The Aldi invasion continues
New store opens in former home of Lucky’s, Pearl Artist Supply in Oakland Park
Discount grocer Aldi is poised to open in a storied location in Oakland Park.
The company’s newest South Florida store will welcome its first customers on Dec. 17 at 1033 E. Oakland Park Blvd., former home to the short-lived cult favorite Lucky’s Market and before that, Pearl Artist & Craft Supply.
The new Aldi will get a jump-start on rival Sprouts Farmers Market, which is projected to open its new store on Jan. 7 at a former Kmart location a few blocks to the west at 700 E. Oakland Park Blvd.
Aldi’s opening will follow a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 8:30 a.m. and will feature giveaways of keychains and reusable shopping bags.
As its avid customers know, Aldi competes with larger supermarkets by offering a smaller selection of mostly private-label goods at lower prices. Customers who are not satisfied with any product they buy at Aldi can return it for a replacement and 100% refund.
The chain keeps overhead low by employing fewer cashiers, displaying goods in their shipping boxes, and requiring customers to bag their own purchases. It also reduces the need to pay workers to gather shopping carts from its parking lot by requiring customers to insert quarters to get one.
To get their quarters back, customers must bring the carts back to where they found them, just outside of the stores’ front entrances.
Headquartered in the United States in Batavia, Illinois, Aldi was founded in Germany in 1946 by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht and then split into two separate companies, Aldi Süd and Aldi Nord, which operate thousands of stores in Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia. Aldi Süd controls the U.S. chain of Aldi stores while Aldi Nord operates in the U.S. as Trader Joe’s.
Aldi opened its first American store in Iowa in 1976 and has since expanded to more than 2,100 locations across 37 states, according to the company’s website. Previously, the company announced plans to have 2,500 stores in the U.S. by the end of 2022, but that figure is no longer mentioned in marketing materials.
In February, Aldi announced plans to open 100 new stores in 2021. Much of their expansion has been concentrated in Florida, where 184 stores have opened since the state’s first Aldi debuted in Orlando in 2008.
In South Florida, the chain has expanded from nine stores in 2013 to the current 47.
Since 2019, Aldi has opened South Florida stores at:
Coral Springs, 9184 Wiles Road Loxahatchee Groves, 15439 Southern Blvd.
North Lauderdale, 1180 S. State Road 7 Pompano Beach, 960 N. Federal Highway Greenacres, 3401 S. Jog Road Boynton Beach, 3452 W. Boynton Beach Blvd.
Like the new Oakland Park location, the Coral Springs store on Wiles Road was home to Lucky’s Market, which billed itself as an affordable organic grocer and offered glasses of wine and beer that customers could drink while they shopped.
Aldi purchased the locations after Lucky’s declared bankruptcy and closed all of its Florida stores in early 2020.
Before Lucky’s, Pearl Artist & Craft Supply occupied the Oakland Park location between 1976 and 2014. It served as a gathering place for local artists and art gallery owners.