Mind the gap

I was a bit surprised to hear that Save Mart had been bought, since they had seemingly been doing pretty well in recent years, including remodeling most of their formerly-interesting stores. However, there were some signs that things weren't going great for them, including the closure of all of their pharmacies in 2022 (leading to the ugly labelscar above the seafood sign). That closure came shortly after they were bought by a private equity company, another bad sign. It will be interesting to see what happens under their new Canadian management! 

On the outside, this store still looks a lot like a typical early-00s Albertsons, with the Spanish-style details they were fond of including in California stores. Save Mart's long-time stacked logo is still here, above a weird gap in the trim that seems to have always been there (maybe it made more sense with Albertsons' signage, though I have no idea what they might have put in the gap).