Cala/Bell Sold (12 stores)

Uh...California.

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storewanderer
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Cala/Bell Sold (12 stores)

Post by storewanderer »

It seems Kroger has finally sold some of Cala/Bell. They sold 12 store to DeLano Retail Partners.

They did not sell the stores in San Carlos or San Francisco Post Street.

I don't know about Post Street, but San Carlos looks like a strong performer to me.
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Re: Cala/Bell Sold (12 stores)

Post by Groceteria »

storewanderer wrote:I don't know about Post Street, but San Carlos looks like a strong performer to me.
Post Street is probably the nicest store in the Cala/Bell chain. It's at the base of a high-rise apartment building and was recently remodeled in a very upscale version of the current Ralphs motif. It's also probably the newest store, dating from 1994 or 1995.
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Post by Groceteria »

BTW, the DeLano in question seems to be Harley DeLano, who was in charge of Cala back in the Yucaipa days. He was president of Cala/Bell and CFO of Ralphs (Yucaipa) in 1994 under Ron Burkle.
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Post by justin karimzad »

The Cala Foods at 690 Stanyan st. in San Francisco will be closing soon, and the property owner has already filed for a demolition permit. I don't know if it's always been Cala Foods, but the building dates from 1961. How sad that it has to go. :(
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Post by justin karimzad »

The San Carlos store was originally a Purity market from the 1960s.
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Post by storewanderer »

I thought about this all night. All I can see is one pattern with the conventional stores Kroger is keeping in NorCal. I see no logic to why they'd keep them for this reason.

Each store they are keeping is representative of their interior packages.

San Carlos has the 90's looking Cala/Bell interior.

Grass Valley has the late 1990's Ralphs interior (also found in some San Francisco Cala Foods, apparantly)

Post Street has the most recent Ralphs interior.

Not sure how Kroger can operate two stores as Bell when DeLano is getting the rest. Maybe what they are keeping will be rebranded. If they keep them.

Too bad it got to this point. Amazing what screwed up pricing will do.

San Carlos:

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Post by Groceteria »

justin karimzad wrote:The Cala Foods at 690 Stanyan st. in San Francisco will be closing soon, and the property owner has already filed for a demolition permit. I don't know if it's always been Cala Foods, but the building dates from 1961. How sad that it has to go. :(
It was originally a Littleman store, as were the Geary Street and 18th Street locations.

South Van Ness was a former Purity, which had been a Siri's even before that.

Silver Avenue, 24th Street, and Hyde Street all opened as Bell or Cala stores.
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Post by artysf »

The Post St. Bell Market used to be a Safeway location up to the late 1970s (I think that building was a Marina Safeway-style). Cala Foods moved into the location in the 1980s after Safeway closed with the parking lot entrance on Sutter St. The Safeway building was demolished in the late 1980s and the high-rise Sutterfield Apartments and Bell Market on the ground floor was built in the 1990s.

I suppose the 2 Foodsco/Food 4 Less Warehouse markets on 14th/Folsom St. and 3rd/Williams St. in San Francisco also remain Ralphs/Kroger properties.

Will the DeLano people still carry Ralphs/Kroger house brands in the 12 stores they plan to acquire? Before the Ralphs/Kroger people owned Cala/Bell, Springfield and Bonnie Hubbard were the primary house brands for the then United Grocers/IGA affiliated Cala/Bell.

I still love the Hyde/California Cala location...nice retro feel. The double coupon offers are nice...although I wonder if that contributed to Ralphs's failure with the Cala/Bell chain.
Last edited by artysf on 04 May 2006 19:15, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by artysf »

justin karimzad wrote:The Cala Foods at 690 Stanyan st. in San Francisco will be closing soon, and the property owner has already filed for a demolition permit. I don't know if it's always been Cala Foods, but the building dates from 1961. How sad that it has to go. :(
The neighbors there are up in arms about the loss of Cala. The closest full service markets (Albertsons at Fulton and Masonic Sts. and Safeway at 7th Avenue and Cabrillo) are a bus-ride away.

