Plucky’s Pickup is in the heart of downtown Kodiak sharing a parking lot with the mall and features purple light-up signs in its windows.
Al Seale is the store’s owner and operator. He says the idea is to give people who are closer to downtown an option for basic groceries rather than having to walk or drive to the major stores on the other side of town.
“We have 80% of the hotel rooms within about a two minute walk of the store,” he said. “You have the people that work downtown, the people that live downtown, we have the harbor and the associated users that come down for that – so there’s a lot of different people that could use the service that we’re trying to reach out to.”
But unlike traditional convenience and grocery stores, Seale says Plucky’s is focused on customers shopping on a phone or computer instead of perusing aisles.
“Having all the online sales is something new but I think that the last five years have exposed people to this kind of business model at the other large grocery retailers here to be able to order ahead of time and just go over and pick it up,” he said.
It’s not the only grocery venture downtown though, the Safeway liquor store has a few snacks and a new grocery store is set to open in the mall next door in the coming months. There also used to be a grocery store where the mall now stands.
Seale says the goal is to have a varied consumer base.
“I feel like we’re the local option, our location is more convenient than theirs in the back of the mall, and we’ll try to make our location more convenient with sidewalk pickups and stuff like that,” he said.
Plucky’s is currently open for pickups between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. every day but hopes to expand those hours soon. Their next big plans include installing kiosks for people to place orders from inside the store as well.