Home Depot

Craig, the Home Depot is being constructed as we speak on St. Thomas, next to the movie theater. Don't know what your opinion is about big business, but if you are planning to build a house apparently it will make things a lot easier.
BTW, that was my moving story, so if you have any other questions about what I said, feel free to ask.

Onika,

Good morning... thanks, what is the approx. opening date for the Home Depot? If you've experienced the perpetual joys of home ownership... (and I have plenty) you may love this store. Still there are issues seemingly associated with larger stores. I cannot comment on big vs. small business on island; however have read plenty of comments regarding scarcity of needed or wanted items. Stateside Home Depot are a property owners close dream. In my opinion.

Another note... cats and dogs, no children?

Craig

Unfortunately, we are not homeowners. Our one venture into the world of home purchasing was a disaster we are still recovering from. (To make a long story short: we just lost a bid two months ago on the perfect home. Oh well.). But, if we ever get there or begin to construct our own home, I am thrilled that the do-it-yourself mega-store, Home Depot, will be on-island. Last I heard, estimated completion date was end of year 2003.

As far as the cats and dogs, but no children issue. Have you been talking to my mom?! Haha. Yeah, yeah, we're working on it, but there's so much to do and see b/4 the wee ones come! I am feeling pangs though. We live right around the corner from a daycare and the Northside tot lot. Ooh, kids can be so cute...
especially when they are not yours. :0)

Onik'a I enjoyed your sense of humor 🙂 thanks!!!

As for the Home Depot; well yes it will present home owners and home builders a great oppurtunity to get items all at one place/conveinence and competitive prices. But it certainly will greatly affect the smaller locally owned shops that sell specific items ie. lumber, paints, tiles, gardening supplies... we will see how it all pans out.

They certainly cleared a huge area for the store. That area is really becoming very developed.

--Islander

just a thought/ note... as im planning on building my own house in the next few years [on stj] i have great hopes for the home depot...

but im not sure whether those hopes will be fulfilled or not... for a comparison, try going to office depot sometime, a store that should be so very efficient and competitive and easy..... just to find that they are entirely *out* of fax machines. of any size or price range. or that there are *no* employees in the front to check you out. for 10 minutes...

hmmm, i hope home depot can staff their store in a similar manner to the stores in the states, where everyone seems happy to work there, and helpful and knowledgeable as can be...

Hey, I really don't mind that some of the shops will have tougher competition for the dollar. Not being a small shop owner, it helps me as a consumer. The Virgin Islands will not be able to avoid the invasions of the corporations. It has happened all over the states and they are running out of profitable areas to expand. I don't know it is like we can either choose to pay higher prices or sell out to corporations. A tough choice.
I mean this is just a high profile example. Look at Subway opening right next to the Grateful Deli in Redhook. When prices are similar, I try to go with the non corporation. So maybe it will drive the prices down for the local smaller shops and they can stay in business. If they are stubborn and keep higher prices, they will probably go bankrupt.

Kudzu, Office Max situation yes yes yes I know, gets to be irritating quickly, I find they are always understaffed and under supplied or so it seems. As I understand from a manager there that they don't control over what is ordered, the "mother" store just sends stuff. Sounded sort of nuts to me, I figured they would be able to request more of something that sold well and less of things that don't.

Chris - talking about Subway.... thought I saw a sign in Cruz Bay, for a Subway???? (was driving through and was not paying much attention, but was sure I saw signage on some wood panels for Subway...) was a bit shocked, I know Wendys was in there years ago; but I think its part of the St. John atmosphere to not see any chains. Whats the scoop and what do you think?

As for big chains moving in, in some places it just seems so wrong. ie. Was in Venice years ago and there was not 1 Mcdonalds but FOUR!!! almost every turn you landed on a Mcdonalds door step. 🙁

-Islander

Some of these chains are over-expanding, like mcdonalds.
Ummmm, I guess I have mixed feelings about the subway.
It is going to be the only major chained restaurant on STJ. Considering they are building it out of that roach infested trailor that Scotia Bank used to be in, it is kinda gross. I hate commercialized food. I am a chef by trade and I hate corporate restaurants because as a cook, you have no say in the food and usually it is opening bags of seasoning and frozen sauces/ soups. It is a mockery of all I stand for as a chef.
They hire inexperienced high schoolers to run the cooking lines and they probably could hire chimps to do it.
That aside, I think the subway will make it if they stay open late night. After ten at night, there is only woody's to eat on te island. They will struggle to keep it staffed. No one living on STJ will take a job under 10-11 dollars an hour and the ferry stops running to STT after 11pm so they can rely on cheap STT wages. I think from 10pm to 1am would be when they would make the most money. St. John does have a number of places to get deli type sandwiches so I can't see people opting for SUBWAY. They do have a great location with a lot of traffic. I dont think the local will patronize it much unless there are no other options for food.

