Giant-Carlisle

[Stork of The Weak]

I get the feeling the Giant due to its poor condition will move to the former Kmart site (most likely demolishing and building new though). This might win back customers who started getting groceries at the nearby Walmart when it reopened after a year of being closed for construction to become a Supercenter, even though it never expanded at all. Not sure but I thought I read somewhere a Jamesway was on the Kmart site originally. It must have been an early Jamesway (opened around 1964 perhaps) that would have closed around 1974 if not earlier.

[FitchMike26]

Ahhhhh, Warminster. It all makes sense now. We actually discussed the Warminster ACME on here last week. It's funny how things come full circle lol

[store215]

I get the feeling the Giant due to its poor condition will move to the former Kmart site (most likely demolishing and building new though). This might win back customers who started getting groceries at the nearby Walmart when it reopened after a year of being closed for construction to become a Supercenter, even though it never expanded at all. Not sure but I thought I read somewhere a Jamesway was on the Kmart site originally. It must have been an early Jamesway (opened around 1964 perhaps) that would have closed around 1974 if not earlier.

I doubt the Giant will move...it is in a prime retail spot in a busy shopping center, and the space is large enough, it is just old. The Kmart lot is kind of 'meh'. Once you go further down York Road, it becomes mostly residential, until you hit the town of Jamison, 2 or 3 miles away, where you hit a new-ish and very busy Giant (opened in 2012 after converting from Genuardi's).

I have seen references on Google Maps to the Kmart center as 'Jamesway Center'. If it was a Jamesway, the building must have been demolished before Kmart opened, and it must have been a very short lived store (either that or Jamesway was planned for the spot and later backed out..who knows.) I'm actually surprised the Kmart closed..it always seemed relatively busy by Kmart standards (especially after Walmart reopened with much less selection) and was even fixed up a bit in the last few years it was open. In comparison, the nearest two Kmart stores (Feasterville, Willow Grove) are complete dumps. But they slowly seem to be disappearing once the leases come up for renewal.

[FitchMike26]

I don't see Giant moving either. They rarely relocate stores that have gas pumps. Giant usually has to do a lot of legwork to get gas pumps approved. And they've been pushing the gas rewards heavily in SEPA lately.

Also guys: We can change the name of this thread from "Willow Grove Super Giant" to just "Giant-Carlisle" if we keep changing the subject line to "Giant-Carlisle" each time we hit reply. After we all do it a few times, the name of the thread will change. I need your help to make this happen!

[MikeRa]

I don't see Giant moving either. They rarely relocate stores that have gas pumps. Giant usually has to do a lot of legwork to get gas pumps approved. And they've been pushing the gas rewards heavily in SEPA lately.

Also guys: We can change the name of this thread from "Willow Grove Super Giant" to just "Giant-Carlisle" if we keep changing the subject line to "Giant-Carlisle" each time we hit reply. After we all do it a few times, the name of the thread will change. I need your help to make this happen!

Will do.

The only GIANT (PA) that is near me that has the gas station is the GIANT (PA) at Grant Avenue, south of Roosevelt Boulevard.  This particular location was built on the site of the final location of Penn Fruit Company's Bakery, Warehouse and Main office complex.

[FitchMike26]

I've been to the Grant Ave store in Philadelphia. It's a nice looking store, and the first to open within the city limits.

Giant is running a pilot program at stores in this part of the state (Philly, Huntingdon Valley, Willow Grove, Roslyn, Flourtown, Horsham, Feasterville, Southampton, Warminster, and Jamison).

The program is called "Choice Rewards" and it's designed for people who don't have access to the gas pumps, or don't have an interest in the gas program.

With Choice Rewards, customers can redeem 300 points for a 5% grocery discount, in the form of a savings certificate. The expiration dates of the program differ from the gas point program used in the rest of the chain. You can read more about Choice Rewards here:

http://www.giantfoodstores.com//shareddev/sharedcontent/savings/gasrewards_100_G.cfm?store_num=6427&CFID=69911844&CFTOKEN=81824205&jsessionid=8430b9d98e1d5e9d8e8b4817311974211673

[ynkeesfn82]

Also guys: We can change the name of this thread from "Willow Grove Super Giant" to just "Giant-Carlisle" if we keep changing the subject line to "Giant-Carlisle" each time we hit reply. After we all do it a few times, the name of the thread will change. I need your help to make this happen!

I created a new thread Giant-Carlise and merged the old into the new and removed the old.

[FitchMike26]

Thank you Marc! Best poster here ever.

