Roadside chains with at least one foot in the grave

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Ovation closed 74 restaurants nationwide today.  http://www.kcra.com/news/local-news/news-sacramento/3-hometown-buffet-restaurants-in-sacramento-area-shut-down/37826548?

Just this morning Ovation filed for bankruptcy protection for the third time in eight years. Several more units were also suddenly closed over the weekend (later revealed to be 92).

Minnesota went from 13 locations to 3 in less than a month. Seven were shut down in the February wave and three more today.

[noelbotevera]

What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

[Pete from Boston]

What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

[jp the roadgeek]

What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Wegman's is in expansion mode, especially in MA (they skipped over CT)

[cl94]

What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Wegman's is in expansion mode, especially in MA (they skipped over CT)

Hell, they skipped over half of New York. If Wegmans existed around here, Price Chopper wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

[Takumi]

They're building stores in Virginia, too.

[Rothman]

What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Wegman's is in expansion mode, especially in MA (they skipped over CT)

Hell, they skipped over half of New York. If Wegmans existed around here, Price Chopper wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

Wegman's and Price Chopper have a "truce" where neither one treads on the other's turf.  Hence, no Wegman's in Albany.

Truth be told, I've been wary of the recent big box supermarkets that have gone up.  Shop Rite, Walmart, Hannaford, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Price Chopper...Another Aldi's being built on Central Ave (the other one's on State St in Schenectady)...I'm really wondering if the Capital District was the chosen battlefield and in a few years we're going to have more empty big boxes.  Thank goodness they razed the Kmart.

[Pete from Boston]

What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Wegman's is in expansion mode, especially in MA (they skipped over CT)

They have generally avoided North Jersey and Southeastern New York, too.  They have one coming to Montvale, N.J. (displacing a local business with far superior produce), which should indicate they are ready to move in when the right properties are available.  I would expect subsequent movement in Southwestern Connecticut.  Wegman's has a Midas touch based on name and reputation lately, but they'll do well not to make a much more expensive Krispy Kreme mistake.

[cl94]

What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Wegman's is in expansion mode, especially in MA (they skipped over CT)

They have generally avoided North Jersey and Southeastern New York, too.  They have one coming to Montvale, N.J. (displacing a local business with far superior produce), which should indicate they are ready to move in when the right properties are available.  I would expect subsequent movement in Southwestern Connecticut.  Wegman's has a Midas touch based on name and reputation lately, but they'll do well not to make a much more expensive Krispy Kreme mistake.

They're going into Brooklyn as well. I do wonder if the Ahold-Delhaize merger will hasten the expansion of Wegmans in New England and Eastern New York, as the combined company will have a bunch of redundant stores that may need to close, leaving a possible opening in the market.

[Pete from Boston]

What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Wegman's is in expansion mode, especially in MA (they skipped over CT)

They have generally avoided North Jersey and Southeastern New York, too.  They have one coming to Montvale, N.J. (displacing a local business with far superior produce), which should indicate they are ready to move in when the right properties are available.  I would expect subsequent movement in Southwestern Connecticut.  Wegman's has a Midas touch based on name and reputation lately, but they'll do well not to make a much more expensive Krispy Kreme mistake.

They're going into Brooklyn as well. I do wonder if the Ahold-Delhaize merger will hasten the expansion of Wegmans in New England and Eastern New York, as the combined company will have a bunch of redundant stores that may need to close, leaving a possible opening in the market.

Wow.  And those yuppie hipsters will eat the Wegman's golden halo right up.  Good for Wegman's, bad for the non-wealthy.

[jeffandnicole]

What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Wegman's is in expansion mode, especially in MA (they skipped over CT)

They have generally avoided North Jersey and Southeastern New York, too.  They have one coming to Montvale, N.J. (displacing a local business with far superior produce), which should indicate they are ready to move in when the right properties are available.  I would expect subsequent movement in Southwestern Connecticut.  Wegman's has a Midas touch based on name and reputation lately, but they'll do well not to make a much more expensive Krispy Kreme mistake.

They're going into Brooklyn as well. I do wonder if the Ahold-Delhaize merger will hasten the expansion of Wegmans in New England and Eastern New York, as the combined company will have a bunch of redundant stores that may need to close, leaving a possible opening in the market.

