Original Tenant: Thriftway
Address: 660 Plainsboro Rd, Plainsboro, NJ
Yesterday we saw the brand-new Asian Food Market in Plainsboro Plaza, and they moved out of this 20,000 square foot location a little more than a mile east of Plainsboro Plaza. If memory serves me, this store was built as a Thriftway in the 80s (or possibly a Shop n Bag?) and later became an AFM around 2000.
This store had closed just about 6 months before I visited, right before the new one opened. Quite the difference between the new store's interior and this one's interior (see here and here).
So far, I haven't heard of any tenants (grocery or otherwise) that are interested in this space. Unlikely, I think, that another supermarket would be interested in the space.
Here's the entrance/exit on the left side of the storefront. I'm unclear on what the layout was, but I believe the grand aisle would've been on the left side of the store.
Looking across the front-end from the entrance/exit on the left. Now if you go back to my earlier pictures of the exterior, you can see that the only windows in the front are blocked by bushes. Well, I ain't afraid of no bushes, and also have extremely long arms to reach out to the windows for the interior shots...
Here's what I believe was the grand aisle, with those horizontal panels being (I assume) lighting over the produce cases.
Exit on the right side of the storefront. Interesting that there's no entrance on this side. But we do have a small indication of what happened to this store's tenant...
This sign was posted on that exit door. Nice map!
Address: 660 Plainsboro Rd, Plainsboro, NJ
Opened: unknown
Closed: unknown
Later Tenants: Asian Food Markets (??-2020)
Photographed: February 2021
One more look at the exit doors (which could possibly have just been used as emergency exits...?) on the right side of the store. There's actually still a small grocery store in business just next door, which you can check out here today, and tomorrow, we head about four miles to the southeast for an ethnic store in East Windsor over on The Market Report!
They must take after Ocean State Job Lots as they often do that (having one side just exit, sometimes the other just entry sometimes it has both) with stores they've taken over where there are double sets of doors like this (which happens fairly often, given that they like old supermarkets). This might be too small for someone like that (but they do have some smaller spots, so maybe...) ;)
ReplyDeleteKnowing there are cases where OSJL has moved from a smaller store to a larger one, it doesn't seem likely they would want a small space like this.
DeleteAnd for this store, having a nearby grocery store is another possible reason a grocery tenant would be undesirable for this space.
Yes to all of the above. The only potential grocery tenant I could see moving in here is an independent Asian supermarket or small chain store, such as Kam Man, although I doubt that will happen. I highly doubt this would become a conventional supermarket because of the area's demographics, its surrounding by ShopRites, and the presence of Asian Food Markets right nearby.
Delete