[store215]

I spoke too soon....I happened to pop into the Warminster store today and they had a remodeling crew walking around surveying the store. Would be interesting if they expand their cafe' offerings (beer, etc.) to compete with Wegmans down the road. This store had a small cafe' seating area but it was ripped out/blocked off several years ago.

[Stork of The Weak]

I spoke too soon....I happened to pop into the Warminster store today and they had a remodeling crew walking around surveying the store. Would be interesting if they expand their cafe' offerings (beer, etc.) to compete with Wegmans down the road. This store had a small cafe' seating area but it was ripped out/blocked off several years ago.

Hmmm, maybe now the ShopRite (former Super G) will move to the former Kmart site to better compete?

[JoshAustin610]

Shop-Rite was remodeled a few years ago as well.  I really don't think any store's going to relocate from York & Street Roads; that's the prime intersection.  As far as Warminster goes that Kmart really didn't have the best location.

[Stork of The Weak]

I don't get why the PA Super G stores ever became Shop N Save. That chain had absolutely NO name recognition in Southeastern Pennsylvania and absolutely ZERO stores anywhere near the Philly suburbs. It seems Acme, Giant, Genuardi's, Pathmark, Super Fresh, and ShopRite all should have each bought one of those former stores (which would be perfect as there were six in the Philly suburbs).

What's up with Giant being such a dominant chain in Greater Philly? Even in 2000 it was still unknown to most of the region. Nothing wrong with Giant but I don't get how they were able to enter the Philly market with the combination of ShopRite and all the other older chains. However ShopRite was a chain in bad shape (not financially but the stores were dumps) when Giant first entered the area, and we know Acme, Pathmark, and Super Fresh all have been struggling for a long time. And Genuardi's was cursed once Safeway signed the merger agreement. Clemens also was a chain that opened a few new stores (but none that were new construction except for two of the three FoodSource stores) in the early 2000s, but was barely limping along. The former Clemens that survive today as both Giant and Super Fresh are among the worst stores in both those chains. It seems the Clemens family would have been better off closing all their stores and selling the real estate to a company like Kimco that could quickly and effectively sell the empty store sites to any and all non-supermarket retail companies that would be interested in them.

[FitchMike26]

Hi Stork! You asked a lot of good questions. I'll try to give my best guesses on these.

1) The PA Giant-Landover (Super G) stores were ordered divested for antitrust issues. It's likely that at the time, the desire was to sell the stores to someone who would continue to operate them as one whole chain, for competition reasons. Simply breaking them up & selling them off to ACME, Superfresh, Pathmark, or someone else would have likely resulted in eventual closures.

2) It's easy to convince someone to enter a market/region when they are purchasing an entire chain. Safeway entered Philly by purchasing Genuardi's; Albertson's did the same by purchasing ACME, etc.

3) Shop N Save didn't last for the same reason Safeway didn't last here: you have to know the market, be willing to compete on price, and make some decisions locally. Running your Philly stores like your Pittsburgh or Chicago stores will not work here.

4) Giant-Carlisle became the dominant retailer in this area by building very big, modern stores, with lots of products, in lots of different areas. From 2001-2009, the stores churned out like ice cream. They rarely close stores without a nearby replacement. They also seem willing to scoop up the competition's stores when possible. They bought Clemens, they bought Genuardi's, and they even bought a vacant Superfresh in Doylestown. They probably bought up a few other vacant storres, too.

5) Price. Giant-Carlisle was willing to do everything they could from 2000-2009 to compete on price. By the time a few other people arrived on the scene with low prices as well (Wegmans, Walmart Supercenter, Bottom Dollar, Target P'fresh) Giant-Carlisle had already won over customers with their prices. To this day, 75% of what I buy is cheapest at Giant. I only go to Wegmans and Target for a few items each month.

6) The city. Giant-Carlisle didn't have to put up with existing stores in the city, when most other chains had to. ACME, Superfresh, Pathmark, and ShopRite all closed older, problem stores in the city in the 2000s. Giant never had to worry about this problem.

I welcome your thoughts on all of this!

[Stork of The Weak]

Here's something really confusing: when the Philadelphia-based (started in Harrisburg though) Food Fair chain (later known as Pantry Pride) entered Washington DC in the 1950s, they had to use the alternative name "Food Lane" because a local chain was already known as Food Fair. Then not long afterward, Grand Union bought and renamed the DC Food Fair chain, so the Philly chain was given the right to use their own name. But soon afterward the Philly chain was renamed Pantry Pride anyway (but even this name change, which went with a big modernization effort, couldn't save them from going out of business just in time for 1980).

