Albertsons' Next-Generation Store is a Showplace for the Fresh Experience
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There’s also a food court offering pizza, sushi, carved meats, custom sandwiches, salads, soups and a hot bar.
And then there’s Broadway on the Rocks, a full bar that hosts bands and other social events, and where patrons can order food from the store’s kitchens while on a lunch break from Boise State University across the street, or enjoy a weeknight meal while gazing into the nearby mountains at what Colgrove calls the best sunset in town.
All of these things come together to offer an experience captured by the store’s appropriate tagline: Eat Life Up.
“It’s a totally new concept for a grocery store here in the Treasure Valley,” Colgrove says. “This is the first Albertsons store like its kind in the area. The culture of this store is unique, focusing on creating a food experience through expertise, demos and education. From hard-to-find unique ingredients, to prized local favorites, to cooking classes and live events, Albertsons on Broadway raises the bar for what customers can expect from a fantastic grocery store.”
Albertsons is already replicating the concept with a new store about double the size of Broadway over in Meridian, smack in the center of Idaho’s fastest-growing city, about 12 miles west of Boise.
The Broadway store “was designed to attract shoppers looking for something uniquely different,” Colgrove explains, “for those looking for local and fresh ingredients, those who want to learn more about food and nutrition, and those who are needing help in planning the perfect event — even for those who are looking to spend time with family and friends in a unique and trendy environment. We have something for everyone.”
The ‘Wow’ Line
Visitors entering Albertsons on Broadway are met with fresh in every direction, finding themselves surrounded by a sweeping floral boutique, fresh produce, prepared foods and, in the mezzanine above the main sales floor, the bar area, Broadway on the Rocks. These various elements coalesce to create shock and awe for first-time shoppers.
“It became the ‘wow’ line,” Colgrove says of folks lined up for the store’s grand opening last July. “As they walked in, they’d stop and the first word out of their mouth was ‘Wow.’”
Among them are solutions like meals in a bag, exclusive to this store, delivering a single-serve meal including a protein and vegetables. Able to be cooked in a conventional oven or microwave, the items are proving to be “very, very successful,” according to Colgrove.
As for the dry-aged beef: “We sell every bit we can get our hands on — we’ve got a waiting list,” Colgrove says, noting that the meat is aged 14 days before arriving at the store, and then mellows for at least 21 more days.
Another huge seller in the meat department is the house-made sausage, available in 25 varieties, including, appropriately enough for the locale, potato (“We can’t keep up with it,” Colgrove says). An unexpected win has been exotic meats, with brisk sales not only for elk, bison, boar and pheasant, but also frog legs and octopus. “We put this in to differentiate ourselves, and it’s been a surprise,” Colgrove observes.
The store’s meat department provides all of the protein for the carving station in the food court.
“Foodservice is our No. 1 volume department,” Colgrove asserts. The food court features a hot bar that he describes as “off the charts”; shallow pans mean that items are “continually added fresh all day long,” Colgrove notes.
“It’s a unique partnership,” Colgrove remarks. “We sell so much of the stuff, customers can’t believe we do this. It’s exciting to offer things no other grocery store does.”
To be sure, that’s the whole point of Albertsons on Broadway. “You can walk up and down every category and you’ll find mainstream items, but we’ve gone overboard on local and specialty items to give people variety in every category,” Colgrove says.
- Albertsons in Boise
The original store at the location of the current Albertsons on Broadway supermarket was a 26,000-square-foot store built in 1959. It remained open during initial construction of the new store, but was finally demolished in April 2018.
“When the company broke ground on this particular store in June 2017, it represented our first new store here in Idaho, built from the ground up, since 1999,” says John Colgrove, president of Albertsons’ Intermountain Division. The new Albertsons on Broadway opened 79 years to the day since the opening of Joe Albertson’s first store at 16th and State streets in Boise.
“When Joe Albertson founded our company on July 21, 1939, he began a legacy of delivering an innovative and welcoming shopping experience. Joe’s first store was innovative, with magazine racks, a household section, bakery, meat shop — all under one roof,” Colgrove recounts. “Fast-forward 79 years, and Joe’s innovative ideas and journey are stronger than ever. This new store carries forward his innovative spirit and is the place to shop in the Boise community. I think opening this next-generation store in Boise was a proud day for Joe, and a proud day for our entire company.”
As the store’s mission statement declares: “To serve you culinary delights and unique food experiences everywhere you turn. To offer world-class expertise, from cooking classes and events to hand-selected items found nowhere else in Idaho. To build personal friendships that leave lasting impressions and keep you hungry for more. To ignite your appetite and inspire you to … eat life up.”