Nearly three years to the day after its highly touted grand opening, the Bayview Lucky Supermarket is closing permanently on November 1, and leaving a big grocery-store size hole in the food desert neighborhood.
People have referred to SF’s Bayview District as a "food desert" for years, and that is also the actual assessment of the area from the federal government. While the US Department of Agriculture technically no longer uses the term “food desert,” they’ve replaced it with the term “low-income, low-access” food area, and gave the Bayview that designation in 2019. That’s why it was a big deal when a Lucky Supermarket opened at 3801 Third Street in the Bayview Plaza, a spot formerly occupied by a Walgreens, on October 26, 2022.
But it will barely survive just three years. KPIX has confirmed District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton’s Thursday Instagram post that the Bayview Lucky Supermarket is closing, effective November 1, 2025.
The Chronicle also got confirmation from a store manager and a spokesperson from Lucky’s parent corporation Save Mart. KPIX additionally reports that employees of the store will be offered positions at other stores, though only “ based on seniority and availability.”
Bayview Lucky shoppers were disappointed in the news, though maybe not necessarily shocked.
"I notice when I go in there is very little staff," longtime Bayview worker Anthony Davenport told KPIX. “It is so minimal in there, that was always concerning to me. I wondered how long it would last and it seems like they were set up to just kind of try something."
Supervisor Walton told KPIX he would not take this laying down.
"We're going to fight to make sure this store remains," he said to the station. "Again, we've been in this position before, and if, for some reason, Lucky does decide to leave, we're gonna fight like hell to make sure that we bring another grocery store into the plaza."
Former Supervisor Dean Preston, a veteran of the Fillmore Safeway closure battle, was on KGO pushing back that large grocery stores in SF are now required to give a six-month notice to the community before closing a store. That seems like a Hail Mary that would just delay the inevitable, but it could buy some time. Meanwhile, City Hall officials could court a chain like Smart & Final or Grocery Outlet Bargain Market to come into the soon-to-be-vacant space, as both chains have shown interest in doing so at other closed SF grocery store spaces in the past.
Image: Lucky Bayview via Yelp
