Grocery Archaeology

Original Tenant: Pantry Pride Address: 2497 Brunswick Pk, Lawrenceville, NJ Opened:  1960s Closed:  1979 Later Tenants:  ACME Markets (1979-2018) > LIDL (2021- ) Photographed:  January 2021 Another store I visited with bad timing! I was here at the Lawrenceville ACME about two years after it closed, and just a few months before LIDL opened. I managed to capture the store with its facade torn off, showing what I assumed to be not much of anything -- just some structural brick. Well it turns out that this space was originally built as a Pantry Pride which ACME acquired in 1979, and the brick we're seeing was Pantry Pride's original facade. Here's a look at what Pantry Pride would've looked like. I won't go into too much detail on ACME's history here since Acme Style has already done multiple posts on this location, but I'll just add that LIDL takes up roughly 28,000 square feet of space which appears to be exactly the footprint of the ACME. LIDL is open ...

Original Tenant: Risoldi's Thriftway Address: 3100 Quakerbridge Rd, Hamilton, NJ Opened:  1970s Closed:  2019 Later Tenants:  none Photographed:  January 2021 The roughly 40,000 square foot Risoldi's Market (a Great Valu store, previously Risoldi's Thriftway and before that, in a different location in town, the Liberty Thriftway) opened in the 1970s and closed in 2019 . So I was just about a year and a half too late to photograph it in business, but we do get to see inside. My interior pictures were a little limited because work was going on at the time and I was getting some strange looks from the construction workers. While I haven't heard anything about what might be going into the majority of the supermarket space, a ShopRite liquor store is taking about 10-20,000 square feet of the store. It was a good-looking exterior, but I've never seen an interior picture of the supermarket in business, and it's really hard to tell what the interior would've look...

Original Tenant: ACME Markets Address: 318 NJ-33, Mercerville, Hamilton, NJ Opened:  early 1960s Closed:  1993 Later Tenants:  Smith's Ace Hardware / Party Fair Photographed:  January 2021 The ACME of Mercerville, at NJ-33 and Quakerbridge Rd, opened in the late 1950s or early 1960s and closed in 1993 when the replacement store opened just east on NJ-33. I was not aware, by the way, when I visited, that the ACME was actually both  the Ace Hardware space and the neighboring Party Fair for a combined total of 25,000 square feet. It used to be more obvious before the facade renovation. It also looks like that facade renovation included an expansion of the Ace Hardware out to the left side, making me think that whole space was previously the ACME. I didn't go into the hardware store nor the Party Fair, but I doubt there are any ACME remnants inside either. At the east end of the strip mall was an A&P, later SuperFresh , which was constructed separately and t...

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...

Original Tenant: ACME Markets Address: 215 N Hermitage Ave, West End, Trenton, NJ Opened:  1961 Closed:  1970s Later Tenants:  Vereen Thriftway (1970s-1980s) > Vereen IGA (1980s) > Super Thrift (1980s-1997) > Foodtown (planned, never opened) > Supreme Food Market (early 2000s) > Supreme Shop n Bag (early 2000s-late 2000s) Photographed:  January 2021 The Westside Plaza in the West End neighborhood of Trenton is 50,000 square feet of retail space, with 34,000 square feet originally occupied by an early A-frame or pitched roof ACME that opened in 1961. You can read a lot of detail on the history here , and I summarized the progression above. Plainfield, NJ-based Supremo Food Markets most recently took over the space, around 2000 or shortly thereafter, but chose to call the store Supreme Food Market instead of Supremo. Within the first few years, the store became a Shop n Bag under the same owners, before closing between 2005 and 2010. Unfortunately, bec...

Original Tenant: A&P Address: 1320 Parkway Ave, Ewing, NJ Opened:  1960s Closed:  1982 Later Tenants:  converted to SuperFresh in 1982, closed 2003, became CVS in 2005 Photographed:  January 2021 Just about next door to Marrazzo's Market , today's store tour, is this 19,000 square foot former supermarket at Parkway Avenue and Scotch Road in Ewing Township. It was built in the 1960s as a Centennial A&P, then converted to SuperFresh with the Philadelphia-area ones in 1982 before closing in 2003. CVS opened in 2005. Tomorrow, we head into Trenton's city limits for a look at a former supermarket in the northwestern part of the city here on Grocery Archaeology!

I know I keep saying this, but we're really down to the end here. Basically just two more cities to see before finishing out New Jersey altogether: Trenton and Camden. We begin Trenton by checking out some places to the north of town and then moving into the downtown area before heading east of town. We'll start with Ewing to the northwest of Trenton tomorrow, then move through the city of Trenton itself from west to east, then make a few stops in Hamilton and back to Lawrence to the east and northeast of Trenton. This is a fairly short group, and we'll be spending just under two weeks here before moving on. Let's start with a look at a supermarket in Ewing on  The Independent Edition  tomorrow along with a former supermarket just up the street here on Grocery Archaeology!