THE NEXT BIG THINGS

user, you shop maybe once a week, and if you’re a typical user, maybe once a month. You don’t have to have fashion. You don’t have to have a pair of jeans.

“Grocery stores, you’re going twice a week. If a grocery store draws from a mile- or mile-and-a-half radius, a department store draws from a 15-mile radius, depending on densities.”

The major barrier to grocery store expansion or entrance into the Dallas market is competition. Three of the top five grocers in the country — Walmart, Kroger and Safeway — all have a strong presence here,” Mike Geisler says, “and then you’ve got a whole other layer of stores underneath that.”

So for newcomers to the Dallas grocery market, “there’s a reason why they’re not here right now, and there’s a reason you don’t see grocery store expansion as a whole like it was,” Kent Arnold says. “Everyone is trying to retool and refigure.”

BURGERS & TACOS Concept food to go

“The hottest thing in food in Dallas is anything tacos,” Robert Young says. Restaurants with full menus of almost nothing but taco concoctions are popping up left and right, taking over former Blockbuster spaces and old automotive garages.

“All of these are built and engineered to go in at a relatively manageable cost to meet the needs of an area,” Young says.

Burgers — and more specifically, sliders are another hot commodity. Everyone from homegrown companies such as Jakes and Burger House to national chains such as Five Guys and Smashburger are expanding to our local market.

“If the concept is cool, if the price point is kind of in the middle of the fairway, and if the food is good, local neighborhoods love it,”Young says.

“As long as you put a drive-through on

WHAT’STHE BIG DEAL?

Customers love Trader Joe’s Hawaiian shirts and high customer service standards, but the grocer is most famous for stocking its shelves with gourmet food at reasonable prices. Its stores are relatively small — comparable to the size of its parent company, Aldi — and instead of selling 40 different peanut butters, Trader Joe’s might sell four. The overall philosophy is that customers don’t want that many choices, and the inherent message is that these four peanut butters are the best four on the market. This was pointed out in a September Fortune magazine article, which also revealed that the company’s largest research and development expense is sending its buyers all over the globe finding the best products. Once identified, Trader Joe’s enters into a vendor contract, guaranteeing high-volume sales in return for the vendor remaining mum. For example, if Trader Joe’s determined that Blue Bell was indeed the best ice cream in the country, it would arrange an agreement to buy the ice cream in bulk, add its own label to the cartons, and sell the ice cream at a discount in its stores. Trader Joe’s wins because customers love the stuff (if they don’t, it comes off the shelves), and Blue Bell wins because it receives a substantial guaranteed paycheck and can still sell its half gallons for $6 at Kroger even though they sell at Trader Joe’s for only $3.

FROMTHE HORSE’S MOUTH “Right now, Dallas is not in our twoyear plan. We don’t give out specifics of what we look for in sites.” —ALISONMOCHIZUKI, TRADER JOE’SSPOKESWOMAN

EXPERTOPINION “There’s a reason why they’re not here right now, and there’s a reason you don’t see grocery store one side and a patio on the other, food is going to continue to be big in Texas.”

DISCOUNT RETAIL Everybody loves a bargain

Neighbors love the idea of a boutique store opening nearby, or even a boutiqueish national retailer, such as a Trader Joe’s grocery store. but in this economy, people are more likely to see “coming soon” advertisements from Trader Joe’s discount parent company, aldi.

“What the market is demanding now is completely opposite” of the boutique trend, arnold says. “Three of the top 20 expanding retailers are dollar stores — that kind of shows you the direction.” aldi, the largest grocery store in the world, opened 20-plus new stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth market over the last two years with a completely different product approach than a gourmet grocer like Central Market.

“Central Market looks at it as, ‘How do I get a quality product here?’ ” arnold says. “aldi looks at it as, ‘How do I get the cost down?’ ”

Companies with the latter mentality are growing in the current market.

“any and everyone who’s a discounter today is hot, from the dollar stores to the Saks Off Fifth,” young says. “They’re going into markets that sometimes are underserved, but also finding themselves in markets that they can penetrate because the value of real estate is competitive.”

Discounters can now afford the secondgeneration space that was unavailable to them a few years ago, and also are reaching new customers because of the recession.

“Consumers today are looking to go shorter distances, and they’re looking for deals,” arnold says. “everything is based expansion as a whole like it was. Everyone is trying to retool and refigure.” kent Arnold

“They’ll get here. It’s just about when they get here. One of the things that might have slowed them down is that wine is a heavy component of their store, and the wetdry issue is always confusing to retailers who aren’t from Dallas. The biggest thing around consumer confidence in the economy — not even that we’re doing good, but that we’re going to do good,” arnold says.

FRO-YO

Frozen goodness by the ounce

Frozen yogurt — what the kids (and marketing gurus) are calling “fro-yo” — is all the rage.

“Look at all of these self-serve yogurt places opening up,” young says. “On the one hand, you can argue that we absolutely don’t need any more retail. However, just because of this retail girth, this total market size, there’s a lot of room for a lot of players.” mAp Yo’ YoGurt our interactive map pinpoints dallas froyo spots and breaks down the competitors’ differences: lakehighlands. advocatemag.com/ retail

Many companies entering the Dallas market have been around for years, even decades. So why the sudden explosion? It likely stems from West Hollywood, Calif.-based Pinkberry.

“Cupcakes are the same way,” says Shelton, referring to the recent cupcake craze. “Sprinkles got lots of celebrity attention in La, and Pinkberry did the same. People latch on to what the celebrities endorse by using the product.”

So does Dallas have enough room for all of the new players in the frozen yogurt market?

“anytime you see that on the real estate side, you just wait for the fallout because somebody’s not going to make it,” Shelton says. “There’s only so much demand for that product, and not everyone can succeed.”

[keeping them away] is other major markets they’ve been trying to break into that they’ve prioritized. ... The more sophisticated office worker demographic is their primary demographic, and we’re a services-based economy, [so] Dallas is their core customer. They keep on saying it’s about three years out.

We would probably see one in Oak Lawn or Uptown. They would try to find a way to get into Park Cities/Preston Hollow, do something to service the Greenville and Lovers area, something that hits East Dallas, White Rock and M Streets, also Far North Dallas north of LBJ, and Plano.” mike Geisler

“Gosh, if Trader Joe’s was here, they’d just knock ’em dead. It’s a huge investment because they’re not going to do one store

[due to] logistics and operations, a lot of issues that are heavy duty. They also have to worry about their competition. Dallas has some pretty good grocery operators.” robert YounG

“It’s really a Sprouts on steroids. We hear rumblings and rumors all the time, but as of now it’s really just that rumor.”

dAvid shelton