By Lance Armstrong

Shun Fat Supermarkets, an Asian retail grocery store chain, has acquired the old Vic’s IGA site in the South Hills Shopping Center. And work is underway to have a store of that chain open to the public by the summer of 2018.

This latest news ends longtime speculation regarding what business could fill the vacancy left by Vic’s, which closed in March 2015.

The store, which will be known by the shortened name of SF Supermarket, will become the chain’s third market in Sacramento, with the others being located at 6930 65th St. #123 and 4562 Mack Road. The future store’s address is 5820 South Land Park Drive.

Altogether, the chain, which was founded in Monterey Park, Calif. in 1993 by a Chinese-Vietnamese entrepreneur and seafood wholesaler named Hieu Tran, consists of nine stores in California, two stores in Las Vegas and another one in Dallas.

Work on the future store’s site began on Aug. 13 behind the privacy of chain-link fences with dark green coverings.

And among those helping a cleanup crew inside the building on that day was Thong Lu, an assistant for all of the chain’s stores, and Phat Thiem, grocery manager of the 65th Street store.

At the end of that first workday, Lu and Thiem met with this publication to talk about plans for the future South Land Park store.

Lu stated that SF Supermarkets acquired the old South Land Park Drive grocery store building about three months ago, and that efforts are being made to open the store in the next 10 to 12 months.

“We’re all working at SF Market over there, just to help them clean up,” he said. “It’s not our job. We’re just helping them move faster.”

Lu estimates the cost of completing the remodeling of the building will be about $1 million.

“That’s to clean up, some new pieces, everything new,” he said. “We have to remove all the refrigerators, everything. We have to clean up everything. That will take more than a month.”

Lu added that although the project still must meet the city’s approval, he believes that should not be an issue.

“The next move (after the remodeling) will be to draw out the plans to the city,” he said. “We’ll wait for the city to approve (those plans). But still grocery, I think is easy. I think if it’s not a grocery store and you change it to something else, maybe it will (be) a little bit of a problem. But with grocery store changed to grocery store, I think it’s OK.”

Lu mentioned that the South Land Park store, which would be smaller than the other Sacramento stores, would have about 50 employees, compared to the other stores, which have about 80 employees each.

As for actual offerings at SF Markets, Lu noted that these stores have a wide variety of food.

“We carry Asian food, everything, fresh fish, meat, vegetables, all types of Asian (food) and we also carry American groceries, too,” he said. “We carry some American brands, but not much.”

Lu mentioned that the best way for people to become familiar with how the future South Land Park store will look is to stop by the 65th Street and Stockton Boulevard store.

“If you have time, stop by the 65th (Street store) and you’ll know what we carry for food,” he said. “Yes, stop by, then you’ll see. It’s the same style, just more.”