That said.....i bet there wil be a lot of drunk and stoned young people with the munchies that will give into the subway. I will boycott it as best I can. I dont want McDonalds or any of the others to get any ideas.

Since we are digressing and moving to a discussion of fast food chains, I have a question perhaps you guys can help me with:
My experience in the states has been that where there is a McDonald's, a Burger King is not far away. The only exceptions to this I have seen have been with leased locations, like malls, where the landlord and the fast food chain have an exclusivity agreement, whereby the landlord agrees not to lease to a competitor.
So...
is it possible to have an exclusivity agreement with a territory? Or would that implicate free trade? Or do you think BK hasn't set up shop because it just doesn't see the USVI as profitable?
Or...
should I reserve this question for another board? Like one for municpal lawyers? Haha.

The hubby and I were contemplating STT's future and trying to imagine the continual growth of big business and this issue came up. Is the USVI safe from BK, et al. or is it anybody's game?

Thanks for your thoughts you guys.

STT already has Domino's, McD's, Wendy's, KFC, Pizza Hut(which is owned by BK), and Subway. If those are profitable, more chains and stores will come. I think STT will eventually have all the chains that puerto rico has, in a smaller scale. It really is too bad but I must confess that the only fast food i eat is the KFC. When I got over to STT, I get the addictive chicken. Maybe I should go to counciling because I know I shouldn't be eating that crap.

I didn't know that Pizza Hut was owned by BK. It's all so...incestuous. Gosh, soon every enterprise will be owned (parented) by 10 companies.
Where is the Domino's on the island?
BTW, do you recall that urban/internet legend going around for a while that "KFC" had to legally change it's name from "Kentucky Fried Chicken" b/c it no longer uses real chicken, but genetically engineered/modified chicken-like organisms. No head, feathers, beaks or feet. Just lots of breast, legs, wings and thigh. I haven't been able to ingest their chicken ever since I heard that. Although it's false, it had the fortunate side effect of grossing me out on KFC forever.
Now, if they could only find a way to do that with ice cream and french fries...

Chris, you are in error about Pizza Hut being owned by Burger King. They are owned by a company called Yum! Brands. Their corporate office is located here in Louisville. They own KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silvers and A&W. Based on the way they do business, if you have one of their restaurants (and I use the term loosely), you can look for another to pop up pretty soon.

Onika,

Yes your mother says hi ;o) could'nt you have picked a homeless cat or two... started some new philanthropic kitty adoption system on island? If you want temporary children... I'll loan some when I get there.

Office Depot stateside never impressed me!

Re KFC, I think, they call it Plicken now!

See yas

Craig

Hello,

Onik'a there used to be a Burger King on St. Thomas. There used to be an Arbys too, in the same vacinity of town. Burger King got destroyed by a hurricane, was pretty busy with tourist and with school kids in the afternoons. Burger King if I remember correctly was where Del Sol is now, and Arbys was where Tavern on the waterfront is. So yes there used to be one.

Back in the day there was Burger King in town, one McD - the one in Wheatley Center, there was Pizza Hut in town and one in Tutu next to the Tutu Movie Theatre that is no longer there, and one in Wheatley Center, KFC was in Havensight ahhh that was it. Oh Yeah St. John used to have Wendy's - it was right on the water in Cruz Bay. Then McD expanded to having the store in Frenchtown and Tutu, Wendys came in, Dominos (in the mall Onik'a- Tutu Park Mall), Subway now in four spots, Cold Stone Creamery in two spots, and so forth and so on. I would like to think a place can only support X amount of of fast food spots.

So to sum it up, both used to here. Onik'a yes I think a person or business can get exclusive franchise rights for a business to an area which they can then allow another to use or set up the business themselves. I have heard of businesses getting the franchise rights to the Caribbean and/or to the USVI, paying hefty for it of course and then setting up and selling the businesses so in essence sub-lease I suppose and also having control of the number of that same business that goes in. But you won't be the only fast food like in a Mall, where say you were K-mart could say you don't want Walmart in there. But you can get the franchise rights just for the business you have, you can't prevent someone from coming in somewhere on the island with another business, so no exclusivity in terms of a business license to operate just your business and not allow others like you - you would have a monopoly of that was the case.

