Grocery Archaeology

Our next group of stores as we circle back north is in the greater New Brunswick area! We'll be starting at the south end of the group, with South River, Milltown, and North Brunswick, then passing through the eastern edge of Somerset, the next town to the west, before ending in downtown New Brunswick, which is geographically in the northeastern corner of the municipality, before we cross the Raritan River again to return to the northern part of Middlesex County in our next group. But for now, we're starting with a small store on  The Market Report  tomorrow and a former supermarket across the street here on Grocery Archaeology!

Original Tenant: Grand Union Address: 1004 US-9, Old Bridge, NJ Opened:  1950s Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  Marshalls Photographed:  February 2021 It seems that the right half (about 17,000 square feet) of this Marshalls was originally a Grand Union. Now it looks like there's nothing really special about this former Grand Union, which shares a mall with today's other stores, the former ACME and current Bhavani Foods in the Sayre Woods Shopping Center. But if we look carefully, we can see that the metal tower sign to the far right is nearly identical to the one we saw in the historical photo of the Union location . That wraps up our Old Bridge & Freehold group, so come back tomorrow to check out the next group!

Original Tenant: ACME Markets Address: 1060 US-9, Parlin, NJ Opened:  1969 Closed:  1980s Later Tenants:  Petco Photographed:  February 2021 It's our final day of the Old Bridge & Freehold group! And we've got not one, not two, but three stores here on our last day. The first is at the southern end of the Sayre Woods Shopping Center here in Parlin, just to the north of Old Bridge, to visit an 18,000 square foot former ACME that's now a Petco and one smaller storefront that was unoccupied at the time of my visit. It's been extensively disguised through remodels, as has our other former supermarket in this mall. Between those two is the operating grocery store we're looking at today . And once you've read all of those posts, that is all for this group! Tomorrow we embark on something new just to the north...

Original Tenant:  Pathmark Address:  1043 US-9, Old Bridge, NJ Opened:  1990s Closed:  2015 Later Tenants: subdivided Photographed: February 2021 Our second post today is kinda the same as the first post. See a look at the ALDI here , and now we're going to take a closer look at the rest of the building. The 58,000 square foot building is a 1990s-era Pathmark Super Center, which you can see Acme Style's coverage of at the end of their post here . As we'll see, the former Pathmark space is remarkably intact six years after closing... ...although much of the facade has been repainted to disguise its red, white, and blue Pathmark colors. The structure of the facade is still mostly intact though, with just a few cosmetic changes over on the ALDI side. In this post we're going to be focusing on the other half of the store, which is even more original inside... Here's a look at the dividing wall with the new ALDI to the left of the wall on the left side. Customer servic

Original Tenant:  ACME Markets Address: 2500 US-9, Old Bridge, NJ Opened:  1962 Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  February 2021 A quick look at the former ACME just across the highway from today's other post, Garden Farm . Acme Style covered this store along with the existing Old Bridge ACME here (and see my post of the current Old Bridge ACME here ). It's worth noting that the existing ACME was an A&P until 2015, so that was not a replacement for this store which probably closed by the 90s. The facade on the 20,500 square foot store hides the pitched roof, which is also hidden in the back... Very clearly a former supermarket. Tomorrow, we'll be touring our next store just to the north along US-9 on  The Market Report !

Original Tenant: Pathmark Address: 120 US-9, Englishtown, NJ Opened:  1980s Closed:  2010 Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  February 2021 At the other end of the mall from today's Livoti's Old World Market is a 47,000 square foot former Pathmark that closed in 2010 and has since been subdivided. JoshAustin610 captured the store just after closing here . The storefront has now been remodeled beyond recognition (except the brick!), but the back sure still looks like a supermarket. Tomorrow we're heading all of 1300 feet west, across route 9 to the supermarket in that strip mall! We'll be checking it out on The Market Report .

Original Tenant:  ACME Markets Address: 300 Gordons Corner Rd, Manalapan, NJ Opened:  1970s Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  Rex-Gene Food Warehouse > Western Beef Supermarket > subdivided Photographed:  February 2021 I knew this 24,000 square foot space was a 1970s-era ACME, tucked away in the back of the Yorktowne Center in Manalapan, but I found while researching for the West Long Branch post that it had later become a Rex-Gene Food Warehouse and then a Western Beef (very briefly) before being subdivided into multiple spaces including a gym, as we see here. Check out the West Long Branch for more background on Rex-Gene and Western Beef. Make sure to see today's other post at the other end of the mall, Buddy's Marketplace , over on The Independent Edition. Tomorrow we're heading back over to route 9 to check out two more stores just to the north -- again, one here and one on  The Independent Edition !

No time to rest! We just finished the Monmouth and Ocean Shore group yesterday, and tomorrow we move inland while circling back north for our next group. We won't exclusively be seeing stores in Old Bridge and Freehold, but those are the two largest towns we'll be passing through to use as landmarks. We start just inland from  Belmar  with Farmingdale, then continue through Freehold, Marlboro, Manalapan, Englishtown, Old Bridge, and Parlin from south to north. That will take up approximately the next two weeks before we cross the Raritan River once again and move on! For the bigger picture, we're moving back north through the inland counties: western Monmouth/Middlesex, Somerset, western Union, Morris, then up to Sussex and the northern tip of the state, the continuing down the western part of the state through Hunterdon, Warren, Mercer, and Camden/Burlington. But the journey of a thousand supermarkets begins with just one store, as the old saying goes... so let's jump

Original Tenant: Rex-Gene Food Warehouse Address: 136 Monmouth Rd, West Long Branch, NJ Opened:  unknown Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  unsure of exact location Photographed:  January 2021 Bear with me on this one. I am fairly certain that this 26,000 square foot segment at the far right of the Kmart of West Long Branch was previously a Rex-Gene Food Warehouse -- but I am not entirely convinced that the Rex-Gene wasn't at the far left side of the Kmart, since I recall reading that Kmart expanded into the Rex-Gene space. The Kmart closed in early 2020 and, to my knowledge, remains vacant. Rex-Gene is not a chain about which there is a lot of information on the internet, but I'm going to give a few details here. The chain originated in Brooklyn and later expanded to New Jersey, eventually moving their headquarters to Red Bank. I am unsure how many stores Rex-Gene had at its peak, but by early 1998, they were down to five: Berkeley, West Long Branch, Rahway , Sayreville, and M