Tops

[Ames#1171]

The old Giant Eagle on Broadview looks larger than the old Tops on Snow does, so why did they move?

It's actually bigger inside than it looks.  You can't tell it was ever was a Tops.  They re-did everything inside, and it's a pretty nice store.  But I prefer the one in Biddulph Plaza around the corner from my house though.

And this is what is going to happen to the former Giant Eagle on Broadview:

Catan's moving around corner
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Parma Sun Post

The Snow Road Pat Catan's store will relocate sometime this year to the former Gillombardo's Giant Eagle store on Broadview Road.

The vacant grocery store space also will be occupied by Ollie's Bargain Outlet, according to Shelley Cullins, economic development officer.

She said the leasing paperwork has been signed and that store officials are beginning to get their building permits. The store basically will be split in half to accommodate the new stores. It is not yet known when the retail operations will open.

Ollie's Bargain Outlet stores first opened in 1982 one in Mechanicsburg, Pa. and the other in Harrisburg. Today, there are 62 stores in eight states. The Parma store would be the first in the Greater Cleveland area. The nearest stores are in North Canton and Mansfield.

The concept of Ollie's is "Good Stuff Cheap," and officials say it is the Mid-Atlantic's largest retailer of close-out, surplus and salvage merchandise.

Pat Catan, an entrepreneur in the craft industry, started his first Cleveland art supply store in 1954. The modest 600-square-foot location was on East 131st Street and Miles Avenue. Before that, Catan was mainly an Ohio floral supplies distributor. Now there are 20 Pat Catan's stores located throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania. Each store is packed full of craft supplies, including floral decorations and wood turnings, along with art and jewelry making supplies.
Catan was influenced by his experiences growing up in the Great Depression and serving in World War II, according to store officials. He found value in hard work and dedication. Officials say his family continues the tradition of providing quality products at reasonable prices.

Catan's spokesperson Ron Wire said the move is still in the planning stages and a timeline for the relocation has yet to be established.

The Arhaus store could easily be moved, if it's even still there.

Yep, it's still there.

Re: Parmatown - I can't believe that whole building was demolished.

I was surprised too and I've been trying to figure out what was going to go in there.  Well I did some digging, and guess what is going in there?  A brand new Giant Eagle.  I found this article on Cleveland.com:

Thursday, November 15, 2007
By Pat Salemi
Parma Sun Post
PARMA Day Drive.

These are commercial areas where residents soon will see progressive change and new development, say city officials.
Director of Community Development Erik Tollerup says the city has been meeting with property owners along Day Drive to discuss redevelopment of empty retail space.

"We recognize the need for it and are looking at different options including redesigning the area from big box retailers to possibly mixed use," he said.

One change that residents and shoppers definitely will see on Day Drive will be the demolition of the former Tops grocery store and Circuit City buildings, which were purchased by Giant Eagle. The project is expected to begin within the next few months.

Representatives of the area's dominant grocery store chain are in the process of presenting the company's plans for a new store on that site, Tollerup said. The building now occupied by Giant Eagle, which it leases from Wolpal & Associates of Pittsburgh, will be vacated once construction of the new store is complete. City officials are hopeful the space can then be redeveloped.

[JoeC2364]

From The Buffalo News 7/20/12
http://www.buffalonews.com/incoming/article956610.ece



Tops acquires 21 sites from Grand Union

Move expands presence upstate, in Vermont

Tops Friendly Markets announced the acquisition of 21 supermarkets in upstate New York and Vermont on Thursday. The Amherst-based grocery chain reached an agreement with Grand Union Markets LLC, an affiliate of C&S Wholesale Grocers.

Tops said it made the move to expand its footprint throughout the region, which now boasts a total of 153 stores. Familiarity helped spark the deal.

"C&S is a partner and supplies most of [our] New York stores," said Katie McKenna, Tops' public relations manager. "These are stores that Tops has operated in the past, and it knows the area and communities. We're getting into smaller formats because that's what some communities are looking for."

