If we have to struggle these days to find good news, the good news nevertheless is there. This year key voids for Grocery Stores have been filled first at Westlake Shopping Center and now at East Davis Manor. For good measure, Trader Joe’s is going into the University Mall which has been without a grocery store of any kind for a number of years as well.
According to reports in the Davis Enterprise, the Grocery Outlet store is expected to open sometime in the early part of 2011. Following a similar model to the one that Westlake IGA has employed, they have filed plans with the city to operate a 12,000 square foot store, occupying the eastern half of the old site which was Ralphs and later Albertsons. The other portion of course is occupied by the Dollar Tree.
According to the Davis Enterprise, “She said she hasn’t seen detailed plans for the new Grocery Outlet, but added, ‘One of the things everyone has wanted the entire time – a shared goal – has been to locate a grocery store there. For the neighborhood, it was a real loss’ when Ralphs closed.’ “
Moreover, “Ross also noted the Neighborhood Council and the city recently collaborated on a grant-funded project to beautify the East Eighth Street corridor with new lighting, crosswalks and other improvements, to make the neighborhood more attractive.”
The Grocery Outlet is largely a discount grocer that also operates stores in Woodland, West Sacramento, Vacaville and Sacramento.
This continues a trend of smaller and more neighborhood-oriented grocery stores following the relatively small Westlake IGA and Trader Joe’s. This trend draws a sharp contrast to the previous trend where large Supermarkets such as Safeway in two locations and Nugget in East Davis, seemed to threaten the neighborhood shopping center.
The key, as Westlake IGA can undoubtedly attest, will be to change the habits of their customers who have become accustomed to shopping at large stores and using their vehicles to transport large amounts of groceries. Can Davis residents embrace the neighborhood grocery store that the city’s General Plan envisions?
In many ways this is likely the last hurrah for neighborhood grocery stores and their accompanying shopping centers. Before Westlake got its grocery story in January, the shopping center was in trouble, merchants were struggling to hold on, and key venues left. Even now, the results are mixed. Westlake IGA is working hard to build up a new clientèle and change the habits of its customers.
If Davis wishes to get more people out of their vehicles and reduce carbon emissions these kinds of venue are desperately needed. Without them, people will have to drive their cars to major grocery centers, load up with groceries, most of them produced outside of the area and whose profits leak to outside areas as well.
Westlake IGA is part of the Independent Grocer’s Association and uses its affiliation to be able to remain competitive. They have built a small base of products and heavily utilize local companies and suppliers.
On the other hand, the Grocery Outlet has a very different model which involves buying large amounts of heavily discounted closeouts of various excess inventory mainly from national companies.
According to their site, “We offer brand name products at 40% to 60% below traditional retailers. Our offering is wide: groceries, frozen, deli & refrigerated, produce, fresh meat (selected stores), general merchandise — seasonal products, housewares, toys, and gifts — health & beauty, and a most impressive inventory of beer & wine. Our buyers shop the nation and the world by traveling thousands of miles each year just so we can offer the best brand-named products for less than you would pay conventionally.”
On the other hand, they are also a family run, independent business, headquartered in Berkeley and running 130 independently operated stores in six Western States. Most stores are independently operated by locally-based families.
Bottomline, if stores like the Grocery Outlet in the East Davis Manor and Westlake IGA in the West Lake Shopping center fail to survive, the neighborhood grocery store movement will probably have breathed its last breath in Davis. But then again, most people had probably buried the concept in 2006 when Food Fair left West Lake and East Davis Manor was already vacant for four years.
In both cases, the neighbors refused to accept the death of their shopping center and we have another chance to make things work.
To me this is about more than just a neighborhood grocery store, this about a larger battle not just for independent and local business, but also for truly changing the way we conduct our everyday lives. If we are locked into our automobiles to purchase goods transported long distances and using huge amounts of resources and producing huge amounts of carbon emissions, then the city of Davis has failed at the most basic level of enacting climate changing activities at a local level.
That is what this is about. If we cannot do it in the Davis, how can we expect the rest of the nation let alone the rest of the world to follow suit and change the way they conduct their lives and change the way we consume energy?
—David M. Greenwald reporting
dmg: ” If we are locked into our automobiles to purchase goods transported long distances and using huge amounts of resources and producing huge amounts of carbon emissions, then the city of Davis has failed at the most basic level of enacting climate changing activities at a local level.”
It is impractical to cart home significant amounts of groceries on a bicycle or by hand. So the reality is if one has to get in the car to go buy groceries, it doesn’t much matter whether the drive is right around the corner or farther down the street. However, smaller grocery stores nearby do have the advantage of convenience – usually no long lines, things are easier to find, the store is easier to navigate inside (a real plus for the elderly, who usually prefer smaller stores). But for those who no longer drive (again, many of the elderly and those who are very low income) a neighborhood grocery store is essential.
When you live right by the grocery store, no reason to cart significant amounts of groceries at once. I usually get what I can carry home while pushing a stroller and then come back in a few days to get more.
On the other hand, if you have to drive for ten minutes to get to the store, you do need to get a large amount of groceries.
I know that I prefer to be able to get small amounts of groceries at a time, and use my bike or my feet as transportation, rather than my car. When you live out in Stonegate, and the closest grocery had been Covell Safeway (or Save-Mart, if you cut through to the bike overcrossing), and when you are as old as I am, that sustainable practice becomes difficult. Thanks, David, for a nice piece on sustainability!
Choice and options. I really, really like the new store at Westlake. If Food Fair had operated under as suitable a business model it never would have closed. However, I well remember how the Save Our Store organization fear-mongered the closing of the Davis Food Coop in their opposition to Oak Tree Nugget. Now I see S.O.S. members shopping there all the time. The wonderful Coop is larger and more robust today than ever. And, frankly, South Davis Safeway’s location serves its area well, and cuts a large amount of carbon that otherwise would be emitted driving to the various Covell Blvd. supermarkets. Can’t wait for Trader Joes to open. Choice and options! It’s really wonderful!
Grocery Outlet is a good chain. It’s not for everyone. And while it has pretty much everything you want at a supermarket, it’s not like a Safeway or a Nugget. Presuming this store will carry what their store in Woodland carries, it does not have much selection for produce; and the quality is not always great on that. Yet for many items, the Woodland store is excellent. Just for example, you can great deals very often on canned goods or ice cream or cereal or cookies, etc. They also sell a lot of cheap merchandise similar to what the Dollar Store carries.
IGA needs to advertise. Without a paper ad, I sometimes forget they are there. And an elderly friend who lives nearby has shopped there only a few times because she does not like to go to the store “blind” [without knowing what is on sale]. Looking at the online ad is just not the same, and not everyone has the internet. I’d hate to see the lack of advertising kill that nice little store along with most chances of any other grocer locating there.