Chris - I was sort of disappointed myself to see a chain in St. John.

--Islander

I have heard from older timers that there WAS a Burger King, where the Del Sol store is now on the waterfront. Also there was an Arby's...This was before Hugo???

Sorry, my fault, Dominoes is owned by Burger King.
Well, sort of...three major groups own Burger King and one of the major grops also owns dominoes. Another owns Polo Ralph Loren., among others. The other owns Petco, Continental Airlines, Beringer wine, J. Crew, and Ducati motorcycles.
These corporations like to spread it out.

Oh the KFC thing is urban legend!
The reason for the name change is that during the health craze, sales dropped on Kentucky Fried Chicken. Americans didnt want to know how the chicken was prepared or at least reminded of how unhealthy it was. So they went with their nickname so that people wouldn't think of greasy, artery clogging fried chicken. It obviously worked except for the urban legend.
Kind of like the urban legend of McDonalds using Kangaroo meat. No, they just use Australian beef because it is cheaper.
The people who spread those stories were probably competitors or dumb teenagers who looked at the box of beef that came in the orders and saw it was from Australia and the ONLY meat that could come from there would be kangaroo. Kind of like all we eat down here are mangos and drink coconut milk.

East Ender, I wrote about Burger King and Arbys - and had frequented both when they were open- you calling me an old timer.

LOL 🙂 Just Teasing.

--Islander

Okay, there was also a Subway in St. John! It was where Sogo's is now. The Wendy's in St. John was the first Wendy's in the VI!

As far as the Stone Cold Creamery. I think they are too looking at St. John, as well as I hear that Burger King is eyeing a spot in the Ports of Sale Mall in St. Thomas.

The former senator Allie Petrus, recently opened the Subway in Tutu Park, he is opening the one in St. John in the old Scotia location.

Onik'a there is also a Domino's in Nisky Center as well as the original St. Thomas Subway.

Chris, i disagree with you as to who will be shopping at the Subway. Have you never seen people on the ferry coming back to St. John with McD's bags and KFC bags as well as the chinese food in Red Hook. They hop the ferry to buy alternative food, so they will be happy with Subway this time I believe.

Ronnie

Subway wont have anything that STJ doesnt already have for food. There isnt a McD's, KFC, or a chinese place(soon come) on STJ. There are delis with superior breads, cheeses, and meats. How many people would honestly prefer subway bread to the rolling pins? Their meats and cheeses are bland and you have to cover everything with a ton of mayo, salt, pepper, and vinegar to disguise the blandness. The bacon, if you order it, is the most pathetic thing I have ever seen. Go to Simple Feast, Kati Lady, or Mongoose deli and tell me you prefer Subway. The only franchise sandwich place I respect is Quizno's(spelling?).

I haven't seen anyone with Subway bags.......yet coming over from Redhook. I dont think people intentionally go to STT to get Mcd's. I think some people run errands and get food on the fly(since they can get it on STJ) as a treat. Three dollars there and three dollars back on the ferry would be an expensive way to get fast food.

I think a cold stone would do better than this new Subway. I may be wrong, we will all see, BUT I think there might be a bit of a boycott by locals, especially old timers. I have heard some grumbling, already. There is a reason we are all here...........and its not because we love the corporate controlled world. I heard what happened when they tried to put a stoplight in cruzbay. heh-heh

Chris and Ronnie,

Funny you guys would mention the going over to the island to get fast food. LOL - I remember back in Junior High - it was a weekend thing (when not so many fast foods existed on St. Thomas) for kids to get together - take the St. John ferry over, eat lunch at the Wendys and then hike some trails and go to the beach. Wendys was definately part of the plan - but hey there weren't to many options back then- and we were all young teens - so seemed like an exciting change/treat. LOL - I certainly would not do it today, much prefer brining picnic food with me from home when going over to St. John or picking something up at the grocery store there.

Ronnie - forgot about Dominos in Nisky... there used to be Taco Bell there and in Sugar Estate too - which I forgot to mention. Sure seems like a lot of fast food for us!!

--Islander

Islander: We posted the same info within 2 minutes of each other! Also, I know people who come from Tortola who always go to Mickey D's when they are here! You always want what you don't have in your back yard. Human nature...go figure!