Winn-Dixie opens new Jacksonville location in Florida

Winn-Dixie has opened a new supermarket in a Jacksonville, Florida, suburb and plans to add another location in that market plus a new store in Central Florida next year.

The roughly 41,500-square-foot Winn-Dixie store, opened Wednesday, anchors the Grand Cypress shopping center in St. Johns, Florida, and has an adjoining 2,000-square-foot Winn-Dixie Liquor outlet with its own entrance.

As in other new Winn-Dixies, the store at 100 Little Cypress Dr. brings an enhanced fresh-food offering. The “Kitchen” bannered deli area serves up a range of grab-and-go meal options, including custom-made sandwiches, salads, prepared meals and take-and-bake pizzas. A fresh bakery offers artisan-baked breads, cakes, pastries and other desserts, while the full-service “Butcher” meat department features Certified Angus Beef and other hand-carved meats cut to order, as well as fresh-made sausages.

Other store highlights include a seafood counter with locally caught selections plus bigger assortments of fresh produce and specialty food. And at the liquor store, customers will find beer, wine and spirits, including a wine chiller.

The new Grand Cypress Winn-Dixie features an expanded offering of fresh and prepared foods. / Photo courtesy of Southeastern Grocers

Winn-Dixie parent Southeastern Grocers said two more stores are slated to open in 2023.

First up will be a more than 47,000-square-foot store in Apopka, Florida, just north of Orlando, at 611 E. Main St. in the Apopka City Center shopping center. Southeastern Grocers broke ground for the store in April and, at the time, said an early 2023 opening was expected for the location.

That is due to be followed in the summer by the opening of a nearly 49,000-square-foot-plus Winn-Dixie at 999 University Blvd. in Jacksonville’s College Park neighborhood. It will occupy the site of a previous Winn-Dixie store, in the former Town & Country Shopping Center, that closed in 2006 after nearly 10 years in operation.

“Our goal is to positively impact our local communities through service, both inside and outside our stores. While we pride ourselves on offering a remarkable shopping experience for our customers, we’re also committed to being the grocer our customers and associates can always count on,” Anthony Hucker, president and CEO of Southeastern Grocers, said in a statement. “With the investment of our new stores throughout our home state of Florida, we look forward to supporting the growth and betterment of our communities and providing our customers with quality products at an affordable price, so they don’t have to compromise when it comes to nourishing their families.”

In recent years, Jacksonville-based Southeastern Grocers has continued to bolster its store base—led by Winn-Dixie, with roughly 370 locations—amid news of a company sale, a shelved initial public offering (IPO) and emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The new Winn-Dixie Liquor Store adjoins the banner's Grand Cypress supermarket but has its own entrance, plus a wine chiller. / Photo courtesy of Southeastern Grocers

Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Southeastern Grocers was in talks with potential buyers. A Southeastern Grocers spokeswoman told Winsight Grocery Business at the time that the company doesn’t comment on “market rumors” but added that it regularly weighs strategic options, including potential transactions. And just over a year ago, Southeastern Grocers abandoned plans for an IPO, which marked the second time in seven years that it had done so.

Southeastern Grocers’ also has downsized its store base, mainly via the dissolution of Bi-Lo, under a five-year business transformation initiated with the company’s exit from Chapter 11 in May 2018.

In 2022, Southeastern Grocers has focused primarily on enhancing the shopping experience, with a planned 50-plus remodels throughout its market area. For Winn-Dixie, brick-and-mortar plans also included two new stores, the Grand Cypress location in St. Johns and a 50,000-square-foot store at 5060 Seminole Pratt Whitney Rd. in Westlake, Florida, that officially opened in March 2.

Overall, SEG has updated more than 80% of its store network. The regional grocer currently operates over 420 supermarkets under the Winn-Dixie, Harveys and Fresco y Más banners in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi.

The company totaled 78 store improvement projects across its footprint in 2021, compared with 41 projects in 2020. In 2021, the grocer completed 54 remodels and opened 24 new locations, the latter including two Winn-Dixie supermarkets (in St. Augustine Shores and Viera, Florida), two Fresco y Más Hispanic grocery stores (in Tampa and Deltona, Florida), 19 liquor stores and one WDs Wine, Beer & Liquor store, a new retail concept (located in Jacksonville’s Miramar community).

Those projects built on 32 store upgrades, eight new Winn-Dixies (Boynton Beach, Fort Myers, Gainesville, Lakewood Ranch, Lake Mary, West Melbourne and two stores in Jacksonville, Florida) and one new Fresco y Más location (Lehigh Acres, Florida) in 2020.