Newer Grocery Stores

[Mervyns]

Why do all the grocery stores being built today rival Macys for square footage? Back in the 50's and 60's, there was A&P, Acme, Penn Fruit, Food Fair, and Safeway. All had their own unique store designs. Even in the early 80's, we had Kroger greenhouses which were small.

Now it's a jumbled mess of Super Stop & Shop, Kroger Signature, Acme Sav-on, A&P Super Foodmart, etc.

[HoJofan206]

Actually, we just got two brand new Aldi's here in Evansville and both are very small stores......

[videogamer75]

I don't think it's necessary to have giant supermarkets either. I liked the smaller grocery stores of years past. Plus, the small stores made for more cool designs.

The same goes for Supercenters - they should just stick to what they do best and leave food to the grocery stores. Their food isn't bad, but you can find better.

[AmesNewington]

My theory is that if you are the only grocer in town or in the area, you need to have a good size store to support the volume of customers, primarily big aisles and a large front end. For example, Waldbaum's in W. Hartford is too small for the amount of business it does. The size of this store would be good for the Berlin A&P. On the other hand, the Berlin Foodmart is way too big for the average business it gets. West Hartford would benefit from the size of the Berlin store. Plenty of space and boy would Berlin be a beautiful destination with the Fresh remodel. W. Hartford got the design instead, but how could a customer enjoy it being cart to cart with people?

I'm getting off topic, so I should add that I believe that supermarkets have gotten too big. I can't find a small grocery store anymore where I can run in and get a few items and check out. These stores of today want you to be sucked in and browse all of the departments and buy more than just the milk and eggs. The biggest culprit in the supermarket business is Stop and Shop, with their one-stop hypermarket concept. Staples, Dunkin' Donuts, People's Bank in Stop and Shop? OK, a bank is alright, but isn't a supermarket where you buy food? I just think the concept has gotten out of hand.

I do hope Supercenters do not replace the need for grocery stores. Wal Mart and Target should focus on the department store theme as did the chains they pushed out (Ames, Bradlees, Caldor, etc). Did you see those stores selling meat and produce? No. Leave it to the supermarkets. Not only is it better to have a grocer around, but again, do we want to only be left with Wal Mart and Target in 20 years? I sure don't.

Another thing that bothers me with A&P and even Shaw's is that they have a large enough shelf capacity to hold as much merchandise as possible, but they still put those displays in the aisles so you can't fit two carriages on each side.

[Mervyns]

There are many smaller Acmes and SuperFresh (former A&P centennial) stores left. And Wal-Mart is NOT a supermarket!

[DerangedHermit]

Originally posted by Mervyns
Why do all the grocery stores being built today rival Macys for square footage? Back in the 50's and 60's, there was A&P, Acme, Penn Fruit, Food Fair, and Safeway. All had their own unique store designs. Even in the early 80's, we had Kroger greenhouses which were small.

Now it's a jumbled mess of Super Stop & Shop, Kroger Signature, Acme Sav-on, A&P Super Foodmart, etc.

They're feeling threatened by Target and Wal-Mart and respond by making big stores of their own. If a customer feels that they can't get a decent selection of groceries, they'll go somewhere else to get them. It's survival of the fittest.