As many of you know, Fresh and Easy boasts of a large selection of organic, fresh, farmer-type products. You can cruise their isles and find items that the healthy conscious are looking for. This has been their brand from the very beginning of their existence. Now it looks like they are venturing into a totally different direction
The location I visited not only is gutting their central area where 6 foot double wide food racks would stand, to be replaced by a "7-11" type of self-serve area but they are also pairing back their current inventories to what can only be described as finding what sells and chucking the rest.
For the sake of this article, we'll focus on the cafe area. This "7-11 self-serve area will have press pot coffee decanters, Kambucha on a fountain dispenser, smoothies, Free Wi-fi all the things that, you guessed it, an Espresso Bar would have, less the fresh coffee, barista and quality products. The seating area (in this particular store) would be around 500sf. The aim of the cafe area is to entice the road weary business person, who always goes to a Fresh and Easy during the day, to spend some quality time there.
I got to tell you. When I see a food market change their business plan and venture into other areas, it is a message that shouts loud and clear. "We're sinking and are looking for anything that will work".
Now no one is going to begrudge Fresh and Easy for doing what they must to make a buck. The problem I have is they are proliferating a "drink any ole crap" mentality among the public. When large franchise stores turn into nothing more than glorified "7-11" and then call themselves cafe's, that's where I draw the line.
