Grocery Archaeology

Original Grocery Tenant: Big V ShopRite Address: 400 NY-211, Middletown, NY Opened:  1990s Closed:  2007 Later Tenants:  Big Lots Photographed:  February 3, 2021 This 50,000 square foot supermarket was built in the 1990s as a Big V-owned ShopRite, relocating from a beautiful store of half that size down the street. In 2001, ownership was transferred to SRS when Big V went bankrupt. This store was relatively short-lived, having closed in 2007 when ShopRite moved into a former Stop & Shop, directly across the street from their old location. On Flickr, Jack Thomas captured this store several times in its history, including with its original facade and after a renovation . Also of note is that a location was built to replace this store , but when Stop & Shop closed very close to this store, ShopRite moved there instead. The almost-ShopRite -- of 85,000 square feet -- is now partially a Planet Fitness . (He also has a huge library of retail pictures in this a...

Original Grocery Tenant: Big V ShopRite Address: 303 NY-211, Middletown, NY Opened:  1950s Closed:  1990s Later Tenants:  non-grocery tenants Photographed:  February 3, 2021 Welcome to Middletown, New York's first ShopRite! The store opened in the 1950s with a beautiful sweeping arched roof and an all-glass front wall, which amazingly is pretty intact these days . The 24,000 square foot store, as far as I can tell, was built as a ShopRite owned by Big V and then closed in the 1990s when Big V moved down the street to a much larger, new-build location. That's what we'll be seeing tomorrow!

Original Grocery Tenant: Big V ShopRite Address: 675 Kidder St, Wilkes-Barre, PA Opened:  1990s Closed:  2001 Later Tenants:  vacant, half now Ollie's Bargain Outlet Photographed:  December 22, 2018 I mentioned on one of our recent Gerrity's posts that Wakefern used to have a presence in the Wyoming Valley, actually as early as 1981 (not sure if they were here before that). I believe most of that presence was driven by member Big V, which also had a large presence in the Hudson Valley of New York. For a quick recap, they attempted to leave Wakefern around 2000, trying to simultaneously convince Wakefern they were going off on their own to avoid paying the penalty to leave while also having very public negotiations with Stop & Shop to sell the chain to them. Wakefern rejected their argument, required they pay the penalty to leave the coop, and that bankrupted Big V. Wakefern bought back most of Big V's assets (one store went to Stop & Shop), but some store...

Original Tenant: Grand Union Address: 1750 Whitehorse Mercerville Rd, Hamilton, NJ Opened:  1970s Closed:  late 1980s Later Tenants:  Laurenti ShopRite (late 1980s-late 1990s) > Big V ShopRite (late 1990s-2002) Photographed:  January 2021 Well everybody, allow me to introduce one of the coolest abandoned supermarkets I've ever visited. This beauty of an eyesore takes up 33,000 square feet of a 63,000 square foot totally-abandoned strip mall on Whitehorse Mercerville Road in the Hamilton Square part of Hamilton Township. An additional 45,000 square feet next door -- likely previously a department store -- is now a self-storage facility (see before and after here). Google Maps caught the abandoned strip  after all the tenants closed but before the property was blocked off . I was able to wander in to this mall, which is all still supposed to be available retail space, for some very cool exclusive interior photos. (To my knowledge, no one else has gotten int...