The deal made great sense for both organizations, according to Michael Newbold, chief administrative officer for C&S Wholesale Grocers.

"It allows Tops to strengthen its retail network, while C&S will continue to focus on its core business of supplying innovative supply and logistics solutions to its wholesale customers," Newbold said in a release.

The average size of the new stores is about 20,000 square feet, and there are no immediate plans to change the name on store banners. The goal set forth by Tops is to bring excellent customer service and quality products to small communities.

"We plan ... to invest in those stores and the surrounding communities in an effort to best serve our associates and customers," Kevin Darrinton, Tops' chief operating officer, said in a release.

There are roughly 600 employees at the 21 locations, and Tops plans to keep all current workers on board.

McKenna said that the Grand Union name is very strong in most of the communities and that Tops' "strong operational perspective" will make the stores even more successful.

[BillyGr]

http://www.progressivegrocer.com/top-stories/headlines/regional-supermarket-chains/id38925/tops-bows-2-rebranded-stores/

Looks like Tops has taken over 3 former Big M markets in Elbridge, Jordan and Mexico (NY).  Looks like Elbridge & Jordan are fairly close to each other (town-wise) on a map (just a bit west of Syracuse, for those who never heard of these towns).

That Jordan store is really small (11,299 Sq Ft) - probably some pharmacy stores in the Syracuse area bigger than that ;).

[IGA/Kmart Is Forever!]

the one by Parmatown Mall, since that one - at last check, unless it renovated/moved - was that modern-looking one that, once upon a time, used to be Gold Circle, then Hills. When Hills moved out, Finast moved over and turned the building into a superstore location

Here is the site of the former Parmatown Tops.  Gone, as is the Circuit City that was next door.


And finally, here is a picture of the abandoned Tops on Ridge Rd in Brooklyn, just couple blocks from my house:

This Hills Department Store that was by Parmatown Mall, did it ever become an Ames Department Store at all, or did this Hills Department Store move to a different location before Ames bought out the Hills Department Store Chain therefore putting Ames at a different location than this one that was by Parmatown Mall when Ames bought out the Hills Department Store Chain?

Also, what direction is this former empty Tops Friendly Markets location in of the Super Kmart Center that is in Brooklyn?

[BillyGr]

From The Buffalo News 7/20/12

Tops acquires 21 sites from Grand Union
Move expands presence upstate, in Vermont

Tops Friendly Markets announced the acquisition of 21 supermarkets in upstate New York and Vermont on Thursday. The Amherst-based grocery chain reached an agreement with Grand Union Markets LLC, an affiliate of C&S Wholesale Grocers.

The average size of the new stores is about 20,000 square feet, and there are no immediate plans to change the name on store banners. The goal set forth by Tops is to bring excellent customer service and quality products to small communities.

"We plan ... to invest in those stores and the surrounding communities in an effort to best serve our associates and customers," Kevin Darrinton, Tops' chief operating officer, said in a release.

There are roughly 600 employees at the 21 locations, and Tops plans to keep all current workers on board.

McKenna said that the Grand Union name is very strong in most of the communities and that Tops' "strong operational perspective" will make the stores even more successful.

Apparently the definition of no immediate plans to change the name is wait about 10 months.

If you go to gufamilymarkets.com and look at the ad links, you'll see that 9 stores have ads which note that your store will soon be Tops:
Greenville, Hancock, West Coxsackie, Hoosick Falls, Stamford and Tannersville in NY, plus Rutland, Northfield, and Hardwick in VT.  However the other 12 stores do not mention this change - these are the Adirondack stores that had the Tops name once before (Ausable Forks, Bolton Landing, Chestertown, Corinth, Elizabethtown, North Creek, Peru, Saranac Lake x 2, Schroon Lake & Warrensburg, plus Northville).

[JoeC2364]

Tops Buys Four Big M Stores


Tops Friendly Markets has completed its purchase of four Big M grocery stores.

The stores are in Boonville, Watertown, Sandy Creek and Adams. They were independently owned by William J. Bonisteel and family.

