The Lone Ranger

In a Birmingham, Ala. market dominated by chains, Western Market sets itself apart with a format focusing on fresh, local, different and friendly service. Tater tots. At Western Market in Vestavia, Ala., the term refers not to the crunchy little Ore-Ida brand potato nuggets, but rather to the children lining up to ride Tater, the name given to the old-fashioned mechanical pony ride installed this spring. Tater is up front next to the courtesy booth, and a key element of a total store remodel that transformed a traditional run-of-the mill store into an upscale western-themed emporium that plays off the banner’s decades-long family-owned history in the market and better suits the Birmingham suburb’s rapidly gentrifying population. “Tater gives us the best ‘Western’ feel,” says Darwin Metcalf, president and COO of Birmingham, Ala.-based Western Market. “It is really awesome when little kids get on there and just grin from ear-to-ear. It brings back that nostalgia. We have 60 year-old guys come up and say Tater just brings up the greatest memories of when they were a kid and riding the pony out in front of Woolworth’s.” A bucket of quarters on top of the ride allows good boys and girls to ride Tater for free, and they can wear a straw cowboy hat and take home a complimentary balloon. “Thanks to Tater, kids are now saying, ‘Mom, I want to go to the grocery store. I want to go to Western so I can ride the pony,’” Metcalf says. In Vestavia it has become increasingly important to target the kiddie-ride set. “The neighborhood is getting younger, the houses are turning over, the Baby Boomers are downsizing and so our consumer is getting younger every year,” Metcalf says. Motioning to a row of toddler-size mini shopping carts lined up next to the full-size models in the vestibule, Metcalf adds, “The free balloon you take when you leave the store, the cowboy hat, the buggy, I do a lot of things to start those young Western shoppers.” The novel approach is helping ensure Western’s survival. In the last decade Whole Foods, two Publix, The Fresh Market, two Walmart Neighborhood Markets, Earth Fare, the locally-owned Organic Harvest and Target have encroached on the Vestavia store’s turf. Other local operators, notably Bruno’s and sister chain Food World, have gone by the wayside, leaving Western as the only remaining independent chain in town. Rooted in the Deep South since its establishment in 1948 as a butcher shop specializing in western beef, today Western Market operates seven stores in greater Birmingham under four different banners. Three of them are Western Market. Owned by Ken Hubbard, the second owner in the company’s 66-year-history, the company formally changed its name from Western Supermarkets to Western Market to better connote its more upscale image. In-store changes including carrying more local produce, serving as an incubator for start-up mom and pop firms, stocking specialty pet foods, and becoming the go-to place for the latest craft beers and upscale wines are also building its cachet. Floor is tops The upscale image begins in the parking lot where an attractive, but dated, English Tudor façade was replaced with a rich red brick storefront replete with ornamental copper topped second story Oriel windows. Inside, more dramatic changes are literally flooring shoppers: The tile floor that had been in existence since the store opened as a Winn-Dixie (Western acquired it in 1996) was covered with a wood-plank look vinyl flooring throughout the entire store. “The icing on the cake is the floor,” says Steve Shelton, general manager of the Vestavia store. “With the new flooring people ask if the store is bigger. Do you have more room? Our old tile floor had four colors: brown that we had in our wine department to set it apart, light green and white, and then the traditional Winn-Dixie black that kind of outlined the perimeter of the store.” “We get the most comments on the floor,” Metcalf says. “People love the floor. We’ve probably had 30 customers ask us where we bought it because they want to put it in their lake house or in their rec room.” And the floor’s low luster is a time and money saver. “We save about $27,000 a year in maintenance by not having to wax,” Metcalf says. “The ROI is incredible.” Shoppers entering the store pass the floral department and head into produce where the single-deck shelves were painted black and retrofitted by removing the mirror and adding “air flow” shelving. “It gives it a much better look than the old single-deck case,” Metcalf says. Plastic clamshells filled with fresh-shelled lima beans and black-eyed peas are among the items in the case. “We are down at the farmers market in Birmingham about five days a week and we normally have a fresh-shelled product,” Metcalf says. The black shelves slightly contrast with the sea foam green walls, highlighted by decorative copper cornices that lead to the ceiling. “When we were doing the décor we used the copper because there is some copper outside,” says Rick Spina, president of Spina Marketing, the Birmingham, Ala.