Ralphs/Loray Market/Northern California in the 1970s

[runchadrun]

Over on Flickr, Charles posted some pictures of a former Loray Market, a chain which was purchased by Ralphs in 1973 as their first attempt to enter the Norcal market.

Does anyone have more information about Loray and Ralphs in Norcal? (I don't mean their second foray in the 1990s.)

I found this small snippet of information in the LA Times database:
In 11/1973 there was an announcement that Ralphs would be an anchor tenant at a shopping center at Sunnyvale Saratoga Road and McClellan Road in Cupertino, and Lawrence Expwy and Homestead Rd in Santa Clara. The article said it would be "the first and second Ralphs in that part of the state."

[storeadventures]

Ralphs had a number of stores in Norcal in the 1970s until mid 1980. Lucky purchased 11 of the units, out of about 17 total stores. 12 stores were in the San Jose area, giving Ralphs a substantial presence in that market for years. For example, if you look on a map such as maps.google.com, you will notice when plotting the locations off of Homestead Road in Santa Clara or Los Altos, that multiple other locations were just short grid drive away.

The two Santa Clara stores are both off of Lawrence Expressway. If you go from the Lawrence and Homestead one further west on Homestead, you can interesect Sunnyvale-Saratoga road, which leads to a former Ralphs in either direction (the cupertino one is on De Anza since the short stint of that road in Cupertino is not named SSaratoga rd but De Anza) and if you instead head further down Homestead you hit Los Altos. So you can see how and why they had such critical mass in the areas north of San Jose.

some of the Ralphs built stores in the Sunnyvale, Santa Clara Saratoga Area
-Saratoga AVE
-Sunnyvale-Saratoga ROAD
-De Anza BLVD (part of Sunnyvale Saratoga RD)
-Homestead Los Altos
-Homestead Santa Clara
-Lawrence at El Camino Santa Clara

other locations include south san jose. It apears the East Bay andSac did not have such a comprehensive amt of locations in a small area...In any case the south bay locations made for a very attractive purchase for Lucky stores due to being relatively new and usually quite large.

[J-Man]

The only Loray (or LoRay?) I remember was in Walnut Creek (I think.) The Ralphs mentioned above in the Santa Clara County area were, if I recall correctly, part of the Gold Circle expansion into California. The stores were all new builds, and contained both a Ralphs and a Gold Circle. They also built a number of stores in the Sacramento area at the same time. At that time, I believe both Ralphs and Gold Circle were part of the Federated empire. (This was discussed here: http://www.groceteria.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=139 in the Zody's thread.

[storeadventures]

Very interesting about Gold Circle. I live in the area in question and know that a number of these could not have contained a Gold Circle.

However, the last built unit, a Sunnyvale store which was Nob Hill after Ralphs and is now a closed Circuit City, is indeed in with a former Gold Circle.

The Homestead at Lawrence, Homestead at Grant Road (los altos) and Cupertino Ralphs stores as some examples are in centers that never contained a gold circle and were in with drug tenants, except for Los Altos, which is separate from any tenant space. I shopped with my parents in that store as a kid, so I pretty much know what was what in these cases and in the cases of Cupertino and Los Altos in particular.

The Ralphs store south of Sunnyvale further down El Camino in Santa Clara is in a large (for the 70s anyway) center with a former Savon now big lots, and an OSH. This store is far enough from where I live that we did not pass by it often, so I do not know much about the OSH space except I can say others think it was something called "Angels". This store is one of two Santa Clara Ralphs stores.

The Savon area looks like a Savon built from the ground up... I suppose its possible that the OSH-Angels thing could have been a Gold circle but I doubt it.

My guess would be the Gold Circle involvement up here was limited to the Sunnyvale location and perhaps some locations in sac or the east bay.

If someone is interested in researching some of this further you can find old ads with addresses in The Fremont Argus and the Mercury News, via online libraries.

View a number of the former units here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/storeadven ... 229276741/

[romleys]

Loray Foods...
1372 South California Blvd. Walnut Creek,CA (Loray, Ralphs, Lucky, Albertsons, Trader Joes)
4665 Clayton Rd. Concord,CA (Loray, Ralphs, ?, Food 4 Less, Food Maxx)
14849 East 14th St. San Leandro,CA (Loray, Ralphs, Petrinis, Pep Boys)
20882 Mission Blvd. Hayward,CA (Loray, Ralphs, Lucky, Albertsons, 99c only)
41077 Fremont Blvd. Fremont,CA (Purity, Loray, Ralphs, ?, Kragen Auto Parts)
13310 San Pablo Ave. Richmond,CA (Loray, Ralphs, ?, Smart and Final)
2691 (originally 465) Monument Blvd. Concord,CA (Calico Foods, Loray, Ralphs, Pacifico Foods)
3730 San Pablo Dam Rd. El Sobrante,CA (Loray, Louis, Bike Store, Goodwill)