Supermarket/Grocery

Bloomington, Minn. -- A three-year old specialty grocer that plans 60 stores by 2019 is entering a new state.

Fresh Thyme Farmers Market will open its first Minnesota store, in Bloomington, on Sept. 30.

"Fresh Thyme is excited to open its first Minnesota store in Bloomington," said Fresh Thyme's CEO Chris Sherrell. "We love meeting new people in the communities we join, and we look forward to offering a shopping experience that encourages healthy and nutritious buying habits."

As Target moves to reimagine the shopping experience for customers who visit its stores, the retailer has applied for two liquor licenses for a future store in Chicago.

USA Today reports that the company has applied for packaged goods and consumption on premises licenses.

The retailer may be trying to follow the lead of Kroger, Duane Reade and other retailers looking to expand their alcoholic offerings, which could pose operational challenges at these stores.

Boise, Idaho -- Haggen’s acquisition of 146 Albertsons and Safeway stores is shaping up as a disaster and the reasons why are detailed in a new lawsuit that puts the blame squarely on the parent company — Albertsons Holdings — of the divested stores.

Austin, Texas – A new study has identified the most popular retail POS system.

According to research by Software Advice, Lightspeed takes the top spot.

Software Advice assigned Lightspeed a combined score of 4.9 on a five-point scale for its user adoption level, search traffic and social media presence. Following Lightspeed were Microsoft Dynamics (4.7), Vend (4.4), Revel (4.4), Shopkeep (3.8), AP (3.5), NCR (3.2), Bindo (3) and CashierLive (3).

Newcastle, Wash. -- Retail Properties of America announced that it has closed on the off-market acquisition of Coal Creek Marketplace, a 56,000 sq. ft. grocery-anchored center located in Newcastle, Washington for approximately $17.6 million. The center is currently 95% occupied and anchored by Quality Food Centers, a subsidiary of Kroger.

Minneapolis – Target Corp. reportedly wants to become a place where consumers can go and everybody knows your name.

According to USA Today, Target plans to serve liquor in a store slated to open in Chicago in October 2015.

While a number of Target stores sell packaged alcohol products, this marks the first time Target would also serve liquor for customers to consume inside the store. Target has applied for permits to both sell alcohol for take-home purchase and for in-store consumption for the Chicago store.

Regional supermarket chain Haggen’s acquisition of 146 Albertsons and Safeway stores has been a disaster and the reasons why are detailed in a new lawsuit that heaps blame of the parent company of divested stores.

Arlington, Va. – Regional southeastern grocery retailer K-VA-T Food Stores is staying in the money, and doing it remotely.

The operator of the Food City and Super Dollar banners has implemented vbInSight by Balance Innovations as its corporate reporting solution.

vbInSight is a Web-based corporate reporting application that provides K-VA-T with immediate access, via alerts, to individual and aggregate bookkeeper and cashier data.