North Davis location
| Location |
| 1900 Anderson Rd, in the Anderson Plaza |
| Hours |
| Daily 6:00AM to Midnight |
| Phone |
| (530) 758-0580 |
| Website |
| http://www.savemart.com |
Save Mart is a Northern California grocery chain based in Modesto. The chain supports locally grown food from California and employees are union members. The Davis store is complete with occasional beer discounts, cheap store brand items, as well as meat and produce freshly delivered 6 days a week. As a former Albertsons, they are possibly one of the few grocery stores in Davis to carry Soy Vay's Cha-Cha Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing (along with Nugget and Davis Food Co-op). The store used to sell Krispy Kreme doughnuts when it was an Albertsons. Save Mart now sells its own brand of donuts. Their store brand, Sunnyside Farms Milk, does not use the artificial bovine growth hormone. Employees at Save Mart get union wages and benefits. The most recent contract includes the largest across-the-board wage increase in the history of Northern California grocery industry contracts, union officials said. Employees will receive raises of $1.80 to $3 per hour during the four-year pact. It also improves medical benefits and reduces or eliminates deductibles. Save Mart is very generous to its employees compared to other stores.
The Davis store was originally a Lucky store before it was acquired and renamed Albertsons in 1999. In early 2007, Northern California Albertsons stores were purchased by Save Mart, and the Davis location was rebranded Save Mart in June of 2007. 
Formerly an Albertsons
Sarah doing her best Ash impression. On July 18, 2007 Save Mart announced the return of Lucky. The 72 Bay Area Albertsons stores were rebranded Lucky stores by September. Those stores received retro Lucky makeovers and prices were slashed to restore Lucky's reputation as the "low-price leader." As Lucky stores, the "Three's a crowd" policy returned. Save-Mart is determined to address practices that executives at Albertsons botched and restore Lucky. "News Link" Save Mart also operates stores under the name FoodMaxx and S-Mart. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart.
The store has a self-checkout area where you can scan your groceries and check yourself out. The process can be riddled with annoyances that require the interaction of the attendant, but with some practice it can be extremely efficient. It operates by checking the weight of your items against a database of probable item weights. A law was passed beginning January 1, 2012 that prohibits alcohol purchases using the self-checkout machines. You will need to go through the regular cashier check out to purchase alcohol. The law was passed due to incidences where people would use self-checkout machines and neglect to scan and pay for their alcohol.
It still feeds hordes of Davis High School students every single day, many of whom walk over from the school because they do not have cars to drive to better eating locations. One can expect to pay $10 for a lunch at the deli. 
This store has gone thru several name changes
There is a Bank of America ATM, a Coinstar machine, and two Redbox DVD rental machines.
After 9 PM, you can enter through only the west-facing door.
At the checkout, they offer paper or reusable bags for sale. There is a bin at the front of the store to bring the plastic bags back for recycling. The paper bags are fairly heavy duty and have handles, making them pretty reusable.
In the parking lot there used to be a rePLANET recycling center (until March 2016). The vouchers you got in exchange for your recyclables were only redeemable for cash in Save Mart.
There is a statue outside, perhaps built as homage to the food gods. Most people find this statue to be horrendous. It also may just be a bit of functional art covering up a nasty tangle of utility pipes.
In June 2007, Save Mart posted a Customer Alert on their website informing customers that there had been a security breach in Albertson's stores in the Bay Area. Checkout pin pads had been tampered with between January and February 2007 at two Albertson's stores in San Lorenzo, CA and Alameda, CA. Save Mart is currently cooperating with law enforcement officials in their investigation and will post additional information to the Save Mart website when it becomes available. If you feel you may have been affected by this security breach, contact Save Mart customer service at 1-800-692-5710. Since the breach, all of the credit card readers were replaced with new readers that prevent any future tampering of this kind.
Also see the Grocery Store Price Comparison Page.
