Yoshinoya to open at south and woodfruff

There is a new Yoshinoya Beef Bowl fast food restaurant opening next to the existing Fresh and Easy market at South and Woodruff. No date on the expected opening but construction is moving briskly at least for now. We believe that the Yoshinoya at South and Palo Verde is still open (and one of the few remaining tenants at that strip mall disaster; more on that later). It is possible that that store may close as it is very close to this new one.

When the Fresh and Easy opened in Nov 2007 it did not use all of the space that had been used by the old Petco. It has taken 15 months to sublease that extra space and it is still not clear if the Yoshinoya will use all the space or not.

It seems that South and Woodruff is attracting all the attention as it is larger than the South and Bellflower shopping area and has larger anchor tenants. Yet progress is slowly being made on the new parking lot at the old Vons. Apparently they are going to subdivide the old Vons as its just too hard to lease a single tenant space that large. And in case you haven't heard the supermarket biz is not going gangbusters these days.

We hear that much of the delay at that Vons site was the city itself not the landlord. What a surprise. A complaint we hear frequently now. Apparently the city could care less about helping businesses to open quickly. They are more interested in red tape and pumping fees out of starving tenants. Nothing new for typical low level bureaucrats who have never worked in the private sector. I have talked to a number of remodeling commercial tenants and as amazing as it sounds in this recession the city does not appear to be in any hurry to get businesses up and running. Apparently the Lakewood Chamber of Commerce is not reaching out either.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
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