Earlier this year, Tops acquired Big M supermarkets in Elbridge, Mexico, and Jordan.

The acquisition expands Tops’ reach into Northern and Central New York.

“We are excited about this growth opportunity for Tops, as we bring these new stores into the Tops family,” said Frank Curci, Tops Markets’ president and CEO, in a statement. “These stores are a natural addition to our current footprint.”

He said each of the four stores will be remodeled and will transition to the Tops banner by late June. The stores will remain open during remodeling.

Three years ago, Tops bought 79 former Penn Traffic Co. stores and has spent more than $90 million to upgrade its entire chain. It recently launched a standalone brand of gourmet specialty market called Orchard Fresh.

Tops said all 280 employees at the four locations have been offered jobs with Tops.

[JoeC2364]

Orchard Fresh is an upscale fresh market concept that Tops Markets opened. 

From the buffalo news


It isn’t exactly grocery wars, but life is about to get more interesting for Buffalo shoppers.

A week from today, homegrown Tops Friendly Markets will open an upscale health food and gourmet store called Orchard Fresh in an affluent Orchard Park neighborhood.

The new venture is aimed at foodies who don’t mind paying a little more to try wildebeest steaks and ostrich hot dogs; health-conscious eaters who want to know that their food is fresh, humane, healthy and eco-friendly; and people with special dietary needs, such as vegan and gluten-free. None of those consumers typically mind forking over a little extra cash to ensure they get the type and quality of food they want.

The new store format is a big gamble for Tops, which got its start in the 1920’s and now has 62 stores across Western New York.

The move also reflects a new reality for food stores: Traditional grocers like Tops are under siege. Discounters Aldi, Save-A-Lot and Walmart compete for price-focused shoppers. At the high end, Wegmans, Premier Gourmet, and Dash’s already compete for gourmet shoppers, and California-based Trader Joe’s plans to enter the Buffalo market later this year at Boulevard Consumer Square in Amherst.

The high end â€" specialty and gourmet items â€" is a $75 billion-a-year industry and growing faster than any part of the grocery business, said Louise Kramer, of the Specialty Food Association.

“There is a lot of opportunity for both more high-end and low-cost offerings; it’s the mid-cost products that are suffering,” said Jenna Telesca, an editor at Supermarket News. “This is why you see supermarkets starting to offer more gourmet-type fresh product â€" to go after that, filling that need.”



$30 olive oil

Visitors to Orchard Fresh will have no trouble telling it isn’t Tops.

Part green grocer, part butcher shop and fish market, part gourmet take-out restaurant, Orchard Fresh’s inventory is 85 percent freshâ€"organic produce, fish flown in daily, hand-cut cheeses, grass-fed beefâ€"and 15 percent packaged dry goods. It flips traditional supermarket percentages, where just 13 percent of inventory is fresh, perishable food, according to Nielsen Perishables Group.

The 18,000-square-foot store â€" a little larger than an NHL hockey rink â€" has a station for grinding your own nut butters. An executive chef (trained at the Culinary Institute of America) prepares vegan, organic and gluten-free take-out every day. There are more than 150 varieties of bottled cooking oils and vinegars in bottles on shelves (more are available in a bulk section), the most expensive of whichâ€"Dom Diogo extra virgin olive oilâ€"sells for $30.99 for 500 mL.

Instead of Coke and Pepsi, Orchard Fresh will stock Grown-up Soda and several varieties of organic coconut water. You won’t find Cheerios or Lay’s potato chips, but will see Barbara’s Cereal and Tyrrells English Crisps. The store also has hand-picked small vendors, local and national, like Eden Farms and Tipton Mills, to produce private label items specifically for its shelves.

It won’t all be $30 olive oil, Tops insists.

“These smaller companies want their brands in our stores,” said Kevin M. Donovan, a South Buffalo native who was recruited to direct Orchard Fresh from his post as chief operating officer at Maryland’s Conscious Corner, a group of stores known for being socially responsible. “Some of them are sending their first shipments at a 50 percent discount. Things will be affordable.”



