Vons hops into giant supermarket market with Simi Valley sprawler.

Vons Companies Inc. opened a giant-sized supermarket last week that offers everything from party planning to dry cleaning services.

Vons is following behind the cart of Salt Lake City-based Smith's Food & Drug Centers, which first introduced the large, multi-faceted supermarket concept to Southern California in 1990. Dublin, Calif.-based Lucky Stores Inc., meanwhile, plans to open its own such superstore in early 1994, said Lucky spokeswoman Judy Decker.

The new Vons Super Combination Store, located in Simi Valley, is a mammoth 80,000 square feet. In contrast, Vons' already existing supermarkets average 50,000 square feet.

Aside from the merchandise offered at conventional supermarkets, this store sports a Bank of America outlet, pharmacy, photo department, party center and United Parcel Service shipping department. Those who shop when they're hungry can choose from a Panda Express, Baja Grill and Classico Pizza shop, all inside the store.

In contrast to a conventional grocery store, where customers walk in and are immediately confronted with a produce or other food section, customers at the Super Combination store are greeted with the floral department, pharmacy and food court.

"You don't get to the grocery store section until you've experienced everything else," said Douglas Christopher, a securities analyst with Crowell Weedon & Co., a Los Angeles-based brokerage firm.

This new store will probably have to bring in revenue of between $500,000 and $1 million per week to succeed, he added. It carries 85,000 different items, while other Vons stores sell between 20,000 and 45,000, Christopher added.

The store will probably thrive because it not only carries most of what a customer would need, but also offers these items at Vons' traditionally low prices, he said.

Oversized stores fare well only in certain neighborhoods, so Vons is picking sites for future Super Combination stores carefully, said Vons spokeswoman Julie Reynolds. Construction is under way in Inglewood for a second such store, which is slated to open in early 1994.

Competitors say Vons' new supermarkets don't pose a threat to them. "The few stores Vons or anyone would open wouldn't be competition," because there won't be too many of them, said Bob Bolinder, executive vice president at Smith's.

"We look at Vons opening up as verification of the validity of our type of store," he said. Smith's stores are each about 75,000 square feet.

Smith's has opened 18 super supermarkets in Southern California since 1990, and Bolinder said those stores' sales have been in existence more than a year are up "nicely."

The chain plans to open 10 to 12 more such stores this year, he said.

"The real proof of the pudding" that Smith's concept is working is that Vons is building a store just like Smith's, Bolinder said.

In fact, just a year and a half ago, Vons officials said they weren't interested in building oversized grocery stores, Christopher said.

"They (Vons) borrowed a lot of very good ideas from Smith's," said Edward Comeau, senior vice president with Shearson Lehman Bros., a New York-based brokerage firm.

Reynolds at Vons, however, said Vons was not copying Smith's and cited distinct differences between Vons' Super Combination Store and the Smith's Food & Drug Centers.

The Vons store has a Baja Grill, which is an authentic Mexican restaurant, a "party center" where customers can get party planning services, a center where customers can mail UPS packages, a stationery store, and a Rubbermaid store, none of which is in Smith's stores, Reynolds said.

Lucky's, meanwhile, plans to open a 100,000-square-foot super grocery store in early 1994, Decker said. Construction has not yet begun.

Lucky's is also looking at sites for super stores in Las Vegas, Chula Vista and inner-city Los Angeles, but it has no firm commitments, Decker said.

The large Lucky supermarkets will combine the services of its Sav-On Drugs subsidiary and Lucky supermarkets, she said.