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Selah Safeway
Posted: 26 Nov 2020 10:35
by explorersea
Eastern Washington, small town called Selah outside of Yakima, Safeway opened a 11,000 square foot store in 1980. The front of the store featured a bold awning that was popular for many years and remains today. The interior and departments were simple and nimble, like a number of other Safeways that opened at the time, the Seattle Division president was cost conscious at the time. Safeway really made an effort to turn the store around by lowering prices and mixing up the store format but the local competitor was just too strong. The Selah store was never profitable and closed within 2 years, it is a Goodwill store today. The demise of the Selah and Jewel Lake store in Anchorage made an impact on new store strategies and it wasn't far from mind with Division employees, in the 1990s Steve Burd committed to personally approving all new store sites here on.
Re: Selah Safeway
Posted: 30 Nov 2020 12:02
by pseudo3d
explorersea wrote: ↑26 Nov 2020 10:35
Eastern Washington, small town called Selah outside of Yakima, Safeway opened a 11,000 square foot store in 1980. The front of the store featured a bold awning that was popular for many years and remains today. The interior and departments were simple and nimble, like a number of other Safeways that opened at the time, the Seattle Division president was cost conscious at the time. Safeway really made an effort to turn the store around by lowering prices and mixing up the store format but the local competitor was just too strong. The Selah store was never profitable and closed within 2 years, it is a Goodwill store today. The demise of the Selah and Jewel Lake store in Anchorage made an impact on new store strategies and it wasn't far from mind with Division employees, in the 1990s Steve Burd committed to personally approving all new store sites here on.
A 11,000 square foot store isn't a huge loss, and having a CEO (who likely has little idea about any local demographics, traffic counts, competition, and likelihood of success) approving all new store sites is an example of upper level management taking way more control than they should.
No wonder he almost killed the company.
Re: Selah Safeway
Posted: 30 Nov 2020 22:13
by klkla
Before Steven Burd entered the picture Safeway bragged that they opened a new store on average every other day but conveniently left out that they closed a store just as often. This went on for many years.
Mr. Burd didn't do the actual leg work on each new store after that. He simply approved the Real Estate department's proposals. He took a hands on approach to stop this cycle and was very successful in the beginning.
He did have a lot of success at Safeway but also some notable failures with acquisitions. The board never held him accountable for them.
Re: Selah Safeway
Posted: 01 Dec 2020 11:06
by Steve Landry
klkla wrote: ↑30 Nov 2020 22:13
Before Steven Burd entered the picture Safeway bragged that they opened a new store on average every other day but conveniently left out that they closed a store just as often. This went on for many years.
Mr. Burd didn't do the actual leg work on each new store after that. He simply approved the Real Estate department's proposals. He took a hands on approach to stop this cycle and was very successful in the beginning.
He did have a lot of success at Safeway but also some notable failures with acquisitions. The board never held him accountable for them.
Very true!
But Burd was the most destructive of company morale of any previous Safeway leader. He was ruthless and verbally abusive. So many quit, were fired, took leaves of absence, suffered emotional and physical breakdowns and we all heard (not substantiated) of a couple of suicides.
From department managers and up to corporate.........we considered him a Monster.