Death at 40. Safeway in the City. Capitalism devours its own in SF

SAN FRANCISCO – WESTERN ADDITION

Lee Heidhues 1.21.2025

Capitalism devours it own. Never mind that The People need to eat.

**Empty and abandoned**. **Where will the Safeway Western Addition shoppers go now?**

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertsons With 2,253 stores as of the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 and 270,000 employees as of fiscal year 2019, the company is the second-largest supermarket chain in North America after Kroger. Albertsons ranked 53rd in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Prior to its January 2015 merger with Safeway Inc. for $9.2 billion, it had 1,075 supermarkets located in 29 U.S. states under 12 different regional banners

Whether it be Safeway corporate greed, an epidemic of non-stop shop lifting or the failure of San Francisco leadership to guarantee a place for citizens to shop the reality is a 40 year neighborhood dining room table necessity is gone.

I took a walk by the site in the Western Addition today and it is a depressing view, indeed.

A large Safeway which would be packed with shoppers at midday now stands forlornly empty.

**Empty deli shelves in the shuttered Western Addition Safeway**

Safeway planned to shutter the store a year ago. Then Mayor London Breed, born and raised nearby in the Western Addition facing a tough reelection campaign prevailed upon Safeway to keep the store open another year. It was a short lived victory for all concerned. Mayor Breed was defeated last November. The supermarket is now shuttered.

The biggest losers are the customers, many of whom no longer have a readily accessible supermarket to buy their groceries.