be slowly building up its business. The one north of Reno does well, but appears to be a lot of low margin sales.

I'm not exactly sure what their plan is here, but their pricing tells me they have no plans to leave. They are very close in price to Wal Mart and WinCo on a lot of items (mainly private label except South Reno which also price competes on most name brand items). The other grocers most of whom use California pricing are a good 40% higher and run ads each week with advertised prices higher than the regular prices for the same items at Wal Mart and WinCo.

If Smiths can make things work here, there is a lot of growth to be had.