New Vons opens with fanfare

Josh Kleinbaum

With the Crescenta Valley High School jazz band providing the

soundtrack, the new Vons grocery store on the corner of Foothill

Boulevard and Pennsylvania Avenue opened its doors Wednesday.

The 55,000-square-foot store, which took five years to plan but

less than five months to renovate, is designed as an all-in-one

shopping stop, officials said. On top of standard grocery-store fare,

the store has a dry cleaning center, a Starbucks, a one-hour photo

counter, a full-service deli, a pharmacy, a bank and a small eating

area.

“We went from a little itty-bitty Safeway years and years ago to

now the grandest store of them all,” said Rick Dinger, a member of

the Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce. “The major impact will be

the spirit of the community. Having a very small market, it was OK,

but it was very small. Now this, this is full, full service.”

Vons officials would not say how much the new store cost, but

store manager Katy Bassett said it was “in the millions.” In

addition, Vons is building more retail space on the other side of the

store’s parking lot, which will eventually include restaurants, a

beauty shop and a Stone Cold Creamery.

“Putting it with [the supermarket] helps,” Glendale City

Councilman Dave Weaver said. “You can go to the market and go to

dinner. And they used a corner that would just be a blight and turned

it into a plus.”

The parking lot was packed at 8 a.m. for the ribbon- cutting

ceremony. A large crowd, a mixture of Vons employees and anxious

customers, listened as Dinger, Weaver, Bassett and several members of

Vons management made short speeches. When the doors opened, it took

nearly 10 minutes for the crowd to file inside.

To celebrate the grand opening, Vons is giving away prizes for the

next two weeks, including bags of groceries and gift cards worth $10

or $20. Bassett said one customer will be chosen at random to receive

free groceries for a year, and the giveaways total $10,000 in

groceries.

“All they had here was Ralphs,” Bassett said. “Now we have a

little competition.”