Carrs
Encyclopedia
Carrs-Safeway is a supermarket
chain that is based in Anchorage, Alaska
and is a subsidiary of Safeway Inc.
It was acquired in April 1999 by Safeway from an employee ownership group, who themselves had purchased the company from founder Larry Carr and his partner Barney Gottstein in 1990.
The proposed acquisition led to an antitrust lawsuit filed by the Alaska Public Interest Research Group, which was resolved by a consent decree reached between Safeway and the Alaska Attorney General
's office which required the company to divest 7 stores. Those stores re-opened as the grocery chain Alaska Marketplace, which closed at the end of 2000. One of those stores, the Foodland Shopping Circle in Fairbanks
, one of the earliest stores in the Carrs chain, has remained largely vacant since.
As of 2010, there are 24 stores in Alaska, including: Anchorage, Fairbanks (both in multiple locations), Juneau
, Kenai
, Ketchikan
, Kodiak
, Nome
, North Pole
, Palmer
, Seward
, Soldotna
, Valdez
, Wasilla
and Unalaska
.
in 1947 after graduating from high school in San Bernardino, California
. After a short stint in management at the Alaska Railroad
commissary, in which he hoped to make enough money to return to California and open a grocery store there, he instead became a competitor in the grocery business in Anchorage.
Carr opened his first store in a Quonset hut
, located on the southern end of Gambell Street in the Eastchester (now known as Fairview) neighborhood of Anchorage, in February 1950. The location would prove to be beneficial, as Gambell Street, which became Potter Road after leaving the townsite limits and dead-ended several miles south of town at a railroad section house, soon became the northern terminus of the Seward Highway
.
The name Carrs was derived from the original operating partership of Larry Carr and his brother, Bernard Joseph Carr, Jr. They were joined by their father, Bernard Joseph "Pop" Carr, following his retirement from the Santa Fe Railroad in 1954. The senior Carr left the company in 1964 to launch a successful campaign for the Alaska House of Representatives
.
Another person involved in the company during its early days was Bernard J. "Barney" Gottstein. His father, Jacob B. Gottstein, started a wholesale grocery business in Anchorage when the town was founded in 1915. Carr and Gottstein began their formal business partership in 1960, integrating retail and wholesale grocery operations and real estate development (particularly construction of shopping centers
) into one company. Carr and Gottstein were also heavily involved during the 1960s in promoting the business and political career of a recent young arrival to Alaska named Mike Gravel
.
and associated businesses such as drive-in restaurants, as the vast majority of Anchorage's retail landscape was located downtown at the time. The construction of these two malls, combined with the Northern Lights Center constructed by Wally Hickel in 1960, started the shift in customer traffic away from downtown and towards the outlying areas of Anchorage.
These two malls began a pattern of Carrs Grocery and strip mall construction which followed for most of the next two decades. By the mid 1970s, there were Carrs stores throughout southcentral Alaska, as well as the Foodland Shopping Circle in downtown Fairbanks
. Carrs operated a pseudo-wholesale grocery called Prairie Market in the 1970s and 1980s, which operated in only two locations close to the Old Seward Highway in Anchorage.
Carr and Gottstein sold the grocery portion of their business to an employee ownership group in 1990. The company purchased the Fairbanks supermarket chain Super Valu (formerly Market Basket) in 1992. Vladimir Paul Gavora (perhaps better known recently as the father of writer and Sarah Palin
contemporary Jessica Gavora
) emigrated from Czechoslovakia
to Alaska
, seeking a professorship at the University of Alaska
. When that didn't materialize, Gavora opened his first grocery store on South Cushman Street in Fairbanks in 1958. Like Larry Carr, he took a store in a location whose main attraction was being located along a highway (at the time, South Cushman was the northern terminus of the Richardson Highway
), and parlayed the store into a local retail and real estate empire. Gavora also operated two stores (called The Hub) similar to the Prairie Market.
loyalty card.
On April 18, 2005, Safeway began a $100 million brand re-positioning campaign labeled "Ingredients for life." This was done in an attempt to differentiate itself from its competitors, and to increase brand involvement. Steve Burd described it as "branding the shopping experience".
