Grocery Archaeology

Original Tenant: Food Circus Foodtown Address: 853 NJ-35, Middletown, NJ Opened:  1956 Closed:  1991 Later Tenants:  Spirits Unlimited > Circus Wines Photographed:  January 2021 Nothing special about this 25,000 square foot former Foodtown, now a liquor store, here in Middletown, right? Wrong. The store closed in 1991 and doesn't appear to have had a replacement (Food Circus, now called Circus Fresh Foods, owns stores in Port Monmouth and Atlantic Highlands along the coast to the north, and Red Bank, Ocean, and Sea Girt to the south. They've had other stores around which have closed but we'll be seeing three of those four stores.) Now let's jump into this location... Very cool, barely visible neon sign for Circus Liquors which previously took up a narrow strip along the side of the building but is now the entire building. The property is massive, spanning well over six acres. It contains two outparcels and I'm pretty sure Circus could have comfortably built a 6...

Original Tenant: ShopRite Address: 1447 NJ-35, Middletown, NJ Opened:  1970s Closed:  1990s Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  January 2021 I'm a little unclear on where exactly the boundaries of this former ShopRite are, but it appears that this entire strip -- starting with what's now Furniture Town on the right, all the way through the Party Fair, Retro Fitness, and Walgreens spaces to the left -- was built as a 47,000 square foot Saker ShopRite in the 1970s with the mall. The store was later replaced by a 75,000 square foot, much more modern but poorly situated new store at the other end of the mall in the 1990s, which in turn was deemed too outdated (and too hard to get to, I'm sure) by around 2020 when construction of an all-new ShopRite began in a former Sears just across the highway. For a look at the current and future Middletown ShopRites, check out today's post over on The Market Report . Tomorrow, we're heading a bit east along 35 to see a small...