I happened to be heading east on Victory Boulevard in the Reseda area and needed some dog and cat food, so I stopped at Vons, where Victory meets Tampa Avenue, to see what I could pick up.
I live very close to a Ralphs, and that’s my yardstick for supermarket “quality,” and the little slice of Vons that I saw was not good.
First of all, the selection was poor in comparison. And the prices were crazy high. I’m not talking 10 percent or 20 percent more. For the items I was buying, the prices were a good 30 percent to 40 percent more expensive at Vons then they were at Ralphs.
So either Ralphs is an incredible Shangri-La of bargains and overall bounty, or Vons is really killing its customers, getting killed by its suppliers, or both.
Steven Rosenberg 