Orange County’s latest entry in the fragmented market of Asian grocery stores isn’t like most of the others. It’s big.
Westminster Superstore opened earlier this month in Little Saigon.
Drawing massive crowds that packed parking lots, the 70,000-square-foot store sells fresh food, groceries and household items.
The store site also has 35,000 square feet of other ethnic Vietnamese stores subleased from Westminster Superstore owner Hieu Tran.
The superstore stands to be a major competitor in the area.
“The obvious impact would be on the small local neighborhood Vietnamese ethnic shops,” said Tony Cherbak, a retail analyst in the consumer products group at Deloitte & Touche LLP’s Costa Mesa office. “That’s always the issue when you have some big operation come in that has some significantly greater buying power that can affect prices. It tends to have an impact on the smaller mom-and-pop shops.”
The Little Saigon area is a sizable market, counting more than 200,000 ethnic Vietnamese,the largest such population anywhere in the world outside Vietnam. The enclave spans parts of Westminster, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove and Santa Ana.
The superstore has a huge fresh seafood section, selling live fish, clams, lobsters and oysters. It also carries Asian vegetables such as leeks, ginger and green onions. The store includes a liquor counter, a beauty section and a Vietnamese travel agency. It also features a stand that sells boba, a popular Asian tapioca milk tea drink.
Tran, who lives in San Gabriel, owns several Asian markets in the Southland. He spent some $5 million to revamp the site of a former Kmart that closed in 2003 at 15440 Beach Blvd.
Westminster Superstore is Tran’s first in OC.
Tran has leased space to a pair of ethnic Vietnamese tenants,a pho (noodle soup) restaurant and a sandwich shop.
Westminster Superstore will compete with larger stores owned by Little Saigon’s Tran family,no relation to Hieu Tran.
Robert Tran, vice president of Fountain Valley-based Vanco Trading Inc., said the two Tran families are close friends.
“He’ll do great there,” said Robert Tran, who declined to comment on whether he’s concerned about competition from Westminster Superstore.
Vanco Trading operates several stores in Little Saigon, including Little Saigon Supermarket in Westminster, A Chau supermarket in Fountain Valley and two Vanco Food markets in Garden Grove and Fountain Valley.
A few miles up from Westminster Superstore on McFadden is another rival, Saigon City Marketplace.
“Anybody close by will be competition,” said Huy Trieu, manager of Westminster Superstore.
Buena Park-based Tawa Supermarkets Inc. closed its Ranch 99 store in Westminster in 2003, citing fierce competition from other Little Saigon stores. Its nearest store is in Irvine, said Duke Chang, Tawa’s chief operations officer.
“We do compete with one of their stores in San Gabriel,” Chang said.
Westminster Superstore is a big lift for Westminster Plaza, a rundown retail center since Kmart closed. The area looked so dubious to store officials that they set up a 24-hour security staff to patrol the parking lot.
“We knew little about the crime rate in the neighborhood so we took some extra measures,” Trieu said. “But we haven’t encountered reports of much crime in the area so far.”
Other Ethnic Groups
Trieu said the store isn’t just targeting the area’s ethnic Vietnamese.
“There are a lot of Vietnamese supermarkets around,if we try to cater only to Vietnamese we believe that we won’t have enough customers,” Trieu said. “We have food for Americans, Hispanics, Chinese, Vietnamese and Filipinos.”
Still, Trieu estimated that the store’s customer base will be 60% Vietnamese, 20% Chinese with the rest consisting of Filipinos, Hispanics and others.
Signs in the store’s aisles are in Vietnamese and English.
But a Spanish-language radio station was broadcasting at full volume on opening day.
Westminster Superstore has advertised heavily in the region’s Vietnamese, Chinese and Filipino newspapers, as well as on Vietnamese radio and Saigon TV.
Trieu said it’s too early to say whether the company would consider opening any more stores in OC.
“We would like to see how this store does for at least a year,” he said.
Westminster Superstore owner Tran signed a 15-year lease worth $18 million at the site.
He has eight superstores: four in Southern California, three in Northern California and one in Las Vegas.
His original store in San Gabriel caters to the city’s large Asian population.