On top of that, some of the former Food Fair/Pantry Pride stores in the Lehigh Valley (Allentown area of PA) became stores also called "Food Lane", named after parent company Laneco. Eventually Laneco went out of business and the former Food Lane stores became Great Valu, part of a network of independent grocers all over the East Coast. What's funny is that not only did a lot of former Food Fair/Pantry Pride stores in Greater Philadelphia become Great Valu years earlier, but so did some of the former Grand Union stores in the DC area.

[FitchMike26]

I don't know much about Food Fair/Pantry Pride. Sorry!

[Stork of The Weak]

I don't know much about Food Fair/Pantry Pride. Sorry!

No problem, I wasn't assuming you did. Maybe if the merger of Giant and Giant had happened way back in the early 50's, there never would have been two chains called Food Fair, or two chains called Food Lane. Just a thought...

[Stork of The Weak]

I think the A&P in Pompton Lakes, NJ is a former Super G but I guess it also could have been either an Edwards or a Stop & Shop (probably a Super Stop & Shop) built soon after Giant Landover was bought by Ahold.

Also, I think the space opposite the Barnes & Noble at Marketfair Mall in Princeton was a Super G originally. I completely forget what stores are in that space currently, and unfortunately Bing Maps views aren't much help. This mall is weird because to my knowledge it never has had any department store anchors, but is like any other mall inside.

On another subject, wouldn't it have been a good idea for Giant (Carlisle) to close the few stores they had that overlapped with the Super G stores in Pennsylvania, while possibly converting the Super G stores to Giant Carlisle to replace the stores that closed? That to me would have made a lot more sense and been a lot lest wasteful than Super G scrapping so many stores that were almost new and were usually more upscale than the Giant Carlisle stores.

[JoshAustin610]

The Pompton Lakes A&P opened in the early 00s on the site of an Acme that was destroyed in a fire in 1997; neither Super G or Edwards went that far north into NJ.  The A&P is set much further back from the road than Acme.

The Market Fair Mall in Princeton was just intended to be a small fashion-oriented upscale mall, with no major anchors (other than Barnes & Noble).  It never had a grocery anchor, although the Whole Foods nearby was originally a Pathmark.

Ahold's goal then as it is now to keep the union and non-union chains separate; they couldn't convert the Super Gs into Giant-PAs without doing so, which is the reason they kept the Devon store a Super G until it closed.  They also wouldn't have closed Giant-PAs in place of Super Gs; newer and upscale doesn't necessarily translate into more business (as the Devon store proved).

[FitchMike26]

Everything JoshAustin said is pretty spot on. The Giant-Landover stores in PA *had* to close. Otherwise, there would have been no way to get rid of the unions.

Besides, evidence shows that these stores weren't doing all that well. Look at the Devon/Berwyn store that ended up closing anyway, due to lack of business. The VP of Public Affairs for Giant-Landover said it best: "It's not doing any business. It didn't do any business."

Story about the closing here:
http://articles.philly.com/1999-08-10/news/25484218_1_food-trade-news-barry-f-scher-supermarket

Stork, perhaps you should consider creating a website or blog dedicated to Super G? You seem to enjoy reminiscing about it a lot. It could be interesting to see photos of the stores nowadays, and what is in those places today!

[Stork of The Weak]

It really surprises me Ahold still uses the Giant name for two different chains. Even with the Super G and Martin's names used to stop overlap, isn't there still a lot of potential for confusion? For example, wouldn't both Super G and Martin's sell products under the "Giant" name? It boggles my mind that Giant Carlisle sells products with the Giant Landover branding (with the Stop & Shop-like logo). Also when the Super G stores were open in PA, wouldn't lots of customers have asked employees what the G stood for in the name, and after finding out assumed the stores were part of Giant Carlisle? And I know I've seen bags and other items with the Giant (Carlisle) logo at Martin's stores, which could create a lot of confusion.

But at the same time why would the Super G name (as opposed to the traditional Giant name) have ever been used in NJ, a state that never had a Giant Carlisle presence? Of course in PA the Super G name was very necessary to prevent confusion, but considering the Super G logo was based on the regular Giant Landover logo, it's not like using the Giant name on one side of the river and the Super G name on the other side would have confused anyone to whom it mattered.

What's really ridiculous is that at the same time the Super G stores in NJ were renamed Stop & Shop, at least one Super G in Delaware (the closest one to Pennsylvania) was renamed Super Giant. Well a few years later the Super Giant (Carlisle) in Willow Grove opened. But also the Stop & Shop stores that were Super G in NJ were sold to ShopRite around that time, and Ahold finally created the new logo to be shared by Stop & Shop and Giant Landover, which the northernmost Giant Landover in Delaware got, minus the name "super". I have NO idea what valuable purpose changing this store's name from Super G to Super Giant had, though the name change did go with a remodel of the store, but no expansion happened to make the store "super". A Starbucks was added to the store as the only new feature at the time, but that closed anyway when the next name/logo change happened. Maybe the minor name change to Super Giant would have made sense if it happened years earlier, as Super G withdrew from PA, but Giant Carlisle grew EXPLOSIVELY in the Philly suburbs between the time Super G exited the market and the time Ahold scrapped the Super G name in NJ.

