Shoppers lost in Raley's remodel

July 9, 2004

Sometimes there are things in life we just take for granted and don't even realize it until it has been changed. Take for instance the changes that are going on at the Raley's Supermarket at Cypress Square in Oakley. Over the past few weeks the store has been doing some remodeling.
According to the store managers the changes are part of a chain-wide remodeling project to make every Raley's store the same inside. So for instance, one manager said, if you go to Lake Tahoe Raley's and are looking for a can of tuna, soon you will be able to go that same aisle in any other Raley's store and find your favorite brand.

The running joke around town seems to be that if you are late to work or an appointment, just tell your boss that you went to Raley's to pick up a few items and got lost.

While some customers didn't even notice the changes right away, others seemed to be so dismayed one would have thought that they had lost their favorite toy. When Raley's opened in 1989 the chain consisted of half grocery items with a deli, bakery and pharmacy, while the other half consisted of novelties, knicknacks and garden supplies. At the time it was a big deal for Oakley, since the only other grocery was the small Centromart, which many viewed to not hold enough of the everyday and specialty items.

At one point there were rumors that Raley's would be closing down because Lucky's was taking a considerable amount of their customer base away. When the Lucky chain transferred over to Albertsons, Raley's seemed to get some of its market back. Presently both stores seem to be dealing with competition problems from the WinCo warehouse on Lone Tree Way in Brentwood. Of course, soon they will be dealing with the new competition of Safeway. If that store ever gets off the ground.

Today people seem to be complaining more about the fact that changes stop them from doing their everyday shopping. When Mary Anderson came to do her shopping a week or so ago, she was dismayed because they had moved the aisle the honey was on. It was the only item she needed from the store. I met her by the sugar aisle, which I must admit was where I thought the honey would be. She, however, was even more dismayed that it wasn't there. When store employees couldn't even find the item, she went on a manhunt of her own and soon found the item by herself. "Of course," she said when I met up with her again. "I should have looked on the cereal aisle first."

Checkers say that they are surprised that people are upset about the changes, since all along they have been asking for more grocery items. Well it seems that that is what they are getting. Or maybe that is just an illusion I haven't quite figured it out yet. It appears, as the employees say, that many of the knicknack items are gone or soon will be. That is a loss for me, because whenever I forget someone's birthday it is nice to just have to run in and out of Raley's to pick something up, especially because we don't have any other department stores in Oakley.

For Randy Peterson the problems are harder to handle when she has to bring three of her five children to the store and they are cranky because they can't find the cookie and toy aisles. "It used to be easy to just send them to get their treats and cereals, while I did the other shopping; now it just makes us have to spend more time shopping because none of us can find anything."

I myself am a great fan of Raley's. I shop there at lease four of five times a week because I can never seem to get all the groceries I need when I go to the store, and then of course as soon as I buy them somehow they get eaten before I'm ready to serve them. I feel like the guy from that Wendy's commercial who isn't an employee of Wendy's but wherever he goes he is out hawking hamburgers. While walking to the store I talk to the other customers and laugh it off, because today I couldn't find the cat food, but since I buy it every week for my two felines, before I know it the aisles of Raley's will once again be second nature.

Roni Gehlke's column on life in Oakley appears each week in the Brentwood News.

Distributed by the Contra Costa Times

Return to Oakley in the News