‘Super labor-intensive’

For Tops, Orchard Fresh is a gamble.

Fresh food isn’t easy. Orchard Fresh is opening as British grocer Tesco closes a failed attempt at launching similar Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores in the United States, which focused on fresh food and freshly made takeout items.

Locally owned Dash, like Orchard Fresh, has smaller stores that differentiate themselves by offering many gluten-free options and focusing on locally made gourmet products, high-quality meat and seafood, and specialty sweet indulgences, as Orchard Fresh will.

“They’re going to see it’s not easy to run a small store with a large percentage of perishables,” said Joe Dash, Dash’s president. “It’s super labor intensive and you really have to micromanage every [item] to keep it all fresh.”

However difficult it may be, Tops sees Orchard Fresh as its best opportunity to grow and compete throughout Central New York and Pennsylvania. Three years ago, Tops bought 79 former Penn Traffic Co. stores and has spent more than $90 million to upgrade its entire chain. More recently, it has opened smaller Tops stores, like the 30,000 square-foot store at Harlem and Kensington in Cheektowaga, filling in its already well-developed territory.

To succeed, Orchard Fresh must take customers from other stores. “Wegmans would obviously be affected the most,” said Burt Flickinger III, a retail analyst and managing director of New York City’s Strategic Resource Group.

Wegmans does not seem worried.

“When a new retailer or concept enters a market wherever we have stores, we don’t change course,” said Theresa Jackson, a Wegman’s spokesman.

Orchard Fresh may even take some sales from farmer’s markets and farm stands, but more significantly it could discourage other grocers from entering or expanding in the Western New York market.

“It will make some of the chains that have been expanding, like the Fresh Market in North Carolina, think twice about coming in and taking on both Orchard Fresh and Wegmans at the same time,” Flickinger said.



Two more stores?

If Orchard Fresh succeeds, says Frank Curci, Tops’ chief executive officer, Tops plans to expand to as many as three Buffalo locations, most likely in the northtowns in Clarence or Amherst.

Curci hopes Orchard Fresh will “capture more of the customer’s wallet within our system” while bringing in new customers from elsewhere.

“It’s not that we’re trying to hide the fact that we’re Tops, but it’s a completely different format,” Curci said, adding later: “Tops is still our bread and butter.”

Flickinger, the retail analyst, describes Orchard Fresh is an “inspired initiative.” Fresh-food failures like the one by British grocer Tesco, he says, had more to do with “Brits trying to interpret what Americans want to buy.”

“In this case,” he said, “it’s local leadership knowing local consumers, local farmers, local suppliers and talking to local shoppers about what they want.”

[retailisking]

Tops has changed hands again...
http://www.buffalonews.com/business/tops-to-get-new-owner-in-deal-backed-by-current-management-20131114

[jason83080]

Good. Maybe they'll move back into all of their still-empty abandoned Ohio stores and reopen!

[BillyGr]

Good. Maybe they'll move back into all of their still-empty abandoned Ohio stores and reopen!

Always possible - they are certainly closer to the existing Tops(with P&C's added in) in NY/PA than some of the stores they recently took over from Grand Union.

Additionally - it seems that parts of Ohio (at least the area nearest to PA) are lacking any major chains aside from Giant Eagle - probably due to all the closures in the past years.  Although there are a lot of smaller "independent chains" in many areas.

[buzz86us]

Ohio is weird there seems to only be walmart and Kroger

[jason83080]

Always possible - they are certainly closer to the existing Tops(with P&C's added in) in NY/PA than some of the stores they recently took over from Grand Union.

Additionally - it seems that parts of Ohio (at least the area nearest to PA) are lacking any major chains aside from Giant Eagle - probably due to all the closures in the past years.  Although there are a lot of smaller "independent chains" in many areas.