2007-07-15 20:32:56 Save mart is definitely cheaper than Safeway when it comes to certain items like brand name sodas and mangoes. —RohiniJasavala
2007-07-19 12:00:51 safeway is cheaper easily especially on soda's always buy one get one free great service but i do shop at save mart just last night , why? because needed a change it was litter higher on prices but we shopped spent 40.11 on items needed cool store for change of pace. I will say there loss prevention guy is to intense not that i am worried at all just find it a little invasive if in loss prevention please use a shopping cart if you just walk around and around any thief will know it is you the reason i am saying all this i am in loss prevention and when i go to a store and see how loose they are it makes me feel better about how we deal with that it is best to blend in not stick out and walk around store over and over again funny. Store seems clean produce is good nugget is better but what the heck save mart is good —dickjones
2007-09-08 13:57:11 This is a convenient place to get a few things you need, but make sure to get only things that are on sale if you have a tight budget like me. They appear to have wonderful sales on vegetables. —AnnaF
2007-10-05 15:30:25 This place just sucks. The store is clean and the employees are helpful but the prices and selection of food are awful. My first and only time shopping there I spent $106, whereas I usually spend about $60-$70 for the same products when shopping at Safeway. Some notable purchases include peaches that were spoiled beyond the point of being edible within three days, and store-brand sausages that take about 40 minutes to cook and taste like overly-spiced garbage. I also got some yogurt cups, about half of which were days from expiration (I didn't notice until after I had purchased them). I've never seen yogurt cups less than 2 weeks from expiration being sold at any other grocery store. Don't shop here. —amlevitsky
2007-10-05 16:14:14 I've shopped here a couple times, I'd agree with the above the comments above - prices aren't any cheaper (safeway has better prices), store is very clean, employees are very nice and helpful, but there seems to be an expiration date prob. I bought a couple ready made salads and had one that was extremely aged and inedible. The employees were very friendly and helpful however, the manager refunded the salad and even offered me a new one for free. —AmyLee
2007-11-15 22:42:26 Prices are improving, prices tend to be cheaper at savemart when its a sale item that is simultaneously on sale at Safeway. Prevention loss team still needs to work on being subtle. Bring your own grocery bag if you want or can, they'll pay you (sort of, they'll give you a discount) if you bring recycle grocery bags or your own bag for them to put your groceries in. you'll get a five cent discount per bag—help save the planet and save money—I don't know if Safeway does the discount thing for bringing your own groceries bag. I once brought a black tote bag for my groceries at safeway and the cashier and bag boy just look at me funny where as Savemart will pay me. —kikao
2007-11-15 22:44:15 cool self check out machines. —KenichiSan
2007-12-16 11:35:35 I miss the old albertsons but I guess that a change had to come sometime. This place is just not the same, the fruit selection is better, but everything else seems to be overpriced and has quick expiration dates. —ElizabethBarthel
2008-01-10 12:05:22 Okay, well.. I like shopping here, they have better prices than safeway or the co-op for many things.. but then again, when we got back from break, just after the power outage (which didn't effect the store directly), I managed to find spoiled salami (mold growth), and to my surprise, spoiled onions (fungal infection of some sort). Now, I don't blame the store per se, I am sure that the salami was a mistake and the onions not noticed (it wasn't every onion, just half of mine), but I suppose that in the recent events that there might have been some.. disorder or something in the store. So really not so much a complaint as a report of a singular incident, as I will still shop there for some things.. well until something truly bad happens. —DavidPoole
2008-01-23 21:29:42 This place has improved vastly since it was Albertson's, but still much work must be done. —thelonepiper555
2008-04-10 13:40:11 I have really wanted to like this place, but they are getting on my nerves. Produce is consistently bad. I will buy a bag of onions and 1/4 are bad. Often, I don't even have a choice in the matter. For example: the other day the basil, bok choy, and broccoli were all in terrible shape. I hate having to go to 2 stores for dinner. Plus, prices aren't that good anymore. At least Safeway has more stuff on sale at a given time. As much as I dislike the North Davis Safeway (for lack of size), I will have to shop there instead. —lemurific
2008-10-02 17:00:02 After waiting in so many ridiculous lines at Safeway, SaveMart has actually started to grow on me. Meat seems to be cheaper here, and selection is good on everything except produce. It's too bad they aren't open 24 hours, or I'd most likely stop going to Safeway completely. —VanessaZ
2008-10-21 14:13:22 Not the best vegetables, but my favorite grocery store —ChrisWaterstraat
2008-11-24 22:18:49 i love save-mart.
