The Retail Thread

[brentwood]

Noticed on Friday that Waves Coffee House is moving into the U of C building at 8th and 8th. Right on the corner. Good to see something finally.

[mersar]

Originally Posted by Jimby

The Box by No Frills (part of Bob Loblaw's empire!) is opening Friday at 10233 Elbow Dr where Planet Organic is and where KMart and Safeway used to be.

Yep, noticed that on Friday. Most recently the store was a Giant Tiger and I'd been wondering what was going to replace it as the windows were papered over for months with no indication of the new tenant. Will be interesting seeing how they do but I will be checking them out at some point this week.

[mersar]

Well my verdict is I doubt that No Frills will last long. My wife and I went there tonight with a fairly basic list of things we wanted, and ended up going to Superstore for half of it since they didn't have it. Fairly minimal selection overall, pretty bad looking produce and pretty sketchy customers when we were there. Probably OK if you need to pick up one or two basic things, but definitely can't do a normal shop there like you can at most of the other No Frills I've been in. Size wise, I'd say its probably only 1/3 the size of the Mission Safeway for comparison.

[Spring2008]

Originally Posted by brentwood

Noticed on Friday that Waves Coffee House is moving into the U of C building at 8th and 8th. Right on the corner. Good to see something finally.

Wow I didn't even notice this at all until you mentioned it. Looks to be pretty close to opening too.

There also appears to be 2 more retail bays opening on the 8th street side. Both have windows mostly covered up with construction still visible in the background and BP's listed near the entrance. Didn't catch any tenant names though. Now if only they built the nearby rumored Century Gardens tower where that absolutely horrendous building currently sits.

[Plus15]

Chinook Centre multi-use project goes to CPC for Land Use this week. The proposed zoning would allow for a series of towers on the south-east side between the existing mall and Macleod Trail. A few massing renderings and concepts can be found in the CPC package, the proposal at this time is not tied to plans.

Link to PDF - Item 7, LOC2010-0053

http://www.calgary.ca/PDA/DBA/Pages/...on-Agenda.aspx

[chenmau]

Sobey's to acquire Canada Safeway
http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1182...mbined-company

[Ferreth]

Originally Posted by chenmau

Sobey's to acquire Canada Safeway
http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1182...mbined-company

This will affect some independents as well who get there stock from Safeway. My local store is a "Family Foods" that stocks most of there stuff from Macdonalds Consolidated the wholesale part acquired by Sobey's. Will be interesting to see how stock changes with this move; I put Sobey's at the bottom of my list currently - but I have not shopped there much lately so things might have improved.

[MalcolmTucker]

Sobey's prices have improved in the past 2 years quite a lot.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Ferreth

This will affect some independents as well who get there stock from Safeway. My local store is a "Family Foods" that stocks most of there stuff from Macdonalds Consolidated the wholesale part acquired by Sobey's. Will be interesting to see how stock changes with this move; I put Sobey's at the bottom of my list currently - but I have not shopped there much lately so things might have improved.

I would say Sobeys stores are generally nicer than Safeway, but prices at Sobeys can be ridiculous (at least from what I remember. haven't shopped there in a couple of years).

as for Family Foods, I guess "Safeway Select" and other Safeway private labels will be replaced with Sobeys "Compliments". lol
I like Family Foods because you can be in/out in 20 minutes if you want to, unlike the shopping fiasco of say, Superstore

[Cage]

I haven't had the chance to go through the empire records call, But I cannot tell from this stage whether Sobey's will rebrand the Safeway stores and replace Safeway private label stuff (e.g. Safeway Select, Lucerne) with Sobeys.

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by WIGS

I would say Sobeys stores are generally nicer than Safeway, but prices at Sobeys can be ridiculous (at least from what I remember. haven't shopped there in a couple of years).

I found the opposite, safeway seems to have better "deals" but they start at a higher price point.

But i suppose it changes even between stores so who knows, I only shop at expensive urban safeways and I hate myself for it alot of the time. Co-Op is significantly cheaper it seems, at least in the inner city.

[Ramsayfarian]

Originally Posted by chenmau

Sobey's to acquire Canada Safeway
http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1182...mbined-company

Wow, I'm kind of shocked that Safeway would sell and I'm also surprised that Sobey's or their parent company had such deep pockets.

[Spring2008]

Originally Posted by Ramsayfarian

Wow, I'm kind of shocked that Safeway would sell and I'm also surprised that Sobey's or their parent company had such deep pockets.

Yeah, that is pretty surprising. I didn't even think Sobey's was big enough for this kind of move. Apparently they're supplying Canadian Target locations with their food merch now too.

Apparently Safeway has been trying to sell off their Canadian assets for years now. I always kind of assumed it would eventually be Loblaws that bought them out though.


Oh yeah, and that Waves on 8th and 8th is already open now!

[srperrycgy]

I live in a definite Safeway stronghold. Four nearby locations: Westbrook, Glamorgan, Garrison Woods and WestHills.

I would expect that Sobeys will have to dispose of some locations in the city. Still early though.

[Doug_Cgy]

Originally Posted by chenmau

Sobey's to acquire Canada Safeway
http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1182...mbined-company

Terrible news....I really like Safeway as is.

Also sad to see a company based here in Calgary bought out. I'm not sure how large their operation is up at Deerfoot & 64th, but never good to lose a head office.

[Ferreth]

My beef with losing Safeway would be if we lose access to their store brand of products. While it's not all super quality, I've grown up with and am used to a lot of Safeway's products. I've not sampled a lot of Sobey's store brands, because the ones I have sampled were shite. I only liked their cookies. However, I hear other people talking about some of the "complements" products being really good, so it might just be what I sampled - some frozen dinner thing I can't recall anymore other than being awful. The Sobey's deli I used to hit quite a bit, being near my work of the day. It went from quite good to 'meh' over the years. Safeway's biggest minus is you get screwed if you don't have a "club card". To this day, I still just give them my Parent's old phone number from 20 years ago to get the 'club' price.

[SpongeG]

sobey foods bought out thrifty foods a few years back and thrifty foods and all its instore brands stayed as is, will be sad if safeway gets changed though in name and all other aspects

[Ramsayfarian]

Originally Posted by Ferreth

To this day, I still just give them my Parent's old phone number from 20 years ago to get the 'club' price.

I use an ex-girlfriend's phone number. If she was ever to get a print out of her purchases she'd shit as she's a hardcore vegan and my diet is very similar to Ron Swanson's.

[MichaelS]

Will you still be able to collect air miles with Sobeys?

[srperrycgy]

Originally Posted by MichaelS

Will you still be able to collect air miles with Sobeys?

Sobeys is already an AirMiles sponsor in the Maritimes, I would suspect they would expand that to the West and dump their existing program.