The launch included a redesigned logo, a new slogan "Ingredients for life" alongside a four-panel life icon to be used throughout stores and advertising, and a web application called "FoodFlex" to improve consumer nutrition. Many locations are being converted to the "Lifestyle" format. The new look was designed by Michigan-based PPC Design. In addition to the "inviting decor with warm ambiance and subdued lighting", the move required heavy redesign of store layout, new employee uniforms, sushi and olive bars, and the addition of in-store Starbucks kiosks (with cupholders on grocery carts). The change also involved differentiating the company from competitors with promotions based on the company’s extensive loyalty card database. At the end of 2004 there were 142 "Lifestyle" format stores in the United States and Canada, with plans to open or remodel another 300 stores with this type of theme the following year. "Lifestyle format" stores have seen significantly higher average weekly sales than their other stores. By the end of 2006, shares were up proving that this rebranding campaign had a major impact on sale figures.
Supermarket
A supermarket, a form of grocery store, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...
chain that is based in Anchorage, Alaska
Anchorage, Alaska
Anchorage is a unified home rule municipality in the southcentral part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the northernmost major city in the United States...
and is a subsidiary of Safeway Inc.
Safeway Inc.
Safeway Inc. , a Fortune 500 company, is North America's second largest supermarket chain after The Kroger Co., with, as of December 2010, 1,694 stores located throughout the western and central United States and western Canada. It also operates some stores in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern...
It was acquired in April 1999 by Safeway from an employee ownership group, who themselves had purchased the company from founder Larry Carr and his partner Barney Gottstein in 1990.
The proposed acquisition led to an antitrust lawsuit filed by the Alaska Public Interest Research Group, which was resolved by a consent decree reached between Safeway and the Alaska Attorney General
Alaska Attorney General
The Alaska Attorney General is the chief legal advisor to the government of the State of Alaska and to its governor. The Attorney General is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Alaska Legislature. The position has existed since the early days of the Territory of Alaska, though it was...
's office which required the company to divest 7 stores. Those stores re-opened as the grocery chain Alaska Marketplace, which closed at the end of 2000. One of those stores, the Foodland Shopping Circle in Fairbanks
Fairbanks
Fairbanks may refer to:Places in the United States*Fairbanks, Alaska, city*Fairbanks, California, unincorporated community in El Dorado County*Fairbanks, Mendocino County, California, former settlement*Fairbanks, Indiana, unincorporated community...
, one of the earliest stores in the Carrs chain, has remained largely vacant since.
As of 2010, there are 24 stores in Alaska, including: Anchorage, Fairbanks (both in multiple locations), Juneau
Juneau, Alaska
The City and Borough of Juneau is a unified municipality located on the Gastineau Channel in the panhandle of the U.S. state of Alaska. It has been the capital of Alaska since 1906, when the government of the then-District of Alaska was moved from Sitka as dictated by the U.S. Congress in 1900...
, Kenai
Kenai, Alaska
Kenai is a city in Kenai Peninsula Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 7,464...
, Ketchikan
Ketchikan, Alaska
Ketchikan is a city in Ketchikan Gateway Borough, Alaska, United States, the southeasternmost sizable city in that state. With an estimated population of 7,368 in 2010 within the city limits, it is the fifth most populous city in the state....
, Kodiak
Kodiak, Alaska
Kodiak is one of 7 communities and the main city on Kodiak Island, Kodiak Island Borough, in the U.S. state of Alaska. All commercial transportation between the entire island and the outside world goes through this city either via ferryboat or airline...
, Nome
Nome, Alaska
Nome is a city in the Nome Census Area in the Unorganized Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska, located on the southern Seward Peninsula coast on Norton Sound of the Bering Sea. According to the 2010 Census, the city population was 3,598. Nome was incorporated on April 9, 1901, and was once the...
, North Pole
North Pole, Alaska
North Pole is a small city in the Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska, United States. It is part of the Fairbanks, Alaska metropolitan statistical area. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated its population as of July 1, 2009 at 2,226. The name "North Pole" is often applied to the entire area covered...
, Palmer
Palmer, Alaska
Palmer is the borough seat of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough in the state of Alaska, USA. It is part of the Anchorage Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city is 5,937....
, Seward
Seward, Alaska
Seward is a city in Kenai Peninsula Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 3,016....
