Saturday, September 20, 2008

My Cebu : Fresh with a new look -- Robinsons Smkt Fuente O



Before the days of Ayala Center Cebu and SM City Cebu, the uptown area was the “in” place in the City. People and teenagers would flock the Rustan’s area where the first National Bookstore branch is also near and Robinsons Mall Cebu was the mall to be seen in. Of course this was in the early 1990’s. In those years Robinsons was more known for its dept store more than the supermarket (and the snake that lives in the spiral complex!). They had a wide array of clothes, shoes, accessories and even baby items. With the rise of the malls and the mini-malls, boutiques and specialty shops have challenged the existence of the dept store format and probably (I don’t have insider info) but the Robinsons Mall Cebu changed with the times and downsized its dept store to give way to space for boutique stores.

But my recent visit yesterday showed a newly renovated supermarket area. Mind you, despite the downsizing of the dept store, Robinsons has not reduced the size of its supermarket. This is really because this is the only supermarket in the Fuente O area that caters to communities around the capitol, Jones, Ramos areas. The nearest one would be Foodarama in the Mango Ave side, SM’s supermarket at the Elizabeth Mall which is quite far already and caters more the shoppers going south.

The newly renovated store reminds me of our very own Robinsons Otis near our Unilever Office at UN Ave. It’s small yet very complete with fresh food items, packaged food, personal care and home care products. The colors and the layout have made the store looked cleaner, more spacious than before where one can hardly push a cart inside the aisles. I’ve noticed that the personal care and the snacks area had more shoppers milling about and the fresh section. The wine and the fresh fruit section were pretty dead areas – note that just outside the mall there are fruit vendors everywhere selling mangoes, apples, now lansones, so I guess buying at the smkt isn’t so appealing. But it pretty much looks like any big supermarket.

Ah but the crux of it all, is parking. I find the mall parking inconvenient specially if all you want to do is do grocery shopping. One has to drive up into the spiral ramp and go down into the basement where the smkt is located. The mall compensated though via having a taxi lane and the jeepney stop pretty much near the smkt entrance/exit but for those shoppers w/ cars, this may prove to be a hassle. Dont know this can be solved though.

But Cebu residents rejoice, for Robinsons is building next to Chong Hua hospital its Cebu Cybergate Mall which I believe would have another smkt and would probably be really like the Otis Mall where there are offices in the complex. Forgot when the project completion is though but if they can build fast, Christmas 2008 might be the target.

Cebu is indeed changing to the times, yet still keeping its island charm ...


Mrs Jane B.

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