Bruno's/Food World bought by C & S Wholesale

[rdot]

If it is Ok to link the story here, I will do it.


The story has the list of stores that should remain open and the ones to close.

It is somewhat different than what has been previously mentioned on the news. I know the Bruno's in Alabaster and Food World in Pelham had been mentioned as closing. They have those on the to stay open list.

This is all pending a judges ruling on Monday, so I guess things could change.

[BamaLady]

Read it and weep:

Most Bruno's stores in Mobile area would stay open under Southern Family Markets bid; Birmingham and Montgomery hard-hit - Business News from the Press-Register - al.com (http://blog.al.com/press-register-business/2009/04/most_brunos_stores_in_mobile_a.html)

Pell City store will close.

The list is up with the stores to remain open, and the ones to close.

[rdot]

Will the stores left open still be considered Food World or does everything change and it become a new store?

[frugalfreak]

This means my McCalla store will be closing and Hueytown will stay open-at least it's not too far away:sad:

[thomascaldwell1]

Hi! Never gone through one of these situations before... If the McCalla store is going out of business, while sad, does this mean that they will likely clearance out much of their stock or is it more likely to remain at regular prices until closing day, and then the stock would be transferred? Just curious... Thank You!

[thickbluebug]

It's new to us all. Not sure what will happen.

[auntsashie]

I was told they are closing McCalla and keeping Hueytown bc the rent/lease the McCalla store and own the land Hueytown is on. The rent keeps going up and they want out of there.


When they closed Bessemer, they did a sale (qs still taken) and then right before they closed they did a clearance (pennies on the dollar from what my friend that went said).

[Lilysmom0220]

Aww, I am sad about the McCalla store. The people in there are super nice.

I didn't realize there were so many of us that went to that store.

[BamaLady]

Keep your fingers crossed. Its not over until 5 PM Monday. Somebody, somewhere might buy the rest of the stores. If the following can be overcome:

What I was told this morning: The rent is too high on some of the locations, and no buyer wants to pay an enormous amount of rent to take over the store. Pell City's FW's rent was increased and is waaaay over a reasonable amount. No buyer is going to pay the amount I was told that it has increased to.

Same with buying the store. The price for the store is high, and then the new purchaser would have to remodel it. This stands in the way of say Publix buying it. They do not want to recondition an existing store, they want all new from the ground up. That would add to the initial outlay of money, and in the current economic slow down, no company is going to spend money like that.

After the judges decision Monday, if no buyer comes forward, the remaining stores will be turned over to a liquidator. They will be the ones to decide what to do with the remaining inventory, whether to discount it, and how. The registers will have to be reset to the discount prices, or something. It is possible that the stores could be closed Wednesday, or they could remain open to clear the inventory. It will be the liquidators inventory, not Brunos/Food World.

The shelves at Pell City are thinly stocked on lots and lots of items. Everyone has used the triples this weekend to buy up everything. They don't even know whether they should order more product, as no one knows what will happen next week.

I'm going to drop by there tomorrow afternoon, and I guess we'll all have a "Goodbye Food World" cry.

If anyone finds out any news, please post it as soon as possible.

[susysnshn]

Beware of liquidation sales. I was at Macy's in our area when they closed the store and turned it over to liquidators. Prices go to the highest sell price and then get "discounted." Other stores' merchandise is brought in.

The best day to go to a liquidation sale is the last day. Then they are giving away the merchandise so as to not have to pack it up.

They closed the Lorna Road store in Hoover, and I saw the same thing. They accepted coupons, but no doubling. They did an increasing percentage each week but that depended on the merchandise. Junky stuff like some of the cheap housewares had a higher percentage off, but an extremely high starting point. I will say they seem to have frozen the prices at the day they closed the store (or forgot to remove the signs that tell you how much this is "off" the regular price).

I bought a couple of greeting cards at the Lorna Road store closing if that illustrates anything.

[BamaLady]

That's kind of what I expect to happen.

I'm gearing up to start going to Publix, as the WD in this town is not that great. Some things I can get a WM, but they don't have sales and B1G1 specials. They are good to take coupons, but won't double them, of course.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

[auntsashie]

My sm told me that someone new bought the shopping center at McCalla and the rent went up too high. He said they are closing the stores with 400,000+ (wowsers) rent a year. He also told me that he was hopefully going to get more stock in soon...lol. And the ad for this week was printed, a three day sale was fri, sat, Sun and triples those days as well. He also told me he worked for C&S before and was hopeful they could turn it around. I told he that I would continue to shop there and try to help support them. He is hoping they will come in, remodel, and rename it to give the stores a "fresh start."

[BamaLady]

Auntsashie, Bingo! To that figure you wrote, add another $200,000 and you'll be close to our FW's annual rent. Craaaaazzzy. They are asking $2.5 million for the store. Renovation and redecorating would probably be another mil.

Nobody has that kind of $$ right now. I hope I am wrong, and that some buyer does and wants to own a food store.

Whoever owns the land/lot is not going to get anything if the store is empty and no one is using it. I can't figure out why people are so greedy.

[VJWilson27]

Wooohooo!!! My FW is still going to be open. I kinda thought that because they are almost always somewhat busy. There's constantly at least 20-30 cars (non employee) in the parking lot.