Comparison Shoppers Size Up What’s in Store for Them : Merger: Some welcome the merger, but they wonder about the fate of older Alpha Betas near newer, bigger Ralphs markets.

When Lisa Rodriguez is pressed for time but has to pick up a few groceries, she zips into the Alpha Beta grocery store on Culver Drive in Irvine.

But when the Irvine resident wants to fill the pantry, her store of choice is the nearby Ralphs on Harvard Avenue. “When it’s time to do major shopping I never go to Alpha Beta,” Rodriguez said during a morning trip to feed bottles and cans into Alpha Beta’s recycling station. “I like the way the (Ralphs) store is laid out, I like the meat prices better, and they have a better selection.”

Rodriguez and other Orange County shoppers who swear by Ralphs’ service, selection and prices said they welcomed news that the long-anticipated acquisition of Ralphs Grocery Co. by Yucaipa Cos., which owns La Habra-based Food 4 Less, is now official. Food 4 Less operates the Alpha Beta, Boys and Viva chains and Food 4 Less warehouse stores.

Once California’s largest supermarket merger is completed, Yucaipa plans to convert many of the Alpha Beta locations operated by Food 4 Less to Ralphs supermarkets. Yucaipa also hopes to sate growing consumer demand for better value--and gird for battle against discount leader Wal-Mart--by converting some Ralphs stores to Food 4 Less warehouses.

“I’d like that, if this was a Ralphs,” Rodriguez said of her neighborhood Alpha Beta. “But you have to wonder if they’re going to keep this store open. . . . There are two Ralphs close by already.”

Yucaipa officials haven’t said which locations will be closed or converted, or what is in store for Food 4 Less’ corporate headquarters, bakery and distribution warehouse in La Habra. But the merger most likely will change shopping habits in Orange County and beyond.

Included in the deal would be 31 Ralphs supermarkets, 31 Alpha Beta stores, three Viva stores and two Food 4 Less locations operated by Food 4 Less. Grocery industry observers said Yucaipa won’t close stores if it means losing valuable market share.

“They’re simply not going to give up a store and let the competition take it over,” said John Shumway, president of Market Profiles, a Costa Mesa-based real estate consulting firm. “If they do give up buildings, they’ll be smaller, less efficient locations.”

The merger, Shumway said, will help both Ralphs and Food 4 Less “penetrate areas they couldn’t penetrate alone.”

La Habra City Manager Lee Risner said he has heard few specifics about the deal from executives at Food 4 Less. “They’re a privately held company,” he said, “and they’re keeping their cards close to the vest.”

Alpha Beta customers this week were already speculating, however, about the fate of older stores that are near newer, bigger Ralphs supermarkets. Grocery industry observers said that the longtime Orange County-based chain relied too long on stores built in the early 1960s and was surpassed by chains with bigger, more modern stores.

“Ralphs is right across the street from here,” said Costa Mesa resident Kay Lemon, who has been shopping at the aging Alpha Beta store on East 17th Street in Costa Mesa for more than 15 years. “This is an old store, and Alpha Beta does have the new store over in Triangle Square.”

Lemon, who has shopped only once in the new Alpha Beta in the basement of the Triangle Square retail complex, said that store “is a good one, but it takes some footwork to get in and out of that parking garage.”

Some shoppers said they don’t expect the deal to mean major changes.

“We’ll get a new sign out front, that’s about it,” said Gordon Hull, who shops at an Alpha Beta near his Laguna Niguel home. The prices at Ralphs, he said, “are about the same. So is the selection. All it is is a different name.”