Groceteria.com

Probably the tiniest store Vons runs today, it is the only supermarket in Catalina Island, and the architecture reminds me much more of 1940s Safeways than anything else:

http://flickr.com/photos/hapakorean/24432956/

http://flickr.com/photos/binder520/16991493/ - a different store on the island, Vons Express

Yes, it is a former Safeway.

The 6/13/1927 LA Times refers to Safeway opening the Avalon store.

Later (like in the 1970s on)the Safeway ads would exclude Catalina from the sale prices. Vons later did that, but I don't remember seeing that disclaimer in a long time.

runchadrun wrote:The 6/13/1927 LA Times refers to Safeway opening the Avalon store.

If this is the 1927 building, would this be the oldest Safeway in the world still operating under the corporate banner?

For that matter, this might be one of the first stores to open after the original creation of Safeway from the multi-chain merger back then.

An ad from 8/9/1942 lists 123 Metropole as the address of the Avalon Safeway, which is the same address today. I don't see any other significant references in the Times archive between 1927 and 1942.

Here's something interesting...According to this article there were two Vons on the island, a regular Vons and a "Vons Express," which took the place of an independent grocer in 1999. They are being forced to give up the Express location under an antitrust settlement.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib ... 3vons.html

runchadrun wrote:An ad from 8/9/1942 lists 123 Metropole as the address of the Avalon Safeway, which is the same address today. I don't see any other significant references in the Times archive between 1927 and 1942.

That predates the Monterey Boulevard Safeway site in SF (which used a 1940s building until 1972, and then received a new structure it still uses to this day) by about four years at the very least, if 1942 is the earliest date with the store address mentioned.

runchadrun wrote:
Here's something interesting...According to this article there were two Vons on the island, a regular Vons and a "Vons Express," which took the place of an independent grocer in 1999. They are being forced to give up the Express location under an antitrust settlement.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib ... 3vons.html

So that's what the second photo link I had put up was...I wonder if the Vons Express concept has been used anywhere else, or if it was created for that store specifically.

TheStranger wrote:So that's what the second photo link I had put up was...I wonder if the Vons Express concept has been used anywhere else, or if it was created for that store specifically.

Vons Express was a convenience store-within-a-store concept that they tried around 1990 in a few supermarkets. I don't know of any standalone stores bearing that name other than the Avalon store, which started in 1999.

Isn't the Vons Gas Station at Maryland and Twain in Las Vegas a VONS Express?

runchadrun wrote:Vons Express was a convenience store-within-a-store concept that they tried around 1990 in a few supermarkets. I don't know of any standalone stores bearing that name other than the Avalon store, which started in 1999.

Was Vons setup just a quick grab section within the store?

I've seen similar concepts done a few ways...

1. At least one Holiday I visited in Minnesota had a convenience store built into the front corner of the building. Its "front" faced the side of the building and had gas pumps. While it's in its own room, there was an entrance from inside the main store space too. Just picture a standard supermarket build with a side entrance and gas pumps.

2. Hy-Vee is now building complete standalone convenience stores to go with their gas pumps in the front of their parking lots. In a couple of cases where space wasn't available, they've built them on separate property nearby.

3. Some stores are putting convenience "sections" at the front of their stores so you can just grab that gallon of milk or dozen eggs right by the entrance and check out quickly. K-Mart and standard Targets are sometimes changing their snack sections into something similar, though with a more elaborate selection.

TheStranger wrote:Probably the tiniest store Vons runs today, it is the only supermarket in Catalina Island, and the architecture reminds me much more of 1940s Safeways than anything else.

I remember this store well when it was a Safeway because of it's store number:

Store #1

I'm sure it wasn't Safeway's first store but that was it's store number in the Southern Calfornia division.

klkla wrote:

TheStranger wrote:Probably the tiniest store Vons runs today, it is the only supermarket in Catalina Island, and the architecture reminds me much more of 1940s Safeways than anything else.

I remember this store well when it was a Safeway because of it's store number:

Store #1

I'm sure it wasn't Safeway's first store but that was it's store number in the Southern Calfornia division.

Actually, it may be, if only for this reason: Safeway's genesis lies in a three-chain merger (Skaggs, Seelig, MacMarr) and with all the stores renamed to Safeway over a period of time, none of them really are the "first Safeway" per se.

So this may be the first Safeway opened under that name alone, at least in Southern California.

Avalon is towards the beginning of the alphabet so if they assigned store numbers alphabetically when Safeway was born, #1 would make sense.

TheStranger wrote:Actually, it may be, if only for this reason: Safeway's genesis lies in a three-chain merger (Skaggs, Seelig, MacMarr) and with all the stores renamed to Safeway over a period of time, none of them really are the "first Safeway" per se.

To be more precise, the mergers happened as a sequence over a number of years. Skaggs and Seelig merged to form the current Safeway Stores in 1926. The company acquired Piggly Wiggly's west coast stores a year or two later. MacMarr, another chain which had been assembled separately with the help of Charles Merrill, was merged into Safeway around 1931. The three chains combined operations and advertsising in SoCal in the early 1930s, but each retained its own own name until 1935 or so.

As far as store numbers go, there is some evidence that the individual regions/districts reused numbers, so there might be a "number 1" in each region. This is how they were listed in the employee magazine, and it seemed to be the "official" designation within the company at the time. In other words, there was a Sacramento #1, an Oakland #1, a San Francisco #1, etc.