, Soldotna
Soldotna, Alaska
As of the census of 2000, there were 3,759 people, 1,465 households, and 969 families residing in the city. As of 2008, the population was close to 4,200. The population density was 541.9 people per square mile . There were 1,670 housing units at an average density of 240.7 per square mile...
, Valdez
Valdez, Alaska
Valdez is a city in Valdez-Cordova Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 4,020. The city is one of the most important ports in Alaska. The port of Valdez was named in 1790 after the Spanish naval officer Antonio Valdés y...
, Wasilla
Wasilla, Alaska
Wasilla is a city in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, United States and the sixth-largest city in Alaska. It is located on the northern point of Cook Inlet in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley of the southcentral part of the state. The city's population was 7,831 at the 2010 census...
and Unalaska
Unalaska, Alaska
Unalaska is a city in the Aleutians West Census Area of the Unorganized Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska. Unalaska is located on Unalaska Island and neighboring Amaknak Island in the Aleutian Islands off of mainland Alaska....
.
Beginning
Laurence John "Larry" Carr (July 28, 1929 - May 12, 2011) moved to Anchorage, AlaskaAnchorage, Alaska
Anchorage is a unified home rule municipality in the southcentral part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the northernmost major city in the United States...
in 1947 after graduating from high school in San Bernardino, California
San Bernardino, California
San Bernardino is a city located in the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area , and serves as the county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States...
. After a short stint in management at the Alaska Railroad
Alaska Railroad
The Alaska Railroad is a Class II railroad which extends from Seward and Whittier, in the south of the state of Alaska, in the United States, to Fairbanks , and beyond to Eielson Air Force Base and Fort Wainwright in the interior of that state...
commissary, in which he hoped to make enough money to return to California and open a grocery store there, he instead became a competitor in the grocery business in Anchorage.
Carr opened his first store in a Quonset hut
Quonset hut
A Quonset hut is a lightweight prefabricated structure of corrugated galvanized steel having a semicircular cross section. The design was based on the Nissen hut developed by the British during World War I...
, located on the southern end of Gambell Street in the Eastchester (now known as Fairview) neighborhood of Anchorage, in February 1950. The location would prove to be beneficial, as Gambell Street, which became Potter Road after leaving the townsite limits and dead-ended several miles south of town at a railroad section house, soon became the northern terminus of the Seward Highway
Seward Highway
The Seward Highway is a highway in the U.S. state of Alaska that extends 127 miles from Seward to Anchorage. It was completed in 1951 and runs through the scenic Kenai Peninsula and Turnagain Arm, for which it was designated an All-American Road by the U.S...
.
The name Carrs was derived from the original operating partership of Larry Carr and his brother, Bernard Joseph Carr, Jr. They were joined by their father, Bernard Joseph "Pop" Carr, following his retirement from the Santa Fe Railroad in 1954. The senior Carr left the company in 1964 to launch a successful campaign for the Alaska House of Representatives
Alaska House of Representatives
The Alaska House of Representatives is the lower house in the Alaska Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Alaska. The House is composed of 40 members, each of whom represents a district of about 15,673 people . Members serve two-year terms without term limits...
.
Another person involved in the company during its early days was Bernard J. "Barney" Gottstein. His father, Jacob B. Gottstein, started a wholesale grocery business in Anchorage when the town was founded in 1915. Carr and Gottstein began their formal business partership in 1960, integrating retail and wholesale grocery operations and real estate development (particularly construction of shopping centers
Strip mall
A strip mall is an open-area shopping center where the stores are arranged in a row, with a sidewalk in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a unit and have large parking lots in front...
) into one company. Carr and Gottstein were also heavily involved during the 1960s in promoting the business and political career of a recent young arrival to Alaska named Mike Gravel
Mike Gravel
Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel is a former Democratic United States Senator from Alaska, who served two terms from 1969 to 1981, and a former candidate in the 2008 presidential election....
.
