Chains with two stores very close to each other

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Tortuga One
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Post by Tortuga One »

The original Marina Market was owned by Boys Markets. It was a Boys' Market, but upscale for the area, called Marina Market. Somewhere around the early 1990's, the original Ralphs Supermarket chain had selected a site across the street, which was a former telephone company site. However the neighborhood fought it and the dispute dragged on for a couple of years. In the meantime, Alpha Beta opened its store at the end of the 90 Freeway. Shortily thereafter, Yucaipa, owner of Boys Markets took over the Alpha Beta Chain, and continued to operate both stores until around 1992 (approximately). After the Yucaipa takeover of Ralphs, both stores were renamed Ralphs. A few years ago, the Ralphs (Alpha Beta) became a Ralphs Fresh Fare after a remodel. The Ralphs Marina Market kept its original Boys decor and outside appearance until about two years ago, when it was completed gutted and expanded last year to become another Ralphs Fresh Fare Supermarket. Both supermarkets remain a short distance from one another, and both are always crowded. The new Ralphs Marina Market has a completly new appearance than the photo shown.
Jeff
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Post by Jeff »

luckysaver wrote:. I guess in some cities, a supermarket company can own or operate stores across the street, as with the case in Montebello where there's an Albertsons-Savon across the street from Max Foods (both owned by SuperValu).

luckysaver
Just as an update, Max Foods closed in August, was gutted and remodeled to become an Albertsons, which opened a week ago.

Albertsons-Savon across the street closed yesterday, ending many years of a supermarket there.
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Post by TenPoundHammer »

Kroger has two stores less than two miles apart in the Flint area. One, on Bristol Road at I-475, was a former Kessel Food Market that was taken over in 1999. (I'm pretty sure this one opened as a Kessel; it didn't look like any Kroger prototype, although many Kessels did go Kroger->Kessel->Kroger.) The other is on Fenton Road about two miles south, in a former 23 Market which Kroger converted in 2000 or so. (23 Market was a local chain in Flint, so named because their first location -- incidentally, the very location of which I speak -- was next to the still-operating 23 Drive-In theater. Kroger bought a couple 23 Markets in the late 1990s; I think the rest are still vacant.)

The Kroger by I-475, I think, operated as Kroger for a while in the old Kessel building, before it and an adjacent former Rite Aid were demolished for a new store. At only 20,000 square feet or so, this may be the smallest "new" Kroger built in years. The former 23 Market location is even smaller still, maybe 15,000 square feet at the most. It's also weird in that the whole store kind of slopes in the middle; there's a noticeable dip in the ceiling right down the middle of the store!
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Re: Chains with two stores very close to each other

Post by Toby Radloff »

After Gray Drug took over the Cunningham Drug stores in NE OH, there were at least several locations where Gray continued to operate stores that were nearby or adjacent; usually it would be the original Gray store that would close while the acquired Cunningham would continue to operate. For at least a few years, Gray Drug operated two stores at Southgate Shopping Center; the original Gray on the Warrensville Center Road side, and the Cunningham on the Northfield Road side...which was originally a Pick-N-Pay. I think Parmatown had two Gray Drug stores at one time in the 1980's as well. Before Rite Aid took over Gray in the late 1980's, many of the adjacent or overlapping stores closed. Also, at one time, Revco operated 3 stores on Turney Road in Garfield Heights in an approximately 2 mile radius. Two of the stores were acquisitions; a former Jay drug store near Granger, and the former independent Turney Pharmacy closer to Rockside...that was in a former Kroger. Revco was also at Turneytown. Eventually a freestanding CVS at the corner of Turney and Granger replaced all 3 stores. A Family Dollar currently occupies the former Jay location, the Turneytown store is currently vacant, and the former Turney Pharmacy is now an Ace hardware store.
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Andrew T.
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Re: Chains with two stores very close to each other

Post by Andrew T. »

In Princeton, WV, there was once a Kroger superstore with a SupeRx implemented in the building design. Next door to it was (and is) located another small shopping center (the "Stafford Plaza"), with a Roses department store and an Eckerd pharmacy.

Kroger moved to a larger location down the street in the early-to-mid 1980s, and Big Lots scooped up the older location. Since Big Lots owned the Revco drugstore chain at the time, the SupeRx site became a Revco store well in advance of their acquisition of the chain. Meanwhile Eckerd pulled out of the area, and their old location promptly became (presto!) a SupeRx store.

Fast-forward to 1994: Revco buys the SupeRx chain from Kroger. As a result, the ex-Eckerd SupeRx store was then converted to a Revco...in spite of the fact that another Revco store was already in operation literally ten feet away! Believe it or not, both stores remained open for a couple years at least until Revco replaced them with a modern, freestanding building (that remains open as CVS today). The ex-SupeRx Revco was annexed by Big Lots into a "furniture" store, while the ex-Eckerd store remains vacant today.
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Re: Chains with two stores very close to each other

Post by ap621 »

In West Paterson, NJ on Route 46; there is an A&P and a Pathmark just over a quarter mile apart. Since Pathmark was recently bought by A&P I'd say this counts too.

