Most customers seemed pleased by the whirlwind makeover that took place earlier this week inside the former Albertsons supermarket that anchors the Aliso Creek Shopping Center.
Inside the newly rechristened Haggen supermarket, 12-year Laguna Beach resident Patty Barnett said she appreciated a new layout that allowed more floor space in the produce section.
“The fresh choices are really lovely,” said Barnett, who detected some changes in the inventory that she described as “a step up, a little more like Gelson’s.”
The Bellingham, Wash., company announced in December it was buying 146 Alberstons, Vons, Pavilions and Safeway stores. A merger between Albertsons and Safeway prompted the sale of the stores to satisfy a Federal Trade Commission order.
Bill Shaner, Haggen’s executive in charge of California, Arizona and Nevada stores, said in a statement that what had been an 18-store chain will distinguish itself by carrying a greater array of organic produce and higher quality meats and seafood.
The Laguna Alberstons closed Sunday night and reopened Wednesday as Haggen, the latest iteration of the store that over several decades has also been operated as the now defunct Lucky’s and Alpha Beta chains. The market competes with Pavilions, Whole Foods and Ralphs markets for customers within the city limits.
“It’s going great,” said store manager David Looney, a 25-year Albertsons employee who had managed the Laguna Beach store for the past 18 months. Just one former Albertsons employee declined to stay on, he said.
On Monday, workers in cherry pickers installed the Haggen name outside while flocks of employees scurried inside. The store layout remains mostly intact with some Haggen brand lines in the freezer section and new signage overhead. Looney declined to say how many new lines were added or dropped.
On Wednesday, evidence of the makeover was most visible in the produce section, where wooden packing crates tried to evoke a farmer’s stand. “It gives it a different feel,” said shopper and local resident Marion Jacobs, who noted seeing a broader organic produce selection. “I’m happy to hear the staff is all staying,” she said, noting she was intent on learning if the deli was restocked with new lines.
Among those happy about the changeover was meat department clerk Robert Adams. He said Haggen managers are so intent on compressing the supply chain that they have acquired a California cattle ranch to provide their own meat to stores in the state.
Adams pointed out new offerings, including Kobe beef, cottage-style bacon and greenlip mussels in the gleaming meat and fish section. “The crab cakes are out of real crab, not imitation crab with breading,” said Adams, adding that Haggen buyers intend to quit using Chinese fish suppliers all together. “This is a higher end store,” he said.
That didn’t necessarily please Nancy Freeman, of Capistrano Beach, who works in a doctor’s office near the hospital. She liked the new look of the bakery section, where jalapeno rolls bore the shape of muffin tins, but found Haggen prices higher for meat and milk.
Left-over fried chicken pieces that she used to buy packaged for $4.99 now cost $5.99, she pointed out.
Local Sandi Cain noted a misstep in the Haggen debut. Its first grocery ad, handed to customers at its opening, locates the store in Three Arch Bay. “A company can tout its friendliness, pricing and Whole Food-ish products and make any claim it wishes about how it wants to embrace a local community. That all goes for naught if the advertising people can’t even properly locate the store on the brochure’s map, even with the correct address,” Cain said.
Annaliese preschool teacher Kasey Granger, who stopped by the market for a fix of caffeine, said her big worry was Haggen would dispense with the Starbucks kiosk inside. “We love coming here for break,” she said.
She found no need to go elsewhere.
