Smith's Food King #208 - 1751 N Sunrise Palm Springs CA

The second store Smith's food king built in the Coachella Valley was located at North Sunrise and Vista Chino on former Indian reservation land. Planning for the store began shortly after the opening of the first store located in Palm Desert. The developer was Carver Companies and it was controversial due to public officials giving themselves developmental rights in Indian owned land. At a contentious planning city council meeting in December 1975, the original permit was approved.

The store was a standard 28,500 square foot conventional store plan that was typical before Smith's great awakening in 1977. Although Smith's had started building 38,000 square foot food and drug stores, this property had been in  development for a couple years with the site not lending itself to a larger store with larger parking needs. The first store manager was Jim Pancoast. The grand opening was on December 6th 1977.

The store was a big success. In 1980, this store was #7 in profitability and #8 in increased sales for the California region.

Lucky's

Lucky's operated this particular location until 1996. The year prior, Albertson's opened a 50,000 square foot store up the street at 1717 E Vista Chino, which must have put a drag on sales. The original developer of the Smith's location, Carver, picked up additional acreage north of the store to build a replacement. Carver tore down some of the east-west facing small retail to create access to the new store from the shopping center. The new Lucky's was and is a beautiful 55,000 square foot store.

When Albertson's purchased American Stores in 1999, they sold the store up the street to Stater Brothers and rebranded the Lucky's store to Albertson's.

Today, the original Smith's location looks much as it did thirty years ago.

Smith's Food King #203 - 73-411 California 111, Palm Desert California

The first new construction Smith's in Southern California. (A new store in Goleta, Ca. had opened around the same time but it's construction had already begun under Jordano's ownership.)

Store Grand Opening - November 20, 1974

This store was built in what is still today an upscale retail development, El Paseo Square. Prior to Smith's launch of their superstore concept in the late 70's, most new stores clocked in at 28,000 square feet as is the case with this location.

Shortly after the grand opening, this store along with the three Oxnard stores were in a test market for what Smith's called their E.S.P. (Extra Special Pricing) program.

This store operated as a Lucky Food Store until the nineties when a much larger replacement store was built down the street. The building then housed an Office Max for a number of years. Most recently the building has been extensively remodeled for upscale apparel retailer, Sack's 5th Avenue.