Grocery Archaeology

Original Tenant: A&P Address: 525 US-46, Belvidere, NJ Opened:  Between 1988 and 1995 Closed:  2015 Later Tenants:  vacant Photographed:  December 2018 We are on route 46 again for the second fully-intact closed A&P along the highway (see Naughright Road in Hackettstown  from just a few days ago). This 37,000 square foot store was built at some point between 1988 and 1995 to replace a Centennial store next door , which later became a Rite Aid and then was subdivided. This, like Nykun's Store and our other post today in Belvidere, was a stop on my way out to the Coal Region of northeastern PA back in December 2018, and now I want to write my northeastern PA stores. But sadly, we have to get through plenty more before we can embark on NEPA. The good news is that there's lots of exciting stuff before then! As we see, the store remains fully intact even all these years after closing. This was rumored to be one of three stores slated to be opened by Super...

Original Tenant: A&P Address: 7 Naughright Rd, Hackettstown, NJ Opened:  1999 Closed:  2015 Later Tenants:  subdivided, Retro Fitness Photographed:  May 2020 & June 2021 This 56,000 square foot A&P was actually the third in Hackettstown, where the chain had at least one operating store since 1958. The original store and 1980s-era replacement were both over at 57 US-46 , a few miles west of here on 46, and this store opened as a replacement for the 1980s store in 1999. As we see here, the far left portion of the store (about 18,000 square feet) has been taken over by Retro Fitness. However, the majority of the A&P remains -- with its signage! Except for the "FOOD MARKET" lettering, for whatever reason. That was removed, who knows why. Crazy how good this sign, which is original to the store in 1999, still looked five years after the store's closure. The paint wasn't so lucky. Let's take a look at what we can see inside the store. Here's the fo...

Original Tenant: A&P Address: 57 US-46, Hackettstown, NJ Opened:  1958 Closed:  1980s Later Tenants:  Blockbuster Video > Atlantic Health Systems Photographed:  May 2020 The first A&P store in Hackettstown was here at 57 US-46, in a barrel-roof store that was later retrofitted with a Centennial facade. This store came in at just over 18,000 square feet, which is just around the same size as the Centennial purpose-built stores. In the 1980s, A&P constructed a new, 32,000 square foot store at the back of this strip mall, which in turn relocated to 7 Naughright Rd in 1999. That's our other post for the day which you can see here . The newer 80s store in this mall also became a Food Basics for roughly two years in the early 2000s. The storefront here was later a Blockbuster Video, which you can see in JoshAustin610's photo linked above. Today, most of the strip mall has been converted into medical offices (along with some non-medical tenants, such as a...

Original Tenant: A&P Address: 128 NJ-94, Blairstown, NJ Opened:  1960s Closed:  1990s Later Tenants:  Tractor Supply Co. Photographed:  January 2021 A&P came to the small town of Blairstown, in northwestern Warren County, in the 1960s with a 26,000 square foot store. In the late 1970s, that store was renovated and upgraded with a new facade (which we see here), and then in the 1990s this store was replaced by a new store double the size up NJ-94. A&P (and now ACME) aren't the only game in town, however, as there is a small grocery store in town which you can see here . I don't believe the Tractor Supply Company store has any A&P remnants inside, although I'm not sure. What does appear to be an A&P remnant is the cart corral in the parking lot... Don't forget to check out those stores linked above, and tomorrow, we move on to a little general store just to the east tomorrow on  The Independent Edition !

We've finished Sussex County and we are moving on to the next group of northwestern/central western  NJ counties! This area is so sparsely populated that, in fact, the population of the two counties combined is roughly the same as the combined populations of the cities of Paterson and Passaic (in Passaic County) -- with roughly  73 times  the land area. That's why we're going to spend a little under three weeks covering most, but not all, of the supermarkets in these counties. Note that Warren County, which is the northern one in the map of the two above, does not contain Warren Township where we saw a  Kings  and an  ACME  a while back. We'll be starting in Blairstown which is just about 12 miles due west of  Andover  as the crow flies, then winding through Hackettstown (the second-largest town in Warren County, population 9700), Mansfield, Independence, Belvidere (the county seat of Warren County), Washington, Hampton (our first stop in Hun...

Original Tenant: A&P Address: 5 Lenape Rd, Andover, NJ Opened:  1970s Closed:  late 90s Later Tenants:  The Open Box Shop Photographed:  April 2020 Quite the interesting former A&P here in Andover, along route 206 just south of Newton. Now, it's not exactly a surprise that a supermarket couldn't survive here. This roughly 30,000 square foot store is located smack in the middle of this town of just 600 people. It's about five miles from the large stores we saw in Newton and roughly four miles north of the ShopRite in Byram. This store likely closed as an A&P in the late 1990s, and was an A&P Sav-A-Center in its final days. Acme Style has coverage of the store from back in 2009, when the A&P decor was all still up on the walls. We'll take a brief look inside now that The Open Box Shop, a discout store, has set up shop inside. As Acme Style writes, it's a very strange property constructed around an existing older stone building. The supermarket a...