Ralphs Flunks Geography

Faces around Ralphs Grocery Co. are pink these days, and not from summer sunburn.

Company officials realized virtually on the eve of its grand opening that their new Ralphs Giant Fullerton Store is really in Anaheim.

For weeks the company has been advertising the new 104,000-square-foot giant supermarket, one of the largest in the world. Then they discovered that it’s barely outside the Fullerton border in the city that Disneyland calls home.

“We had to change the name of the supermarket (at) the very last minute,” said Byron Allumbaugh, chairman and chief executive of Compton-based Ralphs. The Ralphs Giant Fullerton Store has become Ralphs Giant Orangethorpe Store--named after the street it is on rather than the city it isn’t in.

And to avoid further embarrassment, Ralphs opted to skip the traditional ribbon-cutting ceremony when it held its grand opening last Tuesday, thus relieving itself of the difficulty of deciding which city officials--if any--would get to wield the scissors.

The massive supermarket is the first of 14 so-called Giant stores that the chain plans to open in the Southland over the next three months. The store, which will employ 220, will be three times the size and will stock twice the inventory of a conventional Ralphs. It’s expected to generate $50 million in sales each year.

A second Anaheim store is scheduled to open Sept. 3. But who knows? The company says it’s right on the border with Buena Park.