CARSON, Calif. -- Bristol Farms here said last week it will open its 12th store at the end of the year -- the first since it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons last fall and its first new store in five years.
Kevin Davis, chairman, president and chief executive officer, said the store will be the first of several units the company expects to open over the next several years, though he declined to be specific about projected numbers or locations.
The store will be located on the north edge of Westchester, Calif., in a location bordered by several upper-middle-income areas, including Marina del Rey, Playa del Rey and a new housing development on an adjacent site called Playa Vista, "which will give us access to the kind of upwardly mobile, high-end consumers who form our customer base," Davis told SN.
Bristol Farms already operates stores several miles north and south of the Westchester location, "so the store will provide a nice fill-in between geographic areas where people already know us, and we think it will do very well."
The store -- a former Albertsons whose lease Bristol Farms is acquiring -- is 35,000 square feet, just slightly larger than Bristol Farms' 28,500-square-foot prototype, Davis said, which will enable the company to expand its fresh prepared foods offerings and operate a larger in-store restaurant. "There will also be other new features," Davis said, although he declined to be more specific, citing competitive reasons.
Bristol Farms plans to gut the store's interior and remodel the exterior as well, he said. The company is noted for taking over non-supermarket sites, including the former Chasen's Restaurant in Beverly Hills, Calif., and converting them to its specific merchandising needs.
At the time Albertsons acquired the company, Bristol Farms had sales of $192 million at 11 stores.
Davis said Bristol Farms has an aggressive expansion program in place that will include new and acquired locations. "We're working on rolling out new stores and looking at a lot of potential acquisition sites, not just Albertsons stores but units of other chains as well, to drive our growth strategy, and we anticipate pretty aggressive growth over the next several years. After Westchester, we won't get another store open this year, but we anticipate beginning construction prior to that opening on some new stores."
