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Saturday, May 18, 2013
Market opens at 17th and Capitol
by Suzanne Hurt, published on August 18, 2010 at 8:15 PM
Storyline: Stores and Shops
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A new Grocery Outlet is set to open Thursday in Midtown.
Local residents and state workers seemed not to recognize the place when owners Mindi and Ken Admire offered a sneak peak during a ribbon-cutting celebration late Wednesday afternoon.
A market-scene mural still marks the corner store at 17th Street and Capitol Avenue, where Rick's Uptown Market operated. But following a costly renovation, the 9,000-square-foot space is much more neighborhood market than convenience store.
The sidewalk in front is lined with wooden produce bins holding tomatoes, avocados, onions and fruit. Cheeses, meats and more produce line back walls. A grab-and-go section in front offers pasta salad, sandwiches and cut fruit. A small flower stand marks the entrance to the store.
"I can't believe it's the same store," said 28-year-old neighbor Heather Woodford, who checked out the store with Ryan Malhoski, 25.
Guests at the ribbon-cutting celebration included City Councilman Kevin McCarty and Grocery Outlet owners from Modesto, Folsom and West Sacramento.
The Admires, who relocated from Orange County, are opening a branch of the chain that calls itself the country's largest "extreme-value" grocery retailer. Their children, Kristina and Kenneth, will help manage the store. Ken Admire has worked in the grocery industry for 34 years and once managed a Wild Oats Market in Colorado.
The store will offer brand-name products at steep discounts, like others in the chain. Brands include Kellogg's, General Mills, Betty Crocker and a Texas brand from H-E-B Grocery Co. The store, open daily from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., also sells Naturalist vitamins, beauty products, frozen foods and household goods.
The market is the type of thing the central city needs to be sustainable and less car-dependent, said Patty Kleinknecht, executive director of the River District.
As the celebration began, artist Michael Stanford continued his work to restore the mural he created 10 years ago for Rick's Uptown Market. He's replaced the name of the old store with "Midtown Grocery Outlet Bargain Market." Neighbors and Sacramento artists led by the Midtown Murals Project persuaded Grocery Outlet officials to keep the mural, said the chain's spokeswoman, Melissa Porter.
The exterior was painted and landscaped, the interior gutted and completely renovated. Betsy Barnhart, who works across the street at the California Department of Public Health, used to buy her lunch at Rick's market. Now she plans to do a lot of her grocery shopping there, she said.
"I like Grocery Outlet. I like the deals you get," she said. "This is a huge difference from what it was."
Photos by Suzanne Hurt, a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.
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Love the mural.
Why is a DGS worker excited about having a generic chain to frequent, not only for the scary looking "Grab n Go" end cap, but "This is a huge difference from what it was" is ugly and corporate and doesn't fit in the historic neighborhood. Can't you get this crap close enough to your Natomas or Elk Grove home?
"But following a costly renovation, the 9,000-square-foot space is much more neighborhood market than convenience store."
This market site has historically been a neighborhood market and never been "a convenience store." With all the negative impacts for residents in this neighborhood, and chichification of the surrounding businesses and blocks, it's baffling that the building owner chose to lease to a garish, generic, corporate discount chain.
People with Natomas or Elk Grove homes have other discount grocery options in their communities, but those of us with Midtown homes don't, and despite the hype, a lot of us don't give a darn about "chichification." It's about time we had more neighborhood-serving retail in the central city, instead of businesses designed to cater to those who come here to visit.
When corporate grocery chains avoid low income areas they are evil. When corporate grocery chains moves into midtown they are evil.
Sure I guess it would be cool if a local independent could sell groceries at prices that are competitive with other options. But Grocery Outlet coming in and fixing up this location sure seems like the next best thing.
And of course, if you turn out to be right and nobody likes the place, trust that GO will quickly sell it off and it will revert to a dumpy little convenience store again.
As for a competitive local independent, Grocery Outlet is far from "the next best thing." In fact, the owners of Good Eats -- which also opened today at Alhambra and Folsom -- offered to put a market in the Rick's space, but the owner turned them down.
The market has changed over the years, from the days it was Compton's and then Rick's under successive owners. However, it was never a "dumpy little convenience store."
Where is the "political projection" in my comment?
I would appreciate it if you just waited 10mins for me to actually make a political comment on a SacPress story before instructing me to keep it to myself :)
Below are your quotes, which my comment was addressing.
"this franchise is entirely unsuited to the neighborhood"
"is ugly and corporate and doesn't fit in the historic neighborhood."
"chose to lease to a garish, generic, corporate discount chain."
I am now ready to accept your apology...
You sound like one of the many, many disgruntled Midtown residents who oppose any new developments in the neighborhood, regardless of the purpose, size or benefits to the community. Perhaps you should give them the benefit of the doubt, as I believe GO will be a very positive influence on the area.
Even on the corporate level though, it's a family run business on its 3rd generation and headquartered in nearby Berkeley.
Additionally it is competing with other much larger national grocers. To me it is more the scrappy upstart than say, Trader Joe's or Safeway. And even with it there I will still shop at the co-op for organic produce and Corti Bros. for all kinds of amazing stuff. And I'll probably still shop at Safeway and Trader Joe's.
I really don't see any negatives to this store's opening, other than perhaps the stomach ache I will get from overloading on steeply discounted candy bars (my favorite grocery outlet pastime).
they're open 7 AM to 9 PM daily
I ain't shopping there. I don't care how decorated it is with pretty food. If their workers can't earn a decent wage, they're capitalizing on the midtown market and not being good citizens.
Well informed people have made it abundantly clear that they strongly prefer non-union food sources. Most of the new growth in the grocery business has been non-union, whether it's Trader Joes, Walmart/Target & Costco all the way down to our local farmer's markets and the weekly organic vegetable delivery that I get each week.
I am glad to have Grocery Outlet in midtown, and even happier to hear that they recognize the folly of the false promise that comes with unionization.
Safeway is unionized - go ahead and pay 2-3x there what you would at GO.
What exactly is the false premise of unions that you refer to. Could it be the right to a living wage, perhaps it is the 8 hour day instead of 12, or 14 or even 16 hour days that you fault. Maybe it is the right to have 2 days free of the workplace. These are just a few of the things we take for granted today, but which would never have been granted, and did not come without the power of organized workers demanding these rights, and standing their ground in picket lines, deprivation , the brutality of paid goons, and often even against the police and state militias. Someone up there has already said it, union wages raise everyone's wages--or at least this was once more evident before most unionized jobs were ship overseas.
I will never discount the vitally important role that unions played in the century past.
But it is pretty apparent how sad the American labor union movement has become when you have to go back 100 years to identify your major successes.
Meanwhile, as the American unions quietly count their mounds of cash, 100's of millions of laborers around the world are still suffering the same exact abuses that you describe above.
Instead of doing the hard and risky work of organizing Chinese miners and factory workers, our unions have degenerated into grocery store shakedowns forcing them to pay their checkers $30+ an hour, and thereby sticking it to the average consumer.
Hopefully 21st century unions will realize the tide has turned in America and grocery checkers will probably be okay without them, but there is literally a world of opportunity for labor organizing.