OAKLAND — Grocery Outlet has signed a lease to open a supermarket at a shuttered store site in Oakland in a deal that could bring food choices, jobs, and vitality to an empty property.
The discount supermarket retailer is eyeing a location at 301 East 18th St. in Oakland, according to documents filed on March 10 with the Alameda County Recorder’s Office.
Grocery Outlet signed a lease for the property, the public real estate files show. The site is near the corner of East 18th Street and Third Avenue in the Eastlake neighborhood of Oakland.
Walgreens closed its store on East 18th Street in early 2025. The retail site is one of several stores Walgreens has closed in California and elsewhere as it downsizes.
By happenstance, Grocery Outlet has decided to close 36 stores, primarily on the East Coast, that the supermarket chain deemed to be underperforming, company executives disclosed during a March 4 conference call with Wall Street analysts.
In California, none of the Grocery Outlet stores whose doors will close are in the Bay Area.
During the same conference call, Chief Executive Officer Jason Potter told the analysts that Grocery Outlet has also decided to open 30 to 33 new stores around the country.
“We continue to plan to open another 30 to 33 net new stores in 2026, but they do reflect a more disciplined approach,” Potter said during the call.
Emeryville-based Grocery Outlet’s revamped strategy will be on display as it opens stores in Virginia.
“These locations will start as company-run with the intent of bringing them up to profitability before handing them over to independent operators,” Potter said. “Once proven, we believe this approach could be applied in more markets as we continue to grow this business.”
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Grocery Outlet would deploy this approach at the just-leased site in Oakland.