Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Eeek!!


Fresh & Easy grocery stores may be closed

Stacy Finz
Updated 5:34 p.m., Wednesday, December 5, 2012

British supermarket chain Tesco is considering closing down its 200 American Fresh & Easy grocery stores - 19 in the Bay Area - after they failed to deliver acceptable shareholder returns, the company announced Wednesday.

"Whilst the business has many positives, its journey to scale and acceptable returns will take too long relative to other opportunities," Phillip Clarke, Tesco's chief executive, said in a written release. 

The firm said it will conduct a strategic review of the U.S. grocery chain before making a final decision, which could include selling off the stores instead of shutting them down. Company officials say they have been approached by a number of parties interested in acquiring either some or all of the business, or partnering with Tesco.

Posted by Steve Sinai

25 comments:

Tommy Tutone said...

It is the curse of Pacifica!!!! Mmmuuuuuuuuuuaaaaahhhhhh hahahahahaahaha

Eddie Kihn said...

Call Fresh & Easy to complain. Ask for Jenny at 867-5309.

Anonymous said...

Complain? How about shopping more? It's a business, not a convenience for whiny Pacificans who probably didn't patronize the place. It never seemed very busy. Don't know about their other locations but they took a chance opening a more upscale store in a very downscale kind of town, and doing so during a recession. Bloody good show and all that. Pack up and go where the money is.

Anonymous said...

Its the supermarket union. Fresh & Easy is killing Safeway and Lucky's.

Anonymous said...

Just what Pacifica needs, another vacant storefront. F&E was never in a good location,even Safeway figured that out after many years and built a new building across the highway.

Anonymous said...

@722 Quite a theory you have there but F&E isn't killing anybody and that's the problem.

Anonymous said...

What's wrong with the location? Parking is a tad tough on weekends. Mostly due to the idiot surfers

Anonymous said...

but fresh and easy was pacifica's salvation! OH NO! Was city council wrong on this??

Anonymous said...

It's a business and business is definitely Pacifica's salvation. I read that right here. So, what went wrong? Opinions, all you business tycoons?

Anonymous said...

Good news for our other independent grocers. One less slice out of the pie that's left after Safeway pigs out.

Anonymous said...

Nothing has gone wrong yet. But let's blame the parent company's considering closing all 200 US stores on the Pacifica City Council. It's always their fault.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, council is damned if they do and damned if they don't. Wasn't Vreeland the leading supporter for F&E? I believe so. And he was right on that one, even if F&E doesn't succeed here. The decision to bring business to Pacifica is the right decision, isn't it? No matter who makes it. If we lose F&E let's be sure this business-friendly council lives up to its billing and is effective in keeping that location occupied.

Anonymous said...

A grocery outlet would be perfect for Pacifica.

Lots of empty space for a grocery outlet store.

Plus they have great prices. The store in SSF is almost always really busy.

Tex said...

How about a country-western bar and grill. Dancing, honky-tonking, all that stuff. With a grill serving MEAT! Stage for bands, square-dancing during the week. Line dance classes. There is nothing until you get over to the Saddle Rack in Fremont. It would pull from Marin County, San Francisco County. All over the Bay Area. It woul draw people to Paciifca by the truckloads.

Anonymous said...

FE did create a dynamic competition in town between grocers. Safeway definitely reduced a lot of it's prices because of FE.

Where FE fell down or just flat out failed was the quality of it's brands. The uncooked meats were awful even compared to a chain outfit like Safeway, flavorless off colored and just eck.

Tesco is a good company in a place like England or Ireland, but in the US with local markets, farmers markets et al FE never really stood a chance.

One day at FE I saw a Brit Exec openly ridiculing the local shoppers to other FE employees. Typical Brit attitude, and it comes across in the stores marketing.

I hope Tesco keeps the FE stores open. We have lots of friends and family that love the chain.

Anonymous said...

Oh, great. Is it already the time again where we all click our heels together and chant "An outlet mall would be great in the quarry" and pretend that it does something?

Steve Sinai said...

A premium outlet mall in the quarry would be great. The one in Livermore is going gangbusters.

Anonymous said...

Yes! Let's repeat that over and over! It's worked so well in the past.

Anonymous said...

Did I just see a post about Pete being on council for 16 years? Now Its not posted?

Does Fix Pacifica have an internal power struggle at headquarters?

Kathy Meeh said...

"..Pete being on council for 16 years?" Anonymous 3:29 PM

I posted the article, but chose to remove it temporarily when the Federal Judgement to dismiss the golf course lawsuit article was posted.

You must be waiting patiently for that Pete article, but don't worry it will "repeat" in a few hours.

Anonymous said...

F&E, Trader Joe's, premium outlets or upscale anything? You can forget about them. Signs of the times? We've got the new Goodwill Store in Linda Mar and today I rec'd a flyer announcing a new dollar store also in LM. That cheapo grocery outlet someone mentioned earlier may be just the thing for Pedro Point. Even if some of us and everyone at city hall are unclear about this town's economic future, the marketplace has us all figured out. No big crash here, probably no bankruptcy, just a long, slow, pitiful slide to the bottom.

Anonymous said...

there is nothing upscale about Pacifica, and there never will be.

Anonymous said...

outlet malls are rarely successful unless they are located off a major highway corridor. think vacaville (I-80) or livermore (580). you need that demon "traffic" the nobies will never allow to make an outlet mall successful.

Anonymous said...

Forget any nice outlet mall It wouldn't fit the local ambience. The low-rent "preview" of Pacifica you get driving past Manor Shopping Center on the way to the quarry would turn off the most avid outlet shopper. They'd take the first exit and turn around.

Anonymous said...

You also need a certain number of people (a market; customers) within a certain distance from the site. If you draw a a circle with a 10 or 25 or 50 mile radius from the quarry, half of that circle is in the ocean. That site can never compete as a site for a mall where other sites have both many more people in their market area and are situated on an 8-lane freeway.