‘I’m so excited’: New Asian grocery store near Summerlin draws shoppers
Kalliane Cheav had been waiting for the new Asian grocery store to open in the Boca Park retail center.
So, on Friday morning, she checked to see if 99 Ranch Market was open yet, walked in, and started shopping.
“I’m so excited,” said Cheav, who noted she was especially happy that she doesn’t have to drive to Las Vegas’ traffic-choked Chinatown for Asian groceries.
The new 99 Ranch supermarket near Summerlin — in a space last occupied by a Haggen grocery store that closed about a decade ago — held a media preview Friday, ahead of its grand opening scheduled for Saturday morning.
The event at 820 S. Rampart Blvd., just north of Charleston Boulevard, is slated to include a traditional lion dance, bluefin tuna cutting, and giveaways.
Customers are already making their way through the 50,000-square-foot Las Vegas supermarket with fresh produce and thousands of Asian products.
“I’ve been dying for this to open,” Junta Zembayashi, a 36-year-old Summerlin resident, said inside the store.
Fish, meat and more
As seen Friday, the selection includes grab-and-go ramen bowls and steamed dumplings; hot-pot items such as fish balls; dried noodles; mochi ice cream; and frozen green-onion pancakes and pork buns.
It also has a bakery, seafood, and meat and poultry, including chicken breast, heart and gizzard; pork liver, ears and kidney; beef flank steak; and Japanese wagyu beef priced at $99.99 per pound.
Shoppers can also pick seafood from live tanks, and 99 Ranch staff “will fry it fresh for you, on the spot,” according to a news release.
The Southern California-based grocery chain currently has one other location in the Las Vegas Valley — on Spring Mountain Road in Chinatown — though its newest store has been in the works for a while.
99 Ranch parent company Tawa Supermarket purchased the space in Boca Park in summer 2021, property records show.
It acquired a roughly 63,000-square-foot building and eventually leased a portion of it to Nevada Brew Works, which opened this past fall. Another portion of the building is still listed for rent.
New focus
Tawa Chairman Jonson Chen said Friday that the building was a great opportunity for a new location, noting it already had needed infrastructure because of the prior occupants. Haggen didn’t last long, but the space was previously home to Vons.
He also cited a combination of factors for why he opened the store more than four years after he bought the building.
Chen noted that his family owns the company and that their “bandwidth is only so big.”
They have opened stores in other cities and wanted to give them the proper attention before moving on to other locations, he said. He also pointed out that it took time to subdivide the space in Las Vegas, including getting the plans approved and going through the construction process.
Last year, 99 Ranch closed its store on Maryland Parkway near Flamingo Road, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Chen said Friday that the company decided not to extend its lease at that location and focus on the Boca Park store.
He also said that his group fielded many requests to open in the Summerlin area.
The area may not be heavily Asian, but his team did studies, he said, adding it’s a brand-new store that caters not only to Asian shoppers but also to people who are interested in cooking Asian cuisine.
‘It’ll draw a crowd’
Southern Nevada has other Asian grocery stores, including H Mart and Seafood City. But overall, the potential customer base in the Las Vegas Valley has grown substantially over the years.
Clark County’s Asian population in 2020 was 237,663. That was up almost 41 percent, or an increase of 68,832 people, from a decade earlier, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Kayla Andrada, a 29-year-old nurse, came to the new 99 Ranch on Friday in part because of nostalgia.
She is originally from Southern California, and 99 Ranch was a common destination, she indicated.
Andrada also believes the new store could get customers from around the valley.
“It’ll draw a crowd, just like H Mart did,” she said, referring to the supermarket on Decatur Boulevard at Sahara Avenue that drew big lines for its grand opening last year.
Zembayashi, one of the shoppers in 99 Ranch on Friday, said his family works in the restaurant industry and has a location in Chinatown. But, he added, he personally doesn’t like going too deep into Chinatown for groceries because of the traffic congestion.
“It’s great to be able to come out here where parking is more ample and it’s a lot less crowded and a lot less chaotic,” he said.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
