Business & Tech
Millbrae Readies for Life Without Safeway
Starting today, local residents will have to find other food shopping options while grocer remodels its El Camino Real store. It will take about a year to build a new store featuring expanded services and additional parking.
Helen Erikson is going to have to go somewhere else to find her breakfast cereal, and franks and beans.
Starting today, Erikson, a retired bookkeeper who volunteers at the senior center and has lived in Millbrae for 55 years, will have to go elsewhere as the store undergoes renovations expected to take about a year to complete.
She remembers the store's 1962 opening.
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"There's a lot more competition now, that's for sure," she said.
But now, she's among many local residents mapping out new places for food shopping.
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"You know who's going to make out? Trader Joe's," she said." Lucky's and Walgreens."
Safeway loyalists need not despair though.
They'll still be able to shop at the nearby on 1450 Howard Avenue and two in South City (one on , and the other on ).
"I'll go to the Safeway in Burlingame," said Hillsborough resident Lorraine Pathas, a Millbrae Safeway shopper for 35 years.
Pathas said the Burlingame store isn't much further, but she's been able to work her Millbrae Safeway visits around other visits.
An inconvenience?
"Yeah probably," she said, "but I'll adjust to it."
Erikson said that for some, the closure will be more than a minor inconvenience, noting that some of the elderly she works with at the senior center depend on their close proximity to the Millbrae Safeway.
Safeway spokeswoman Wendy Gutshall said in an email that the company will provide incentives for Millbrae shoppers who travel to the company's other Peninsula stores.
"We are interested in serving the needs of our customers to bring them the best quality shopping experience," she said. "It’s important to us to minimize the impact to the community during the closure as best as possible and to create a new and better functioning store."
Gutshall, however, did not respond to requests for information on what measures the store has taken to provide for free or discounted delivery to elderly customers for whom traveling to the stores outside of Burlingame is not feasible.
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