Grocery Archaeology

Original Tenant: ShopRite Address: 40 Park Ave, Summit, NJ Opened:  1950s Closed:  1975 Later Tenants:  W. A. Birdsall Photographed:  January 2019 Contributor:  Laura Today's snapshot is this 7200 square foot former ShopRite to the southeast of downtown Summit. It's a bit hard to visualize what the building would've looked like as a supermarket, but I can't imagine W. A. Birdsall plumbing supplies has made extensive changes to the exterior. This store has since closed up shop, leaving the storefront vacant. Our contributor Laura, who works near this location, has offered us this shot of the exterior as it looked in January 2019. I returned in January 2021 for my own shots of the store... The building has been rented, but it's unclear by whom or what exactly they're going to do with the space. In 1975, the ShopRite moved about three quarters of a mile to the northeast to a former Finast over the border into Springfield. That store, which is still open as a Shop

Now here's where it gets fun! Having covered Bergen/Passaic, Essex, and Hudson Counties, we are moving towards the south along the eastern part of the state. My coverage of New Jersey is very north central-centric, meaning that Essex and Union counties are probably my beefiest groups. So, I've decided that as we move through the rest of the state, we'll be seeing things in smaller groups. We're beginning with the northern and central suburbs in the city, starting with the city of Summit in the northwestern corner of the county, then moving through the central areas in Springfield, Maplewood, Union, Kenilworth, Garwood, Westfield, and Clark. We're doing things a bit thematically, covering mainly the suburbs and avoiding Elizabeth to the east and Plainfield to the southwest -- for now. We have posts all over the place, but we'll start in Summit on The Market Report tomorrow! And for a fun bonus post, check out the remodel at the  Foodtown in Caldwell  today also!

Original Tenant: ACME Markets Address: 270 Central Ave, The Heights, Jersey City, NJ Opened:  1947 Closed:  1965 Later Tenants:  Kennedy Department Store Photographed:  December 2020 Today's second store is this former 1940s-era ACME on Central Avenue in the Heights. (Our first was a small greengrocer shop about a block north.) There's unfortunately relatively little information available about this 8900 square foot store, but I'm fairly certain there is a photo of it available in one of the Images of America books on Jersey City. I love those books but only have access to them via a local library, since I don't own many of them. There were once quite a few ACMEs around Jersey City, with the last remaining 1970s-era one closing in 2009 and then two acquired A&P stores opening in 2015, see Droyer's Point and Newport . Tomorrow is our last double-post day, with a small independent grocery store on The Independent Edition and a look at the neighborhood's

Original Tenant: unknown Address: 360 Central Ave, The Heights, Jersey City, NJ Opened:  unknown Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  Nin's Market (closed before 2007) Photographed:  December 2020 We're here at our third stop in The Heights on Central Avenue, the first being Los Aztecas over on The Independent Edition  about three blocks north, and the second being Sweet Pineapple Fruit & Vegetable . I'm having trouble finding information on the store online, and the 2600 square foot grocery store closed at some point before 2007, the earliest available Google street view. The store is many times as deep as it is long, but unfortunately we can't see inside; the rolling door made it impossible to place the camera right up on the window. Even looking in myself, the low-light cloudy day prevented me from seeing anything more than the first few feet of the space, which was empty. Tomorrow we have another post each on The Independent Edition and here on Grocery Archaeolog

Original Tenant: Safeway Address: 811 Clinton St, Hoboken, NJ Opened:  1950s Closed:  1960s Later Tenants:  Finast > Vitale Foodtown > CVS Photographed:  December 2020 It's no secret that CVS has taken over a lot of former supermarkets. But this is actually the second Safeway-turned-Finast that CVS moved into that we've seen, the other being about ten miles southwest on Staten Island . This store is also 14,000 square feet, and although this is not of the Marina prototype, it is a barrel roof and it has a tower -- both of which are fully intact today! We can see the tiniest bit of the barrel roof peeking out on the left. Vitale Foodtown took the space upon Finast's closing, then moved up to 614 Clinton to the space that's now ACME . Our final Hoboken stop is going to be about half a mile to the northeast tomorrow, so head over to The Market Report to check it out!

Original Tenant: Pathmark Address: 175 Passaic Ave, Kearny, NJ Opened:  1990s Closed:  2012 Later Tenants:  LA Fitness Photographed:  June 2020 Today's snapshot is just across the street from the former Foodtown . This Pathmark was built in the 1990s on the site of the original Two Guys from Harrison (later just Two Guys) department store. Before I really got into retail history, my family would talk about having shopped at Two Guys but I didn't realize it was an extremely local company (being based, of course, in Harrison, NJ, which borders Kearny to the south). That said, my knowledge of this location is somewhat limited so you can see more history here . We can see that today, LA Fitness has kept almost all of Pathmark's facade, just painted it a different color. It actually looks pretty good today! Our next stop is a quarter of a mile south on Passaic Avenue, and is the only remaining supermarket in this immediate area. Head over to The Market Report tomorrow to ch

Original Tenant:  Vitale Foodtown Address: 274 Passaic Ave, Kearny, NJ Opened:  with rest of mall Closed:  by 1998 Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  June 2020 Today's former supermarket is on Passaic Avenue in Kearny, which once was a major shopping hub. This mall had a Kmart and a Foodtown, the mall across the street had a Two Guys that later became a Pathmark, and a ShopRite was just down the street. The primarily industrial area just to the south is being redeveloped into residential and retail spaces, making this once again a retail center. The Foodtown has been subdivided and the Kmart is barely hanging on; the Two Guys/Pathmark is now an LA Fitness, and a Marshalls is also in that mall, the ShopRite is still there and busier than ever, and a new BJ's was built between the Foodtown/Kmart and ShopRite malls. We'll see the ShopRite tomorrow on The Market Report !

Our next (fairly brief) stop in our tour of New Jersey is Hudson County! We've extensively covered the northern parts of the county previously, with Union City and West New York covered here . We've also been to Harrison and Jersey City previously. We're back for some more stores, more extensively covering the areas we haven't been to yet. We're going to start to the west of the Hackensack River for stores in North Arlington and Kearny, before crossing the river and passing through the Hackensack River Waterfront, Bergen-Lafayette, and Downtown/Newport in Jersey City; then over to Hoboken, circling north for one more store in Union City, and finishing out Jersey City with the Heights in the northwestern corner of the city. Lots of good stuff coming up, so head over to The Independent Edition for tomorrow's tour! HOUSEKEEPING:  I know a lot of the links have been wrong lately, and I believe they've all been fixed. However, there might still be a few broken

Original Tenant:  Sidney Cohen's Economy Shop-Rite Market Address:  565 S Livingston Ave, Livingston, NJ Opened: ca. 1950 Closed:  ca. 1965 Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  June 2020 We wrap up our Essex County coverage with this former ShopRite, which according to a 1956 Wakefern member directory was the Economy Shop-Rite Market owned by Sidney Cohen. Livingston also had a former ShopRite at the north end of the town, which was not that big -- a former Safeway which was expanded by Village ShopRite. This store was later purchased by Village and combined with the northern location into the existing ShopRite by 1968, but has been expanded and renovated beyond recognition since. You can tour it here . Make sure to see our other store today, the Kings in town, here . Tomorrow, we have one final store here in Livingston before wrapping up Essex County altogether, so check it out on The Independent Edition !