{"id":228661,"date":"2016-04-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/outlook-bleak-for-new-food-outlets\/"},"modified":"2016-04-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T07:00:00","slug":"outlook-bleak-for-new-food-outlets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/outlook-bleak-for-new-food-outlets\/","title":{"rendered":"Outlook bleak for new food outlets"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Doug Curlee | Editor at Large<\/p>\n

Area grocery stores vacant, shuttered or replaced<\/strong><\/p>\n

San Diego\u2019s topsy-turvy supermarket picture hasn\u2019t really settled down yet, and may not for a while.<\/p>\n

All over San Diego County, there are buildings that used to hold markets sitting vacant, and many of them don\u2019t hold out much hope of returning as food stores.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve reported often about the now-vacant Albertson\u2019s at Waring Road and Zion Avenue in Allied Gardens. The shopping center\u2019s manager Linda Lasher doesn\u2019t hold out immediate hope for a new grocery tenant anytime soon, if at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI assume there are talks going on, but I don\u2019t know for sure,\u201d Lasher said. That\u2019s more pessimistic than she has been in the past, when she said that \u201ctalks were going on, and we might be close with one or two interested parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even the weekly farmer\u2019s market that had set up in the parking lot of the Albertson\u2019s has shut its booths due to poor attendance and sales.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0210webtop\"<\/a>
Construction has begun on the west end of the former Fresh & Easy store in the San Carlos Plaza. (Photo by Doug Curlee)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Allied Gardens Farmers Market manager Diem Do conducted an informal survey on social media site Nextdoor to determine what customers wanted most from the Friday markets to determine how and whether to move forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd while the overwhelming majority said their top priority was fresh local produce, the sales didn\u2019t show that,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat began with 20 farmers dwindled to a handful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do said she and partner David Klaman are still unsure whether to move forward with the market, but it is clear that it will not return to the parking lot on Waring Road and Zion Avenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe property management company for the Albertson\u2019s lot wanted us to put up a large deposit, which we didn\u2019t feel like we could justify with the low turnout,\u201d Do said.<\/p>\n

Things are a little more mysterious at the San Carlos Plaza Center at Navajo Road and Lake Murray Boulevard, just off the state Route 125 freeway.<\/p>\n

There is a now-closed Fresh & Easy location in that center, since Fresh & Easy has disappeared from the American market scene altogether. The British-owned chain never established a foothold in California\u2019s food market scene.<\/p>\n

But what might, or might not, happen to that former store is shrouded in mystery.<\/p>\n

The western half of that center is in the process of being demolished to make room for an Orchard Supply Hardware home improvement center. The demolition foreman says Orchard is sort of an upscale Home Depot or Lowe\u2019s. It\u2019s obvious the abandoned Fresh & Easy is, so far at least, being carefully protected from any damage being done to it by the demolition.<\/p>\n

If there is an additional business slated to move in there or if the Fresh & Easy building will also be part of the OSH store, no one is able, or willing, to say. Rita Wagner of Athena Property Management in Irvine, which manages the San Carlos Plaza, would say only that \u201cthe site is under lease, and I can tell you nothing else about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

All efforts to gain more information were politely turned aside.<\/p>\n

Three employees of other businesses in the plaza say they were told not to talk about anything they might have heard, and refused to let us use their names. They did tell three different stories, none of which sounded plausible.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll keep an eye on it.<\/p>\n

Editor Jeff Clemetson contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014Doug Curlee es editor general. llegar a \u00e9l en doug@sdcnn.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Doug Curlee | Editor at Large<\/p>","protected":false},"author":766,"featured_media":228662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"Outlook bleak for new food outlets","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11558,11551,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-mission-times-courier","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/766"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}