-based design firm that spearheaded the remodel. “We then took an LED strip light—the same light that we put in to illuminate the cases—inside the column and it fits perfectly. It really brings the copper out and adds to the design of the store.” Whenever possible local produce is stocked—and highlighted. “When you have Chilton County peaches you’ve got to keep them front and center,” Shelton says, pointing to a refrigerated table in the middle of the sales floor. Similar attention is given to Gratitude Farms lettuce from Hanceville, Ala., 75 miles away, merchandised at the head of the produce case, and Pure Alabama Honey, merchandised on top of an old Mondavi wine barrel. As is the trend nowadays, the portraits of the proprietors of Gratitude Farms, Pure Alabama Honey and other produce vendors grace the walls, as do pictures of local manufacturers. “You will see around the store all of the pictures of the different vendors we use on the wall and not just farmers,” says Metcalf. “It gives the store a local flavor.” One of those pictures is of Milo’s Famous Tea out of Bessemer, a Birmingham mainstay found in every other shopping cart. Movement is so strong that an entire coffin case in the rear of the store has been devoted to the brand. “The numbers are incredible,” Shelton says. “We order about 65 cases a truck and we do three trucks a week—just for this one store. We blow through this stuff.” Shoppers are also plowing through the Fruit & Salad Bar, a produce department addition. In an idea borrowed from Dorothy Lane Market, a mirror placed above the salad bar serves as a billboard of sorts, allowing shoppers to see its contents from a distance. “The salad bar is new to our customers and it has really done well,” Shelton says. “Its numbers are about 25% better than we expected.” The backdrop to the salad bar is a suspended wrought iron fence, which allows shoppers to see the extensive wine and beer department in back of it. A wooden arbor to the left leads to the wine aisles, the one on the right to beer. “I put in the wrought iron fence to kind of break up the wine and beer department so it is not in your face, but you also don’t want to make it disappear,” Spina says. “It also enhances the salad bar.” Hop Heads As part of the remodel, the beer department was moved from the left side of the store and greatly expanded. “We put in 22 doors of beer, that’s about 770 beers,” Shelton says. “Talk about going upscale, the craft beer industry is really growing and that is something that the younger Gen Y customer really relates to. We have one of the larger craft beer sections in the metro area. There is a website called Free the Hops and that is where all the Hop Heads go. They come in here and check out our products, take pictures of our cases, post them and say ‘They have this at Western.’ It has really been good for business.” The department opens with a door dedicated to “new beers” as the sign taped to its front states. “The Hop Head group wants to know what is new,” Metcalf says. “So we took this door and for the first 30 days when a new beer comes out we put it in here. Then we make the decision on if it is going to make the set or not.” The next few sets of doors are dedicated to local craft beers, followed by East Coast beers, West Coast, imports and then the mainstream Budweiser, Miller and Coors national brands. The bulk of the local doors are dedicated to Avondale and Good People, both brewed in Birmingham. “Good People is our second best moving beer in the store,” Metcalf says. “I just never thought I’d see the day where a local craft brewery was the No. 2 volume beer in a store over Budweiser, Coors and all of those.” When it comes to beer, Western officials say their small size allows them to act more nimbly than the big chain competitors. “We’re going to have a new beer first because of the time it takes to go through their corporate structure to get it approved,” Metcalf says, citing his company’s experience with High Gravity, another popular craft brand. “By the time they got High Gravity beer approved in the state, we had two pallets shrink-wrapped in the stockroom ready to roll out on the floor the minute it was legal,” Metcalf says. “It took Publix two months to approve the new beers and labels, so we had it out for two months before Publix put it in.” Unlike beer, Alabama is not known for its wines, so only the only local wine deemed good enough for Western to stock is Morgan Creek. The wine department is set off by wooden shelves and decorative suspended wooden arbors; easy-to-read large print overhead signage points to which side of the aisle a particular varietal is located. “We wanted to give a store-within-a-store feel,” Metcalf says. “We wanted a wine shop in the grocery store. A lot of times we get questions from consumers on is this a leased department or part of the store? We like that. We like that image that our wine department is special enough that it doesn’t look like it is part of the grocery store.” Tomahawk Steak A wall along the back of the store was knocked out to allow Western to add a service meat case. Prior to the remodel only service seafood was offered. The service case allows Western to show off its Tomahawk Steak, a giant rib eye attached to the full rib bone that retails for $14.99 a pound. “The Tomahawk is our signature item,” Metcalf says. “They sell good and it is a great conversation piece. People come up to the case and go, ‘Wow! What is that?’ It is a steak for two or three people, and they run about $45 or $50, but they are a great special occasion steak if you have company.” In the adjacent seafood case, the Alabama farm-raised shrimp are strong movers. Raised in salt water ponds found in the northern part of the state from brine shrimp imported from Florida, Western Supermarkets was the first store to work with the farmers to carry them. Now they are found in Whole Foods and other leading retailers, Metcalf says. “We love start-up companies,” Metcalf says. “We love cottage industries. This store is just full of cottage industry products. We don’t charge the small local companies slotting fees. We help them. Some of them we even teach how to bring their product to retail.” Western’s incubator role for supporting local cottage industries dates back decades. Ever hear of Sister Schubert’s frozen dinner rolls? Well Sister Schubert sold her first roll in a Western store. “That is probably our biggest success story, but there are others,” Metcalf says. “We’re real fortunate that we have a strong network of local farmers and cottage industries. It helps differentiate us from the Publix and Winn-Dixies of the world that can’t execute that.” Now Western is cultivating the super premium pet food business, stocking Nutri Source and some other exclusive brands that were previously only sold in pet stores, feed shops and hardware stores. “When we went upscale we convinced them to open up a new upscale supermarket category,” Metcalf says. “We have a pretty good line of dog food that is not offered in traditional grocery stores. It has done extremely well for us,” he says, pointing to the almost empty shelf. “It is getting that consumer back to the pet category that we’ve lost to PetCo and traditional pet stores.” A health food section was also added during the remodel, allowing Western to go head-to-head with Whole Foods—sort of. “We are just trying to take the 20% of the items that do 70% of the business and stock those, and not stock everything,” Metcalf says. The remodel also brought big changes to the deli department. A kiosk was added in the middle of the floor merchandising the Boar’s Head cold cuts, salads and the cheese case. “Our deli sales are up more than 50% since the remodel,” Metcalf says, while salad sales have increased 50 times over. “This department has been the most successful that we have,” Shelton says. “It is unbelievable how much more salad we sell now than when we had it in-line in the other case. Being able to put it in the middle of the floor gives it a different look and sales have just taken off.” Other new additions are a homemade fudge department and self-service yogurt station featuring Yogurt Mountain yogurt, Birmingham’s leading frozen yogurt chain. “This is a draw for moms with kids,” says Brett A. Hubbard, director of bakery/deli & floral, and Ken Hubbard’s son. “They bring them here first, the deli puts a sticker on the cup, then Mom can shop in peace. Plus, we have a high school a quarter mile away and when school gets out all the kids come down here and get frozen yogurt and stop at our Wing Bar.” Fried Pork Chop Tuesday At the hot deli counter along the wall a new higher steam table was added. That has helped hot food sales, especially the dinner business, officials say. “Our most successful hot dish is our Fried Pork Chop Day on Tuesdays,” Hubbard says. “We take fresh pork chops from the meat department and fry them up, and people look forward to it every week.” At the front-end, LED lighting was added to candy racks dramatically boosting sales. “The LED really helped the items on the bottom three shelves,” Metcalf says. “In the past those items were very slow, but now that they are lit we are selling that bottom fourth of the rack.” The racks may also be more visible to shoppers because as part of the remodel Western eliminated front-end soft drink coolers. Shoppers now have to go to a dedicated coffin case cooler at the head of the dairy aisle, by deli/bakery, to pick up a 20-ounce bottle of Coke or other soft drink. “Most everyone has coolers up by the register, but it is like an Easter egg hunt to find what you want, so we decided to just put all the single-serves together,” Metcalf says. “It is much more energy efficient because those little one- and two-door cases are just energy hogs, so we eliminated all those cases.” “People said there would be a negative effect, but we see a positive effect,” Shelton says. “People who want a single-serve are going to walk that extra 20 feet, and now they are passing my yogurt bar, my Boar’s Head, and any hot dish they might want to pick up for dinner, including a rotisserie chicken.”