Jimbo's... Naturally! overcomes redevelopment building challengesJimbo's... Naturally! overcomes redevelopment building challenges

Jim “Jimbo” Someck touts team in the success of the family-owned, five-store independent Jimbo’s…Naturally! chain.

After all, it takes a troop to build a successful natural foods retail business, especially when opening a new location—his largest—in a downtown urban mall project.

A real estate broker approached Someck with the idea for the new store. He toured the site and saw a building unfit for a grocery store. “All of these things were saying no, no, no, you are stupid to do it,” Someck says. “At the end of the day, I knew how invested Westfield (the developer) was in seeing me succeed.”

The whole team stepped up to the plate, Someck says, to expand creatively in these three ways:

Conquering building challenges: Someck, the store team and Westfield overcame much to build a second-floor store where deliveries arrive street-level and customers park on the fourth. Refrigeration, kitchen ductwork, freight elevator concerns and redundancies, a special shopping cart escalator to get to the parking lot and more came together for a seamless shopping (and store operations) experience.

Formidable foodservice: To serve a lunchtime rush for nearby office workers, this location features two and half times the foodservice of other Jimbo’s locations. The revamped food program includes a wok bar and a burrito bar that the interim mayor declared “better than Chipotle.”

A tribute to San Diego: Historic pictures of local landmarks—from the original Horton Plaza to Lindbergh Field and more—fill walls of the store; aisles bear the names of city streets. Store areas such as cheese, produce, hot foods and seating also carry the names of city districts.