The Scolari's in Carson City is changing its name to Sak 'n Save. Although apparently this doesn't mean it has new owners; the same owners control both Scolari's and the Sak 'n Save stores in Reno, and they're just rebranding the store in Carson for some mysterious reason.

I think it's a bad move. A store's name is a big part of its image, and changing the name can change the way people think about it, even if nothing else about the store changes. Ideally you'd go for a better name when you're making a change, but this is the second supermarket in the last year to go for a worse name. First it was Albertson's, a perfectly respectable name, changing to Save Mart. Ugggh. It was horrible when they first made the change, and it's still horrible all these months later. But not nearly so horrible as Sak 'n Save, which is an awful awful awful name. It reminds me of the Pic 'N Saves that we used to have in Southern California; cramped, dirty little stores with crappy merchandise that nobody wanted to buy. Sak 'n Save conjures up the same sorts of images, and even if nothing else about the store changes now it's going to be saddled with a terrible name, making it seem like a second-class store.

Of course, the grizzled old timers in the room will remember the first time that store changed names, and will still think of Scolari's as the newcomer. When I was a kid that place was known as the Warehouse Market, even though it's been probably 20 years since it was called that.