After 57 years anchoring a stretch of San Jose, the Safeway at 6150 Bollinger Road is locking its doors for good on Nov. 13. The closure comes the same week Albertsons disclosed it will also shut down its longtime bread plant in Richmond, a one-two punch that underscores just how aggressively the grocery giant is reshaping its California footprint.
The San Jose closure will leave Orchard Farms Shopping Center without its anchor tenant, according to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle. Safeway did not disclose a reason for shutting down the location, the Chronicle reported, even as the company confirmed the store's run there is ending after 57 years. The chain says the roughly dozen workers there won't be out of a job, though — according to KRON4, Safeway stated that all associates will keep their jobs and be assigned to another store in the geographic area. That shouldn't be a long commute: San Jose has 13 other Safeway locations, including one less than a mile from the Bollinger Road store, per the same station's report.
Richmond's Bread Plant Goes Quiet Too
Just as that San Jose closure was announced, Safeway revealed plans to shut its Richmond bread plant at 905 South 34th Street, a facility that has long produced bakery products for the chain, the Chronicle reports. The closure is expected to affect 92 employees. The Chronicle reported the shutdown date as Dec. 20, while SFGATE's reporting on the same closure cited Dec. 30 — the two accounts differ on the exact timing, and that discrepancy has not been independently resolved.
Safeway has not said why the Richmond facility, which has baked bread for the company since 1965, is closing, nor has it specified where Bay Area stores will source branded bread once it does — both questions that Albertsons senior director of external communications Sarah Holland did not address when asked, according to SFGATE's reporting on the plant's closure. Holland did confirm in an email to SFGATE that a limited number of Richmond plant employees would be offered other jobs, though the company has not said how many.
A Pattern of Closures Across the Bay Area
Neither closure is an isolated event. Safeway has closed stores in San Francisco's Fillmore district, Pinole, Vallejo and Hayward over the past two years, per the Chronicle's reporting. USA Today separately reported that Safeway locations in Hayward and in Washington, D.C., both closed earlier in 2026, and noted that Albertsons, which bought Safeway in January 2015, said in a statement that it continually evaluates its store network.
The closures line up with a rough stretch for Albertsons' bottom line. Comparable-store sales fell by just under 1% in the second quarter of fiscal 2026, and net sales and other revenue slipped 0.1% to $18.9 billion, according to Grocery Dive. That outlet reported the company has now seen that metric lose momentum for three consecutive quarters, even as digital sales rose 11% during the same period.
Albertsons Pulls Its Forecast and Signals More Cuts
Albertsons withdrew its fiscal 2026 forecasts and launched a review of its business aimed at cutting costs, lowering prices and reversing sluggish sales, according to Investing.com. The review, which builds on a restructuring announced in July, is expected to wrap up in the fourth quarter ending February 2027. “We'll exit areas that are underperforming,” Albertsons executive Susan Morris said, as reported by Investing.com.
Morris, in comments cited by Grocery Dive from an October earnings call, said the company would take aggressive action on its workforce in the next 12 to 18 months, though she did not specify which locations would be affected. Safeway's WARN layoff filings are listed across 11 workforce board areas in Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland and Oregon, according to WARNTracker.
The belt-tightening comes against the backdrop of Albertsons' unsuccessful attempt to merge with Kroger. Following termination of that merger agreement, Albertsons filed a lawsuit against Kroger in the Delaware Court of Chancery, according to an SEC filing, alleging willful breach of the merger agreement and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Kroger, for its part, is planning to cut 3,000 corporate employees over the next three years as it leans more heavily on artificial intelligence, per SeafoodSource.
For now, San Jose shoppers who've relied on the Bollinger Road store for 57 years have until Nov. 13 to make their last trips, while 92 Richmond bakery workers face a plant shutdown that Safeway has yet to fully explain.
