BIGGER AND BETTER

PALMER — Thursday from 3 to 9 p.m. and Friday all day what appeared to be a majority of Palmer residents turned out to stroll the aisles of the city’s new Carrs/Safeway store.

Friday the store officially opened and thousands filed through the wider, better-lit aisles of what Store Manager Terrie Clark-Newman calls a “lifestyle store.”

This store is more for the customer says Clark-Newman. The lighting runs directional with the aisle she points out during a walk through Saturday morning. It is set up to be better lit and light the products better. “It helps the product sell themselves.”

She points out, while moving carts into the entry and in between talking with the meat department services manager, which the aisles are wider and there is more space. “Although,” she says, “Friday there were so many people you could barely get through here.”

As Clark-Newman walks through the expanded meat and new seafood department she stops near the fresh fish counter.

“We have sushi and seafood,” she says. “That’s also new.”

With the new seafood department the lifestyle store also offers a Starbucks complete with a fireplace. There is an Orient Express, which serves Asian food, an updated pharmacy, expanded floral and meat services departments, along with a large produce area.

The store is between 57,000 and 60,000 square feet, says Clark-Newman. “It is almost double the old store.”

As she makes her way from different areas of the store, Clark-Newman runs down the list of improvements. “There is a beautiful cake display counter and our bakery is right over here,” she said as she walks past different samples of food being handed out which they call a “taste of Safeway.”

The pharmacy is prettier, the view of the mountains from the front windows is beautiful and we now have a self-check-out, Clark-Newman said.

For longtime Carrs shoppers Stan and Betty Roach the new store is nice. “We like it,” they both agreed Saturday as they were being helped.

“We are loyal shoppers to Carrs,” says Stan. Then he tells of an incident 30 years ago where he and his wife bought dog food at a Carrs in Anchorage and then left it at the store. “We stopped at the Carrs in Palmer and told them what we had done,” said Roach. “We told them we didn’t have the receipt. They gave us a 50-pound bag. We have been shopping here ever since.”

Over in produce, 27-year employee Tim Babbin was offering to cut a watermelon for Wasilla resident Mariana Weatherby who inquired about how to check for a good watermelon. This is her second time at the store in two days, she said.

For Weatherby coming all the way to Palmer to shop is a little different. “I am not sure what I am doing here,” said Weatherby Saturday as she strolled through the fresh flowers. “I am usually a Fred Meyer shopper, but this store is nice. I’ve been here twice.”

Right inside the front entrance local farmer Ben Vanderweele began setting up a bowl full of locally grown carrots at his feet were bags are of Vanderweele potatoes and in front of his display sat an old tractor that was one of Vanderweeles’ first.

For a national chain Carrs/Safeway in Palmer has a good selection of local produce.

“They do real good with local produce,” said Vanderweele, as he set out some Alaska Grown buttons on a table. “They carry a lot of locally grown products like our potatoes.”

Opening weekend for the new store has gone overwhelmingly well says Clark-Newman. “Busy with a lot of people,” she said. “Employees and customers had to park in the other parking lot and we had to bring over old carts from the other store.”

31-year employee Garnet Smith says the new store is great.

“I started at the Carrs on Gamble in Anchorage,” Garnet said Saturday as she waited for another customer to come through her check-out line. “I love the Orient Express she says. She said she planned to eat there.”

Not all shoppers have been happy though, says Garnet. “I had a guy yesterday that complained about where things were.”

“We have some things like our natural foods and bulk items set up a little different,” she said. She figured that some people just like things a certain way.

Along with the larger store and more products come more jobs. According to assistant store manager Gary Crist they hoped to double the amount of employees.

“Including the food demonstrators, we have 75 new employees,” said Crist. “We will be keeping some of them on.”

Carrs/Safeway sits on an 8.6-acre lot across from the old store. Clark-Newman said they will continue moving some stuff from the old store to the new store throughout the week. Other stuff will go back to Anchorage.

In an earlier Frontiersman story Sandra Garley, the community development director for Palmer, said the company is also looking to build a Carrs/Safeway gas station on the site, as well as an additional 5,000-square-foot building to rent to another retailer. There have been no plans announced for the old store.

As for the opening weekend at the new store, “Everything went pretty smooth,” said Crist. “There were no major hiccups and only a few minor thing. We had a little wind damage.”

Contact Robert DeBerry at Robert.deberry@frontiersman.com or 352-2266.