Super Saver has an interesting history. Back in the mid 20th century, the brand was used back in DC and the surrounding area by Acme as some type of grocery format. Around 1994, American Stores (owner of Lucky) decided they wanted to start a discount warehouse supermarket division. This division was to be named Price Advantage. In NorCal, they selected pre-existing Lucky Stores (Elmira Road- Vacaville, Northgate- Sacramento, Elkhorn- Sacramento, Florin- Sacramento, Pittsburg, and Woodland) to be converted to this format. They also came up with a couple new store sites, one in Sacramento and another in Roseville, but didn�t end up going through with putting a discount store at either site. They built stores from scratch in a few spots in SoCal. Sometime later, Price Club sued American Stores, claiming that the �Price Advantage� name was too close to their own. The stores were branded Food Price Advantage for a temporary period, but the name was later changed to Super Saver.
By this point, American Stores had lost interest in operating a discount warehouse grocery format and turned operations of the stores back over to Lucky. The Vacaville Store was quickly converted back to the conventional Lucky format. The other five stores continued to struggle, as the limited size and lack of warehouse format-specific marketing (they started running the same advertisements as a normal Lucky Store, and most of the prices were about the same) combined to help their demise. Lucky was already perceived to be a discount operation; having them operate these discount warehouse format stores made no sense.
When Albertsons and Lucky merged in 1999, the Pittsburg and Northgate stores were sold to Ralphs, and converted to FoodsCo, and a store in Oceanside went to Stater Brothers. The other three NorCal Super Saver Stores, and three in SoCal, were transferred to Albertsons, and continued to operate with the Super Saver brand even once Albertsons eliminated the Lucky Brand.
In early 2000, Albertsons spent some money on the NorCal Stores, installing some nicer signage within the stores and putting in better shelving/lighting. Albertsons has since closed the Elkhorn and Florin Stores, and only still operates the Woodland Store. In SoCal, only one original Super Saver remains, that being in Indio.
In 2002, Albertsons announced they were developing a hispanic grocery format, and converting three conventional format stores in SoCal over to this concept. Albertsons decided to brand those three stores Super Saver. They have slightly altered the Super Saver logo. At the time these conversions took place, Albertsons management stated they wanted to roll this concept out nationwide. To this day in August 2003, just one more Super Saver has opened, and this one is in SoCal and was formerly a Max Foods (one of Albertsons discount grocery warehouse brands) Store.
It is interesting that Albertsons eliminated the strong Lucky brand in CA, which had excellent name recognition, and has continued to operate, and now is looking to grow, a brand like Super Saver with little name recognition.
Too bad Albertsons couldn't make things work at this site, then again, that seems to be a common problem for them with the stores purchased from Lucky. A local operator seeing promise here is a good sign. .
Prior to being Lucky, in the late 1970's and early 1980's this building was a Safeway Store.
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