Anyway, my idea to prevent confusion would be to have renamed the whole of Giant Landover to Super G, while renaming the whole of Giant Carlisle to Martin's. Considering the names would change but not the logo designs, I don't see any reason why this would scare away loyal customers of either Giant. But maybe because those familiar with the older Giant Landover stores in the South would have come to expect more from the stores with the Super G name, and because the G was short for Giant, all Giant Landover stores should have been renamed Stop & Shop instead.

[FitchMike26]

You're clearly obsessed with Super G.

[Stork of The Weak]

You're clearly obsessed with Super G.

What's your point? I know this is the Giant-Carlisle forum, but as it isn't dominated by current events/employment discussion like the Stop & Shop forum on this site, I like to use it to discuss the history of Ahold USA. Let's forget division names for a moment, I am "obsessed" with better decisions that retail companies could have made than the ones they actually made.

[FitchMike26]

First, this thread is for the Giant-Carlisle division. There is another thread below for Giant-Landover.

Second, I get that you are/were a big fan of the short lived Super G experiment in the Delaware Valley. Unfortunately, that experiment did not work out. The PA stores weren't making any money, and had to close anyway due to the acquisition by Ahold. The South Jersey stores were tinkered with repeatedly, and still ended up closing. It's really only the Delaware stores that worked out at all.

Third, I am not a moderator here, and won't tell you want you can/can't post. But a lot of what you say is very far fetched speculation. "What if this happened and this had this name, and we renamed this that, and this store moved from this shopping center to that shopping center" etc. There's a ton of "what ifs" in the retail business. We can't possibly discuss every single scenario that ever could have happened.

The bottom line is, Giant-Landover could not compete in the majority of the Philadelphia market. No "what ifs" are going to change that today. Period.

[Stork of The Weak]

Bringing this back to current events, why does the Super Fresh division of A&P still exist? Many of their relatively very few stores left at this point (only about 25 are still open!) are very small, very run down dumps. Three of their Delaware stores fit this description perfectly. They fairly recently exited NJ (except for one or two stores by the shore including in Ocean City) yet are hanging on in PA which would seem to have so many more supermarkets to compete with. It seems the PA stores have been kept just a little bit nicer and more up to date than the DE stores, but not by much.

[MikeRa]

Bringing this back to current events, why does the Super Fresh division of A&P still exist? Many of their relatively very few stores left at this point (only about 25 are still open!) are very small, very run down dumps. Three of their Delaware stores fit this description perfectly. They fairly recently exited NJ (except for one or two stores by the shore including in Ocean City) yet are hanging on in PA which would seem to have so many more supermarkets to compete with. It seems the PA stores have been kept just a little bit nicer and more up to date than the DE stores, but not by much.

