A week from today, one of the largest Kroger supermarkets in the state of Georgia will open its doors to patrons in Dawsonville.
The new store, which has moved from its old location at the intersection of Ga. 400 and Hwy. 53, will open Nov. 16 at 6 a.m. The old Kroger location will close for good on Nov. 15 at 6 p.m.
The Kroger is located in the Dawson Marketplace shopping center just south of North Georgia Premium Outlets at the intersection of Ga. 400 and Dawson Forest Road on a 100-acre site.
Regular hours will be 6 a.m.-1 a.m. seven days a week.
"It's a marketplace," said Jeff Fulmer, a store manager, on a tour of the brand-new, half-stocked Kroger. "So it's offering so much more than a regular grocery store. We've got everything you could need."
The 125,000 square foot building will be packed with amenities not typical to an average grocery store.
An expanded ready-to-eat foods section will include usual sandwiches, BBQ, fried chicken and sides, but will also include an expanded sushi bar, a Pan Asian station with hot Chinese food, a brick oven pizza station with personal pan pizzas and a hot soup and salad bar.
The food area will have expanded seating room for guests, including a covered outdoor seating area. Four self-checkout stations will be available for people who need to grab food and go.
Also new to the Kroger store will be a Murray's Cheese bar, a New York-based specialty cheese shop. Alongside the cheese bar will be an olive bar and an expanded wine and beer section.
Beyond food, the new location has expanded virtually every department it had previously, and added an apparel section.
The apparel section will have name brands like Levi's as well as private label brands, and will stock women's, men's, kids and baby clothes.
"We will have great deals on clothes," Fulmer said. "Weekly ads, coupons and sales like 15 to 20 percent off will be common."
Also expanded are the toy aisle, which is now four aisles long, the office section, which now includes printer ink, copy paper and shredders, and the pet food aisle, which Fulmer said has everything anyone could ever need for their pet.
The pharmacy and beauty section and kitchen ware section are also much expanded.
Home goods like towels, chairs and storage items will also be sold.
The new pharmacy will still feature a drive-thru, and will keep the old store hours of 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday and 8 a.m.-11 p.m. Monday through Friday.
To accommodate the much larger space, Kroger hopes to double the amount of employees it had at its previous store.
Fulmer said the old store had around 160 employees, but the new Kroger will demand around 300.
A nine-pump Kroger fuel station is already open at the shopping center.
According to Fulmer, the station opened the last week in October, and he expects the pumps to be much more easily accessible than the pumps at the old location.
"This one is located at a much better area than the one before, which was basically in the middle of the parking lot," Fulmer said. "These pumps are much further away."
The new Kroger marketplace will be joined by many fast food and retail stores that will be built in the new shopping center in the near future.
The new stores are expected to include: Ross, Marshalls, Hobby Lobby, Petco, Ulta, Famous Footwear, Bealls Outlet, Verizon Wireless, Five Below, Kirklands, Starbucks, Panda Express, Cheeseburger Bobby's, Rising Roll Gourmet Sandwiches and more.