It's not so much 'closures' as 'Giant Eagle wound up owning everything because they bought out Stop-n-Shop.' Tops pulled out of NEOH, which was the only major closure that I can think of. Super Kmart is all but a thing of the past. Walmart's hit-or-miss when it comes to food. In all honesty, the only major somewhat-national chain in the Cleveland area is Giant Eagle.

We used to have IGA stores around, as well as Food Centre, but those chains either closed up shop completely or just pulled out of the market. There was also Food 4 Less, but those came and went. Now, we've got Heinen's for your upper-crust market, and Aldi/Save-A-Lot for the budget-conscious market. Oddly, there's a Giant Eagle for every income level: Market District for your upper-crust market, Good Cents for the budget-conscious, and Giant Eagle for everyone else. They're also conquering the gas station market with the GetGo stores!

As for why we're in this thread, the Brook Park, OH, Tops in the Brookgate plaza is becoming a Rose's Discount Store. They should be opening soon.

[Scrabbleship]

I was in one of the ex-Grand Union Tops locations in Northfield, VT today and I noticed that they carried very few of Tops' own private label brands, instead carrying the Best Yet brand they carried in their later years as Grand Union. In fact, looking up some random locations it seems like all of the ex-Grand Union locations are in the same boat. Is there any reason for this?

Whatever reason can't be logistical as the remaining Ahold Delhaize rejects they bought in the Hudson Valley appear to carry Tops-branded products and those are as distant if not more from Tops' core than the ex-Grand Union locations. What might be at play?

[BillyGr]

Perhaps it is logistical, but more based on C&S than Tops itself?

Since C&S is HQ around Keene, NH, they would probably be closer to the (few) stores in VT and those in Northeastern parts of NY than Tops' facilities are?  Thus easier for them to deliver to those.

With the other more southern stores, C&S probably doesn't have any easy(ier) access then Tops does, so it wouldn't be any difference for one over the other.

[BillyGr]

https://progressivegrocer.com/tops-close-10-underperforming-stores-part-restructuring

So 10 stores closing (Syracuse (two locations), Rochester (two locations), Fairport, Lyons, Geneva, Fulton, Elmira and Saranac Lake, N.Y).

Not sure on most of those but the Saranac Lake one makes sense - there have been two stores there since they were Grand Union (then Tops, then back to Grand Union and back to Tops) not that far apart (maybe a mile) - one more in the town and one just on the outskirts.

Always seemed kind of silly for an area as (relatively) small as that is to have two that close.

[FitchMike26]

Tops was best when it was operated as part of Ahold / Giant-Carlisle. It's been a slow ride downhill ever since...

[Retail Regents]

https://progressivegrocer.com/tops-close-10-underperforming-stores-part-restructuring

So 10 stores closing (Syracuse (two locations), Rochester (two locations), Fairport, Lyons, Geneva, Fulton, Elmira and Saranac Lake, N.Y).

Not sure on most of those but the Saranac Lake one makes sense - there have been two stores there since they were Grand Union (then Tops, then back to Grand Union and back to Tops) not that far apart (maybe a mile) - one more in the town and one just on the outskirts.

Always seemed kind of silly for an area as (relatively) small as that is to have two that close.

Saranac Lake seemed rather odd as both appear to be 1960s Grand Unions that went through the Tops > Grand Union Family Markets > Tops cycle. The one on the Essex County was the one that closed while the one on the Franklin County side got refreshed. At first glance, it looks like nothing was done to it (since this wasn't a full-scale gutting remodel), but the inside got a new coat of paint, register lights, new decor, and a fresh set of refurbished carts.

[retailisking]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tops-markets-trustee-blames-morgan-stanley-for-grocers-bankruptcy-11581553545

[Retail Regents]

Well then, it appears that Tops #721 kissed the Grand Union checkstand lights goodbye. Wonder how many others got the new tall,slim checkstand lights.

[Retail Regents]

It appears Tops is ramping up the remodeling, even in more neglected areas, such as the Grand Union territory. Here are some pictures of the newly-remodeled Northville store.

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[Retail Regents]

The Stamford store is still hanging onto their old Grand Union checklane lights.

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