As of October 28, 2026, three U.S. grocery chains opened new stores on the same day. Publix opened a 46,791-square-foot store at Commons at Carolina Shores in Calabash, North Carolina, and a 48,397-square-foot store in Independence, Kentucky. H-E-B opened a store of more than 125,000 square feet at Interstate 10 East and Loop 1604, serving San Antonio's far East Side along with Converse, Seguin and La Vernia. Fareway opened a Meat & Grocery in Coal Valley, Illinois. For teams that plan store networks, the useful question is not how many doors opened but what each site had to prove before the lease was signed.
Three debuts, three different bets
Start with what each site is being asked to do. The H-E-B store is a box of more than 125,000 square feet with a True Texas BBQ restaurant, a drive-thru pharmacy, more than 30 curbside pickup spaces, home delivery including one-hour delivery at $9.95, and a convenience store with a 10-pump fuel station and car wash under construction for summer 2027. That is a format built to anchor a corridor rather than fill a gap in an existing network.
Publix is running a different play. Its two openings are 46,791 and 48,397 square feet, each with a full-service deli, bakery, meat and seafood departments, a drive-thru pharmacy, and Publix Delivery through Instacart. The Independence store adds an adjacent Publix Liquors. These are conventional supermarkets extending coverage into Northern Kentucky and the coastal Carolinas, where the chain already has density to protect rather than a corridor to claim.
What location selection has to prove
Catchment before capex
Location selection starts with a catchment estimate, not a rent negotiation. The workable version counts households inside a drive-time ring, adjusts for income and car ownership, then subtracts sales that will migrate from the chain's own nearby stores. Skipping the cannibalization step is the most common error, because a new box can hit its own sales target while the surrounding district quietly loses volume.
Only after that does capex enter the conversation. A store above 125,000 square feet with a restaurant, fuel and car wash carries a very different payback profile from a 47,000-square-foot supermarket. Both can be correct decisions, but they answer different questions: one buys share in a growth corridor, the other defends density inside an established trade area where the chain already has a position to protect.
Format follows the ring
Format should follow the ring, not the other way around. Where households are spread out and car-dependent, a larger box with curbside lanes and fuel works because the trip is planned in advance. Where the ring is dense and walkable, a smaller store with faster replenishment usually beats a big box on trip frequency. H-E-B's 30-plus curbside spaces and one-hour delivery option are a clear bet on car-based stock-up trips.
Publix's drive-thru pharmacy and Instacart delivery point the other way: the store remains the primary trip, and delivery extends the same basket rather than replacing it. Neither model is superior in the abstract. The failure mode is copying a format that worked in one ring into a ring with different trip behavior, then blaming execution when the sales curve stays flat.
Four site tests, in order
| Site test | Question it answers | Data needed |
|---|---|---|
| Catchment | How many households reach the door in ten minutes | Drive-time rings, household counts |
| Cannibalization | How much volume moves from existing stores | Store-level sales by origin |
| Format fit | Which box size matches trip behavior | Car ownership, basket size, trip frequency |
| Fulfillment | Whether delivery adds trips or replaces them | Online share, delivery radius |
Run the tests in order. Catchment without cannibalization overstates demand; cannibalization without format fit picks the wrong box size; format fit without fulfillment data misses the fastest-changing variable in grocery. Each test is cheap relative to a lease, and each one can kill a site before capital is committed, which is exactly the point of doing them early rather than after construction.
The output should be a range, not a single number. A single forecast invites false precision and makes the review meeting about defending a figure rather than testing an assumption. Give the investment committee a base case, a downside case where the ring grows half as fast as projected, and an upside case where a competitor exits. Decisions made on ranges survive the first bad quarter.
Turning the site test into a document
Keep four columns in the site file: ring definition and household count, estimated cannibalized volume, chosen format and square footage, and fulfillment plan with delivery radius. Add a fifth column for the assumption most likely to be wrong. That fifth column is what makes the file useful a year later, when actual sales either confirm the plan or quietly contradict it.
Evidence boundaries matter here. The three openings are confirmed by trade press reports published Oct. 28, and store sizes, service features and the summer 2027 fuel station timeline come from those reports. Neither chain disclosed first-year sales targets, catchment counts or cannibalization estimates. The tests described above are a planning method, not a description of what these chains actually did.
FAQ
Why did three chains open on the same day?
Timing is usually driven by construction completion and lease commencement rather than coordination. Late October also sits ahead of the holiday season, so a store that opens now has several weeks to build awareness before peak grocery weeks. The same-day pattern is a coincidence of schedules, not a signal about the market.
Is a 125,000-square-foot store still viable?
It can be, if the site is anchoring a corridor rather than competing inside an existing trade area. Large boxes need planned stock-up trips, which means car access, curbside capacity and enough households in the ring. Without those conditions the same square footage becomes a cost problem rather than a competitive advantage.
How much cannibalization is acceptable?
There is no universal number. The test is whether the new store adds net volume to the district after migration is subtracted. If district volume is flat while the new store hits its own target, the site has mostly moved sales around, and the investment case rests on cost or format advantages rather than growth.
Where does delivery fit into location selection?
Delivery changes the effective ring. If a store can serve a wider radius through delivery, the catchment calculation should include those households. The open question is whether delivery adds trips or replaces them, which is why online share belongs in the site file alongside household counts.