If there's enough demand for a new supermarket to open, then there's enough demand for the existing stores to stay open. 

For what it's worth, Wegmans open just a few stores each year.  This year it appears they're opening 4, which is above average.  The chances of them coming into any area with a whole slew of new stores is almost nil.  They will review the area and will probably select 1 or 2 locations, at the absolute most.

Here's their known store openings: https://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CampaignLanding?storeId=10052&catalogId=10002&langId=-1&partNumber=CAMPAIGN_55185

[hbelkins]

Wegman's and Price Chopper have a "truce" where neither one treads on the other's turf.  Hence, no Wegman's in Albany.

Isn't that kind of collusion illegal?

[jeffandnicole]

Wegman's and Price Chopper have a "truce" where neither one treads on the other's turf.  Hence, no Wegman's in Albany.

Isn't that kind of collusion illegal?

Not really.  Many stores have done that in the past.  They simply stay within their territory of where they want to have stores.  There's nothing that requires a store to enter any specific market.

And while Wegmans & Price Chopper may have a friendly agreement to not cross into each other's markets, it's not preventing any other supermarket chain from entering the same markets.

[Pete from Boston]

Wegman's and Price Chopper have a "truce" where neither one treads on the other's turf.  Hence, no Wegman's in Albany.

Isn't that kind of collusion illegal?

Not really.  Many stores have done that in the past.  They simply stay within their territory of where they want to have stores.  There's nothing that requires a store to enter any specific market.

And while Wegmans & Price Chopper may have a friendly agreement to not cross into each other's markets, it's not preventing any other supermarket chain from entering the same markets.

I assure you that as soon as it is not in the business interest of one of these companies, any such agreement will go out the window.

In other words, if these companies knew they could enter into one another's territory and succeed despite any potential backlash the other could levy, they surely would do so in a heartbeat.

I will amend that thought, though, by saying I am well aware of the restraint with which grocery chains tend to expand.  I can think of several examples off the top of my head of grocery chains pulling out of territories in the Northeast in which they were overextended and could not compete sufficiently to warrant the cost of being there.  So I don't mean to imply that suddenly Wegmans is going to overrun Price Chopper's territory one day, or vice versa..

[jp the roadgeek]

It's seems that the Ahold/Delhaize redundancy is kind of overblown in most areas.  Hannaford's footprint is mostly northern New England, eastern MA, and New York state north of I-84.  Stop & Shop is mostly the three southern New England States, New York east of the Thruway and south of Kingston, and NJ north of I-195.  The only overlap is inside of 495 in MA and in Putnam, Dutchess, and Ulster counties in NY.

[GCrites]

Wegman's and Price Chopper have a "truce" where neither one treads on the other's turf.  Hence, no Wegman's in Albany.

Isn't that kind of collusion illegal?

Not really.  Many stores have done that in the past.  They simply stay within their territory of where they want to have stores.  There's nothing that requires a store to enter any specific market.

And while Wegmans & Price Chopper may have a friendly agreement to not cross into each other's markets, it's not preventing any other supermarket chain from entering the same markets.

I assure you that as soon as it is not in the business interest of one of these companies, any such agreement will go out the window.

In other words, if these companies knew they could enter into one another's territory and succeed despite any potential backlash the other could levy, they surely would do so in a heartbeat.

I will amend that thought, though, by saying I am well aware of the restraint with which grocery chains tend to expand.  I can think of several examples off the top of my head of grocery chains pulling out of territories in the Northeast in which they were overextended and could not compete sufficiently to warrant the cost of being there.  So I don't mean to imply that suddenly Wegmans is going to overrun Price Chopper's territory one day, or vice versa..

The margin on groceries is terribly low and they end up having to deep discount (or even throw away) tons of product. Another store entering the market can nuke both stores.

[cl94]

It's seems that the Ahold/Delhaize redundancy is kind of overblown in most areas.  Hannaford's footprint is mostly northern New England, eastern MA, and New York state north of I-84.  Stop & Shop is mostly the three southern New England States, New York east of the Thruway and south of Kingston, and NJ north of I-195.  The only overlap is inside of 495 in MA and in Putnam, Dutchess, and Ulster counties in NY.

