Safeway Grand Opening

[Greg]

Clean, spacious, Wi-Fi, no stankiness, O-organics, olive bar, tables inside and out, plenty parking.......................I worry more about the other supermarkets.

[missydog1]

I agree with your pros and cons, Carol (I hardly buy any produce there). But why would anyone not do the Safeway card? It takes 15 seconds to enter a phone number, and watch the prices roll back ...

I believe the point of having a number associated with each customer's tab is so they can track customer buying habits ... but that is not a bad thing, as they use the info to stock the store with what people want to buy.

I buy almost nothing that isn't on club card. Typically the manager has to come put in a savings over-ride when I get rung up.

[Erlinda]

You really need to get the Safeway Club card to take advantage of the sales. I gave them an old work telephone number; they don't care and my privacy is protected. Sounds like the remodeled or new Safeways here on the mainland. Hilo deserves a nice new store like this.

[hawaiideborah]

quote:

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Originally posted by Greg

Clean, spacious, Wi-Fi, no stankiness, O-organics, olive bar, tables inside and out, plenty parking.......................I worry more about the other supermarkets.

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Agree strongly. Wonderful store. They have my business for sure.
what pushed it over the top? olive bar and tables in and out. Great place to hang with wi-fi... yea for Hilo.
Now if we could get a good bookstore to replace Boarders... Barnes and Noble???? (I can dream, can't I?)[]

[Lucy]

Reading that is so delightful! I am happy for you all that this moved into the neighborhood. Maybe they will take special order too.
Down here in Texas we have H.E.B. stores that are truly gourmet heaven. Some are supersized and have lots of imported or hard to find items numbering in the thousands. I often wished that when we get there HEB would be there also. Hard to be without great food that they have and their customer service is wonderful. To see what I mean, here it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POq_6HIq-q8
It would be great if a Hawaii retailer would model them.

Lucy

Having another Great day in Paradise, Wherever that Maybe!

[Kapohocat]

I would have been way more impressed if the 10% coupon was for a week instead of 3 hrs and a mob scene.

oh well.

[missydog1]

Lucy,
the Island Gourmet store at Waikoloa Beach is a gourmet store. Not items in the thousands though.

Another new section at this Safeway, Indian food. Tucked away, a few aisles from the produce. Sauces, mixes, chutneys, ingredients. Seems like they have sorted out the ethnic cuisines instead of jumbling them into an Asian section. Very nice.

[csgray]

My husband was in KTA tonight getting dog food and said it was a veritable ghost town. KTA and Sack N Save are both going to have to up their game if they want to hang onto market share, although once you get past the WOW factor a lot of Safeway's prices are still very high. Their deals are good, but you can lose those savings right back to the store if you end up picking up some of their non-sale items while there. $5 a pound for organic potatoes is absurd, also kabocha squash was $4 a lb. while every other store has it for around $1.38 per pound, TP, paper towels, and plastic bags were all much higher than other stores too.

There was a chain of smaller grocery stores in Oregon called Price chopper, they were a lot like a cross between Sack 'n Save and Cost U Less, until the founder retired and his son in law took over with a really different vision. They became PC-Market of Choice and added all the frills: olive bar with 20 different kinds of olives, coffee shop, gourmet bakery, and a killer hot food and deli section with wood fired pizza ovens. They were what Safeway is trying to be, yet their prices were very competitive. They combined the Price Chopper eye on low prices with a gourmet natural food store sensibility and have been very successful, in fact they put at least one Safeway out of business.

Carol

[d96778]

Carol....I too loved Price Chopper in Oregon....and even when they were bought out by PC-Market of Choice, I still shopped there. But then they sold it to a local franchise, who promised to keep the lower prices, but didn't. They raised the prices & got rid of a lot of the specialty items. But they did have the best variety of locally grown organic produce.

I wish we had something similar to the old Price Chopper, too.

Dee

[Rob Tucker]

I finally checked out the new Safeway tonight. I was there before the grand opening but wasn't interested in the crush. The new store is great. For the most part the prices on my regular purchases are just the same.

I think what might be startling some people on prices is that they aren't used to seeing the high end stuff. Rack of lamb wasn't available before and it costs more than hamburger. The selections are much broader and that growth of selection involves a lot of tasty goodies on the higher end. The only thing missing is a salad bar.

So as far as I'm concerned Hilo just took a step into the 21st century in a way. Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad... but it is happening and Safeway won't be short on customers.