Here is a list of the 21 superfresh and what they were previously
DE
1: Claymont Super Fresh Super Store: 2105 Philadelphia Pike (Store #562)
2: New Castle Super Fresh Food Market: 2044 New Castle Ave (Store 586) (Former A&P Supermarket)
3: Newark Super Fresh Food Market: 401 New London Rd (Store 588) (Former A&P Supermarket {Colonial Design})
4: Rehoboth Beach Super Fresh Super Store: 18578 Coastal Road, Unit 11 (Store 559)
5: Wilmington Super Fresh Food Market: 1812 Marsh Road (Store 584) (Former A&P Supermarket {Colonial Design})
MD
6: Ocean City Super Fresh Food Market: 12741 Ocean Gateway (Store 888)
7: Ocean City Super Fresh Food Market: 9507 Coastal Hwy (Store 950) (Former A&P Supermarket)
NJ
8: Manahawkin Super Fresh Food Market: 609 E Bay Ave (Store 471) (Former A&P Supermarket)
9: North Wildwood superfresh: 26400 Delaware Ave (Store 474) (Former A&P Supermarket/Super Fresh Food Market)
10: Ocean City Super Fresh Super Store: 800 West Ave (Store 477)
PA
11: Blue Bell (Center Square) superfresh: 1301 Skippack Pike (Store 314) (Former Clover Department Store’s Mini Mall/Clemens Supermarket)
12: Gladwyne superfresh: 1110 Youngsford Rd. (Store 294) (Former A&P Supermarket/Super Fresh Food Market {Colonial Design})
13: Havertown superfresh: 1305 West Chester Pike (Store 189) (Former Penn Fruit Supermarket/ Super Fresh Super Store)
14: Kennett Square Super Fresh Super Store: 863 Baltimore Pike (Store 244)
15: New Hope superfresh: 322 West Bridge Street (Store 718) (Former Thriftway Supermarket/Clemens Supermarket)
16: Philadelphia superfresh: 1001 South St. (Store 747) (Former Super Fresh Food Market)
17; Philadelphia superfresh: 309 South 5th Street (Store 730) (Former A&P Supermarket/Super Fresh Food Market {Colonial Building})
18: Philadelphia Super Fresh Super Store: 1851 S. Chris Columbus Blvd. (Store 726)
19: Philadelphia superfresh: 180 West Girard Avenue (Store #233)
Philadelphia superfresh: 7162 Ridge Pike (Built on site of former Colonial Design A&P Supermarket)
20: Richboro (Southampton) superfresh: 800 2nd St. (Store 252) (Former Super Fresh Super Store.   Former location at western end of shopping center, opened as A&P Supermarket.  Relocated to current store in 1999)
21: Wynnewood superfresh: 200 E. Lancaster Ave (Store 293) (Former A&P Supermarket/Super Fresh Food Market/Super Fresh Super Store {Colonial Building})
List is updated 4/18/2014

[FitchMike26]

The Superfresh division was created in 1982 to void the existing union contacts at certain A&P locations, mostly in/around Philadelphia. With the new division came new union contacts. New stores opening after 1982 fell under these new contracts, too.

The alternative was that A&P was going to permanently CLOSE all those locations. If I recall correctly, the idea to create a new division was a last minute idea to save these locations. And saved, they were...for the time being.

The Trappe, PA Superfresh, formerly a Clemens Family Market, closed in 2010. Here's a photo of that store:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/62355920@N00/4409631607/

Photo credit: Josh Austin

[BillyGr]

Bringing this back to current events, why does the Super Fresh division of A&P still exist? Many of their relatively very few stores left at this point (only about 25 are still open!) are very small, very run down dumps. Three of their Delaware stores fit this description perfectly. They fairly recently exited NJ (except for one or two stores by the shore including in Ocean City) yet are hanging on in PA which would seem to have so many more supermarkets to compete with. It seems the PA stores have been kept just a little bit nicer and more up to date than the DE stores, but not by much.

At least some of them probably stick around due to the areas they are in.  Stores like the 5th St Philly store (which is only a few blocks from the historical area but in a more residental zone and most likely the only real "supermarket" in that area), the Newark DE store (which is directly across from a college, so probably lots of student traffic) and even the two in Ocean City MD (There was a Food Lion, and probably still is?, but with the area being somewhat more isolated as an island there is still not a lot of competition).

Combined with the fact that these areas aren't far from other A&P branches (Pathmark and the A&P stores themselves in various places) makes them not hard to deliver to, not like when they had a handful of A&P stores up here in NY at least an hour or more away from anything else and sometimes a several hour trip to get supplies to certain ones.

[MikeRa]

The Superfresh division was created in 1982 to void the existing union contacts at certain A&P locations, mostly in/around Philadelphia. With the new division came new union contacts. New stores opening after 1982 fell under these new contracts, too.

The alternative was that A&P was going to permanently CLOSE all those locations. If I recall correctly, the idea to create a new division was a last minute idea to save these locations. And saved, they were...for the time being.

The Trappe, PA Superfresh, formerly a Clemens Family Market, closed in 2010. Here's a photo of that store:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/62355920@N00/4409631607/

Photo credit: Josh Austin

thanks.  i updated the superfresh list which now shows 21 stores

[Stork of The Weak]

What's up with Giant/Martin's changing their logo from orange to red? They did that around 2000. Since orange is a less common color, shouldn't they have stuck with it to suggest differentiation from the competition?

[Stork of The Weak]

This Super Fresh (converted from an expanded 50's A&P) from a 1984 photo reminds me a lot of the Giant stores from the 80's: https://www.flickr.com/photos/42444189@N04/14073642274/

Super Fresh closed here in 1995 though because Acme opened a huge new store a block away less than a year earlier. Surprisingly Pathmark stayed open across the street from both stores, even though this was a very old Pathmark that started as ShopRite in the 60's. Of course it ended up being owned by A&P (also owner of Super Fresh) in the late 2000s, but closed less than a year ago after Acme did a minor remodel. ShopRite also is in town and really needs to update their store.