And where they overlap, they often have locations across the street from each other. I'm not saying that there are many redundant locations, but those that exist just happen to be just outside of Wegmans' expansion territory. Personally, I hope it doesn't affect day-to-day operations too much from a consumer's perspective. Ahold did some pretty bad things to Tops and I don't want Hannaford to become like Stop and Shop (which Tops is currently trying to recover from).

Wegman's and Price Chopper have a "truce" where neither one treads on the other's turf.  Hence, no Wegman's in Albany.

Isn't that kind of collusion illegal?

Not really.  Many stores have done that in the past.  They simply stay within their territory of where they want to have stores.  There's nothing that requires a store to enter any specific market.

And while Wegmans & Price Chopper may have a friendly agreement to not cross into each other's markets, it's not preventing any other supermarket chain from entering the same markets.

I assure you that as soon as it is not in the business interest of one of these companies, any such agreement will go out the window.

In other words, if these companies knew they could enter into one another's territory and succeed despite any potential backlash the other could levy, they surely would do so in a heartbeat.

I will amend that thought, though, by saying I am well aware of the restraint with which grocery chains tend to expand.  I can think of several examples off the top of my head of grocery chains pulling out of territories in the Northeast in which they were overextended and could not compete sufficiently to warrant the cost of being there.  So I don't mean to imply that suddenly Wegmans is going to overrun Price Chopper's territory one day, or vice versa..

The agreement will probably go out the window when Price Chopper upgrades their Syracuse, Binghamton, and Scranton stores to the new Market 32 format. I don't think Wegmans will be too thrilled by an overdone imitation of their stores opening in their home territory. From a source I have at Wegmans corporate, they have turned down offers from a few Albany area municipalities to focus on larger markets. The minute Price Chopper brings Ghetto 32 close to the home office, I can almost guarantee that Wegmans will have someone on the phone with Saratoga Springs, Wilton, Malta, or Clifton Park to scout locations.

[jeffandnicole]

Wegmans only has 88 stores, but $7 Billion in revenue.  It doesn't get that big by listening to mayors from every dinky little town crying for Wegmans to build a store.  The mayor will tell them how successful they will be in their municipality.  In reality, the mayor really just wants to promote the fact that he/she was the one who got a Wegmans to come to their town.

Most companies spend money...a LOT of money...looking for the right location.  Common requirements would be: Highway access within X miles, location on a road with a minimum of X lanes or XX,000 ADT, population of X within X miles, and an median income of X.

You can personally cry on the front doorstep of every Wegmans Exec, but if the road has YY,000 ADT and Wegmans requires XX,000, your town is out of luck.

[GCrites]

^It's true. Every commercial landlord had better be able to come with ADT and average income numbers off the top of their heads. For my type of business (video games), I want the speed limit to be as low as possible. In comparison to Wegman's, I don't want the median income to be too high. If people make too much money they stop buying video games and other nerd stuff on average and start spending it on boats, horses and race cars. I want the income under 80k or so.

[renegade]

Perhaps the grocery chain discussion could be broken off into another thread ...

[Pete from Boston]

I got this in my email the other day.  Can you spot the error?



Answer:  It's not great news that my Sears is still open.  They're ruined the place.

[kkt]

"email" would better be hyphenated "e-mail", like "h-bomb" and "x-ray".  I know the "email" usage is common, but that doesn't make it right.

[Pete from Boston]

"email" would better be hyphenated "e-mail", like "h-bomb" and "x-ray".  I know the "email" usage is common, but that doesn't make it right.

I am a soldier in the war for a good grammar. But even I have conceded on "email." I was last taken to task for my insistence on hyphenation in that term in 2007.

I find the degradation of language by the acceptance of laziness to be deplorable, but at a certain point when a usage becomes more common than not, it is the de facto new standard.

Regardless, that was not the point of my message, which was that Sears is struggling to even keep its customers believing that it still exists.

[jp the roadgeek]

Is there an item at Sears that sells for 31 cents that you can treat yourself to?

[hbelkins]

The Associated Press broke over a few months ago, and they now use email for e-mail (or E-mail) and website for Web site. Both changes aggravated me to no end.