1960s-1980s
The second Carrs location and associated construction, the Aurora Village Shopping Center, was built in 1966. The Mall at Sears, an enclosed mall with an interior motif resembling a downtown sidewalk, was built the following year. Both were built along Northern Lights Boulevard, which being a section line arterial, was mostly known for illegal drag racingDrag racing
Drag racing is a competition in which specially prepared automobiles or motorcycles compete two at a time to be the first to cross a set finish line, from a standing start, in a straight line, over a measured distance, most commonly a ¼-mile straight track....
and associated businesses such as drive-in restaurants, as the vast majority of Anchorage's retail landscape was located downtown at the time. The construction of these two malls, combined with the Northern Lights Center constructed by Wally Hickel in 1960, started the shift in customer traffic away from downtown and towards the outlying areas of Anchorage.
These two malls began a pattern of Carrs Grocery and strip mall construction which followed for most of the next two decades. By the mid 1970s, there were Carrs stores throughout southcentral Alaska, as well as the Foodland Shopping Circle in downtown Fairbanks
Fairbanks
Fairbanks may refer to:Places in the United States*Fairbanks, Alaska, city*Fairbanks, California, unincorporated community in El Dorado County*Fairbanks, Mendocino County, California, former settlement*Fairbanks, Indiana, unincorporated community...
. Carrs operated a pseudo-wholesale grocery called Prairie Market in the 1970s and 1980s, which operated in only two locations close to the Old Seward Highway in Anchorage.
1990s
Carrs stores were primarily located throughout the "Railbelt" area of Alaska. A subsidiary, Eagle Quality Centers, operated in numerous mid-sized and smaller Alaskan communities, both within and outside of the Railbelt. The company branched out into Southeast Alaska in the early 1990s, opening stores in Juneau and Ketchikan.Carr and Gottstein sold the grocery portion of their business to an employee ownership group in 1990. The company purchased the Fairbanks supermarket chain Super Valu (formerly Market Basket) in 1992. Vladimir Paul Gavora (perhaps better known recently as the father of writer and Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...
contemporary Jessica Gavora
Jessica Gavora
Jessica Lynn Gavora is an American conservative writer on politics and culture, a speechwriter, and a former policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Justice.-Early life and education:...
) emigrated from Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
to Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, seeking a professorship at the University of Alaska
University of Alaska Fairbanks
The University of Alaska Fairbanks, located in Fairbanks, Alaska, USA, is the flagship campus of the University of Alaska System, and is abbreviated as Alaska or UAF....
. When that didn't materialize, Gavora opened his first grocery store on South Cushman Street in Fairbanks in 1958. Like Larry Carr, he took a store in a location whose main attraction was being located along a highway (at the time, South Cushman was the northern terminus of the Richardson Highway
Richardson Highway
The Richardson Highway is a highway in the U.S. state of Alaska, running 368 miles from Valdez to Fairbanks. It is marked as Alaska Route 4 from Valdez to Delta Junction and as Alaska Route 2 from there to Fairbanks. It is also connects segments of Alaska Route 1 between the Glenn Highway and the...
), and parlayed the store into a local retail and real estate empire. Gavora also operated two stores (called The Hub) similar to the Prairie Market.
Safeway merger
In 1999, Safeway, Inc. acquired Carrs. The merger caused stores to be renamed Carrs-Safeway, and customer had to begin using aloyalty card.
Lifestyle Branding
- Main Article: Safeway Inc. Lifestyle Branding
On April 18, 2005, Safeway began a $100 million brand re-positioning campaign labeled "Ingredients for life." This was done in an attempt to differentiate itself from its competitors, and to increase brand involvement. Steve Burd described it as "branding the shopping experience".
The launch included a redesigned logo, a new slogan "Ingredients for life" alongside a four-panel life icon to be used throughout stores and advertising, and a web application called "FoodFlex" to improve consumer nutrition. Many locations are being converted to the "Lifestyle" format. The new look was designed by Michigan-based PPC Design. In addition to the "inviting decor with warm ambiance and subdued lighting", the move required heavy redesign of store layout, new employee uniforms, sushi and olive bars, and the addition of in-store Starbucks kiosks (with cupholders on grocery carts). The change also involved differentiating the company from competitors with promotions based on the company’s extensive loyalty card database. At the end of 2004 there were 142 "Lifestyle" format stores in the United States and Canada, with plans to open or remodel another 300 stores with this type of theme the following year. "Lifestyle format" stores have seen significantly higher average weekly sales than their other stores. By the end of 2006, shares were up proving that this rebranding campaign had a major impact on sale figures.