i was there just now and an awesome worker guy gave me a free candy cane. i was having a BAD day. this really made my day. save-mart is the only place in town afaik that has freezer paper. and king arthur brand flour here (the good stuff) is much cheaper than any other grocery store by a dollar and a half or so. —MiranPark
2008-12-13 14:45:21 Savemart and Nugget aren't the only ones who carry Soy Vay. The Co-Op has it, too! And if you're concerned about fair treatment of workers, no employer beats the Co-Op with above minimum starting wages, 30hr weeks count as full time, paid insurance, time off, free yoga, dirt cheap chiropractic and a family environment you won't find at ANY other grocery store! —ElisaWeller
2009-01-07 01:17:37 Cheapest prices in town on most grocery items. Unfortunately, they have a very poor produce selection and a very, very poor deli. —JakeJames
2009-02-21 13:39:59 Even though their labor is union I encourage you NOT to shop here. —JamesJobe
2009-03-30 03:42:16 I completely agree with Jake, their prices are good and I like the atmosphere more than in Safeway, but they need to really improve their produce and deli offerings. —DannyT
2009-04-19 23:24:23 I love savemart! I find it to be cheaper than safeway for most of the things I buy (conventional produce, meat, milk, and baking supplies). However, my roommate finds it more expensive for the things in the middle aisles, such as frozen, boxed, and prepackaged foods. I like how they cater a little more to people cooking for one in the meat department (such as, I can buy half chickens all the time and turkey pieces around the holidays). Service is good, especially in the produce department. also, not nearly the line problem of other grocery stores in davis. —ascapoccia
2009-07-23 04:58:05 I buy almost all my groceries at Save mart! Except for milk, because theirs is ALWAYS expired! They are always much cheaper than Safeway! I just got a box of 99cent strawberries! —Ilovetacos
2009-08-05 15:55:38 they have an employee that takes personal pride in shoving all my groceries into one recycled tote in an attempt to save his boss five cents (does he get a commission???). either way, he's ripped one of my bags and crushed my groceries multiple times. i won't ever be shopping there again. —WeiChun
2009-08-18 23:33:14 savemart is awesome. the best place to shop for some sweet deals. —bewbs
2009-09-21 23:28:58 They offer heavily discounted deals but never have the items in stock. For instance we went there three days in a row to get a salmon filet that was on special but they kept saying that it sold out. Later that week they said that they are not getting any more salmon for the week and they will not offer any rain checks on it. It is a very unprofessional practice I say. —tanurami
2009-10-01 18:07:24 they def. have a larger selection of pastaroni than Safeway, which is important to some people >_> —KellyCorcoran
2009-11-24 20:39:24 Greatest place to get your groceries in Davis! Nice staff and always in stock! Clean isles and they even have four self check out lanes! Much better than Safeway! —JSlice
2010-02-22 16:12:22 ewwwwwwww. the store is pretty clean, but not extremely. Bad quality food. Nugget is much better. —GiulianaWasHere
2011-01-19 12:41:02 Safeway is a lot better if you use the club card. NEVER use WIC vouchers here! I witnessed an employee humiliate a customer so bad, I vowed never to return. —mangosalsa
2011-05-29 23:59:45 I think Save Mart has the lowest prices. Unfortunately, the store seems old and run down (although it does seem to be clean). Also, their meat selection is definitely in third place compared to Safeway and Nugget in terms of quality and price (compared to Safeway).
—RMS
2011-06-18 07:52:18 Fantastic customer service! Peter in the meat department is very helpful and goes above and beyond. Will always call here first when I have a special order. —agerould
2011-06-22 00:01:17 Cheap on a lot of items, but the most standout part of this place is their self checkout lines. After 8 or 9, they literally close down all the lines except for self checkout, which leaves many inexperienced people there holding up the line and taking longer than usual. Very quick in the daytime and the parts at night where it isn't crowded —JohnathonJosephs
2011-10-19 15:20:45 Every time I walk in here, the store always smells like dry cat food. —argyle
2012-01-05 18:55:42 Terrible Service. —CarlosOverstreet
2012-05-01 01:33:11 Good prices but kinda sketch. Odd smell lingering around the place and have been hit up for cash as many as two or three times in one visit, but it's across the street from my place and the staff's usually nice. I did get some impatience when I found that my laundry detergent was leaking and I wanted to go and run another to avoid getting the identical one with bleach. I'm still a bit iffy about buying meat/fresh products from this store. —HarrisonM
2012-09-06 19:28:42 They have more food to choose from and cheaper brands compared to the safeway a block away but I wouldn't buy their meat. The packages says they are packed daily but the meat doesn't look that way. I bought meat from them twice and both times they were stale if not already bad. I would rather spend a few extra bucks at safeway to be safe. —shacheung
2015-07-19 22:44:14 This store has the lowest prices for family shopping needs, Interesting selection of items, and a Redbox. —NoelBruening
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