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Jeff
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Re: Chains with two stores very close to each other

Post by Jeff »

Still, nothing is closer than the Vons and Pavillions (Pavillions is an upscale Vons, and both owned by Safeway) in South Pasadena, CA:

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The Vons has always been a Vons, and the Pavillions originally was a Safeway with a Circle S Logo on the corner Square sign.
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Re: Chains with two stores very close to each other

Post by TenPoundHammer »

In Bay City, Michigan, you have Bay City Mall on the NE corner of an intersection, and on the NW corner is a strip that originally had (from south to north) Wal-Mart, a string of shops, Farmer Jack, a second string of shops, and Home Depot. Both the mall and the strip used to have Fashion Bug and Dollar Tree. In both cases, the strip's locations won out: the mall's Dollar Tree closed in the late 1990s (surprising for a mall that isn't even close to dead), and later became part of a temporary library that is now vacant. The mall's Fashion Bug is now a relocated Deb Shop. The strip's Dollar Tree and Fashion Bug, however, were both relocated within the strip when the Wal-Mart expanded, eating up the whole south half of the strip between the existing Wal-Mart space and the (by then closed) Farmer Jack. As a result, all the tenants in that south chunk of the strip were bumped into the ex-Farmer Jack space. Duplicity between strip and mall has continued, as a Subway was added to the Wal-Mart when it became a supercenter, despite the existing Subway in the mall's food court. And as if that weren't enough, there's a THIRD Subway on the SE corner of the same intersection! I'm still waiting for the BP station on the SW corner to add a Subway...

I've also seen plenty more cases where a mall has a certain tenant inside and another of the same just outside. Genesee Valley Center in Flint, for instance, has Taco Bell in the food court and another in the parking lot. Strangely, the parking lot TB looks to be from the late 1980s, so it opened around the same time as the food court (which I know was added in 1987). This seems especially strange, considering there was a third TB about 1/2 mile up the road until 1991ish.

There were also a couple cases where a Wal-Mart had a McDonald's inside it and another McDonald's in the parking lot, Cheboygan, Michigan for instance. Similarly, I'm now seeing many cases where there's a Wal-Mart with a Subway in it and another Subway that's very close by, like the above Bay City example.

And finally, Bridgeport, Michigan played fast and loose with two adjacent truckstops. One opened as a Speedway, and the other as a Total. When Total left Michigan, the Total (which, for the record, had an A&W for about a year or two) became a Marathon for a short period, then switched to Speedway. So for a year or two, there were two Speedways next to each other. The one that opened as Speedway was then converted to Pilot (gaining a Subway in the process) and has since become a Marathon itself.
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Brian Lutz
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Re: Chains with two stores very close to each other

Post by Brian Lutz »

I mentioned this one in another thread, but here in Redmond there are two QFC (a Kroger-owned brand) stores within roughly three blocks of each other. One was around before my family moved here, and the other became a QFC in 1995 after a merger with a small local/regional chain called Olson's. Both stores have been operating simultaneously for more than 12 years now, so I'm guessing there's room for both.

If we're going with non supermarket businesses, at the corner of NE 8th and Main in Bellevue there used to be two Texaco stations right across from each other, plus a Chevron across the street. Eventually one of the Texacos was converted into a Shell station, and the other turned into a 76.
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Groceteria
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Re: Chains with two stores very close to each other

Post by Groceteria »

Brian Lutz wrote:If we're going with non supermarket businesses
Please let's not in this forum :) But if someone wanted to start a topic in one of the other forums that would be fine.
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Re: Chains with two stores very close to each other

Post by maynesG »

Grand Union had two units no more then a half of mile apart on Route 9W in Stony Point New York in the seventies and eigthies. The original store was built in the late fifthies and the
newer one in the sixties. The older one was closed on Sundays, both of them did fairly well in this small town and both were profitable.
A couple miles south of these Grand Unions was a Pantry Pride and a A&P in Haverstraw
and a new Grand Union in Garnerville. North of Stoney Point not another store existed untill you were abovethe Bear Mountain Bridge in West Point About ten Miles away, also a small Grand Union.
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Re: Chains with two stores very close to each other

Post by Groceteria »

I've split the Grand Union discussion into a separate thread since it had grown off-topic in this thread, which is really about chains with stores very close to each other, say, within blocks or less than half a mile or so.

http://www.groceteria.com/board/viewtop ... =16&t=2472
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Re: Chains with two stores very close to each other

Post by ajsanjua »

Food Lion locations in Elizabeth City, NC about half a mile apart. One on the left was built in 1990, the right, probably in the early seventies and was originally a Colonial/Big Star. Ironically, the older one remains, while the other one moved late last year several miles south to a new S/C across from the university.

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Re: Chains with two stores very close to each other

Post by sirpher »

While not a full fledged grocery store, Walgreen's had two store across the Harlem Ave (Chicago area) from each other throughout the 80's. One was next to the Dominick's in the Norridge Commons, the other was on the south end of the Harlem-Irving Plaza.
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Re: Chains with two stores very close to each other

Post by TenPoundHammer »

Fairview, Michigan, a small blinker-light town out in the middle of nowhere, used to have two IGA stores a block apart. The smaller of the two still operates as an "IGA Express," and the larger store is now called "Fairview Food Market." (Side note: What's with the "IGA Express" branding? They just added this branding to my local Shell station as well, and some very small IGA stores nearby have been rebranded.)

Also, not a grocery store, but the acquisition of Perry Drugs in 1995 led to a BUNCH of duplicate Rite Aids less than a mile apart. I know there were no fewer than four Rite Aids within a mile of my aunt's house in Flint for a couple years. They were at Bristol @ I-475 (now part of Kroger), Bristol @ Hammerberg (now a consignment shop), Fenton @ Maple (now Dollar General) and Fenton @ Hill (vacant; relocated from NW to SE corner of intersection only last year).
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