Some rumors have it that a Trader Joe's might be considered at that location with apartments built on top of the store. Of course, some activists and rival independent store owners are hostile to new chain stores opening in parts of San Francisco (even if the goods are "vital" groceries or drug store pharmaceuticals) so no doubt nothing is set in stone.
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Post by Groceteria »

artysf wrote:The Post St. Bell Market used to be a Safeway location up to the late 1970s (I think that building was a Marina Safeway-style). Cala Foods moved into the location in the 1980s after Safeway closed with the parking lot entrance on Sutter St. The Safeway building was demolished in the late 1980s and the high-rise Sutterfield Apartments and Bell Market on the ground floor was built in the 1990s.
To clarify, the address for both the Safeway and the Cala was 1445 Sutter, but it is pretty much the same plot of land. The Safeway dated from pre-1951, but it may have been remodeled or rebuilt as a Marina store before it was torn down for the high-rise. Cala had moved into the space by 1978, per the telephone directory.
artysf wrote:Will the DeLano people still carry Ralphs/Kroger house brands in the 12 stores they plan to acquire?
Seems highly unlikely since they will no longer be Kroger-owned. I'm sure their "house brand" will be from one of the wholesale distributors.
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Post by storewanderer »

I suspect these stores will be supplied by C&S. No way will they continue to stock Kroger house brands.

This is like a new beginning for Cala/Bell. The stores will likely be better off under the new ownership. The chain has declined severely during the Ralphs ownership.

Does anyone know how that store on Post Street does?
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Cala/Bell

Post by storeliker »

There was a Marin Independent article today on the store sales. It said all the Marin stores will stay open and will concentrate on "Ralphs" image labeling even though they have closed most or all of the Ralphs. I am not sure if this includes keeping Kroger brands on shelf too.
The article mentioned how the Marinwood community association wants to revitalize the small minimall where the Bell there recently closed and were in talks with some independents. A shame they didn't keep store and show signage from freeway. Alot of people were upset when it closed even though it is suburban and people mostly drive where Haight store is in a place where people use transit and would be a real chore to do shopping now.
It seems that Krogers first intention was to slowly close those small stores one by one as they were doing until finally someone took notice. Its nice to see Marinwood get a revival even if store is small. Also vacant Geary St one used to look really nice, now it is boarded up, tagged with spray paint and blighted. A real eyesore on Geary and a loss to that community as parking lot was always full.
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Cala at California and Hyde

Post by TheQuestioner »

What Kroger is doing seems like insanity to me. If they are closing pretty much ALL of Ralphs in NorCal and sniping off Cala/Bell stores one by one, what is the point of retaining a cherrypicked few? I recall someone saying in another thread that Ralphs was going to close their NorCal distribution center along with the stores. From what I can gather, they would have to truck in supplies from either SoCal or Nevada to support a *single* Ralphs (Grass Valley) and 3 or 4 Cala Stores in SF/Peninsula) Is this somehow profitable? Is it some kind of retrenchment to avoid *completely* abandoning NorCal so they can snag the NorCal Albertsons locations in a few months/year or two and re-expand? I would understand retaining only the "nicest looking" locations if they numbered more than three or four. Seems like either someone is up to something, or they are killing their NorCal operation in the most haphazard and drawn-out way possible.

Only one person has even mentioned the California/Hyde Cala location. This one is by far my favorite of the chain, never seen another store like it. Does anyone have any idea what it's future is? There are not a lot of supermarkets anywhere near there, the closest one is probably the Sutter/Post st. Cala in the apartment tower. This was probably addressed in some long-ago thread, but can someone tell me what chain that location was originally? I know Cala came to be primarily through aquisition of other chains (or their stores when the chains collapsed.)
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Re: Cala at California and Hyde

Post by Groceteria »

TheQuestioner wrote:This was probably addressed in some long-ago thread, but can someone tell me what chain that location was originally? I know Cala came to be primarily through aquisition of other chains (or their stores when the chains collapsed.)
The Hyde Street branch is the only currently-open branch that was originally built as a Cala Foods location. In fact, I believe it's the only store in SF that Cala ever built from the ground up.
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Post by GreenFalcon »

storewanderer wrote:I suspect these stores will be supplied by C&S. No way will they continue to stock Kroger house brands.
Saw someting interesting at the San Carlos branch this evening, Best Yet root beer! The San Carlos store is one of my favorites, not only in basic decor and size, but the historic pictures on the wall.
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