The store, at 4600 Leetsdale Drive in Glendale, will roll out the shopping carts and slide open the automatic doors on Wednesday, November 17, with a day-long grand-opening party that will include coffee and doughnuts, samplings, giveaways, a string quartet and appearances by Rocky, the Denver Nuggets mascot, and Miles, the Broncos mascot.
While the finishing touches are still being applied, King Soopers spokeswoman Kelli McGannon promises that "this store will be glowing come Wednesday." Many products are already on the shelves, and the produce is being stocked today.
But the biggest reason that customers may celebrate the opening? Booze.
Colorado liquor laws currently allows a company to apply for only one drug store/liquor license that it can use for only one store. This means that each of the major grocery chains has had to pick a single location to sell anything stronger than 3.2 beer.
Target sells booze at its store in Glendale, while Safeway uses its liquor license at a spot on Mineral Road in Littleton. This will be King Soopers' first venture into full-strength alcohol sales in Colorado.
The company had been waiting for the right location, and found it at a long-vacant Cub Foods that King Soopers bought four years ago. The space is about 75,000 square feet, including 10,000 square feet for alcohol, and is the first new King Soopers to open in the Denver metro area in about eighteen months.
