Grocery Archaeology

Original Grocery Tenant: Village ShopRite Address: 51 N 3rd St, Stroudsburg, PA Opened:  1960s Closed:  2019 Later Tenants:  vacant Photographed:  November 29, 2019 I grew up largely shopping at ShopRites owned by Village Super Market, whose stores we've seen around the Union, Essex, and Morris county areas of New Jersey, so coming to visit a store that looks and feels a lot like what I was used to growing up -- but all the way out here in Stroudsburg -- was a little strange, but pleasantly nostalgic. This ShopRite opened in the 1960s and, I believe, was owned by Village Super Market for its whole life. It was expanded out to around 47,000 square feet, with its latest renovation happening probably around 2000, and closed in 2019 when it was replaced by a store just outside of town constructed in a former Bon-Ton in the Stroud Mall. You can see a former department store at the back of this strip mall, too. Looking in through the windows here had the same feelin...

Original Tenant:  Village ShopRite Address: 1711 NJ-10, Morris Plains, NJ Opened: 1964 Closed: 2013 Later Tenants: Uncle Giuseppe's (renovations began 2021) Photographed: June 2020 It's amazing that this Village ShopRite lasted all the way to 2013! Not so much that it was small, at over 40,000 square feet, but simply that it was outdated and wasn't renovated after the late 1970s, when Village gave it its last overhaul. It was replaced by the Cedar Knolls location , which was newly built closer to downtown Morristown and off NJ-10 -- notably moving farther away from the Morris Plains Stop & Shop , and much closer to the Morris Plains ACME . Acme Style captured the store soon before its closure, which you can see here (along with their coverage of the new location and the Stop & Shop). Here's what the store looked like after ShopRite's closure. The store had been cleaned out with an auction of the fixtures as you can see in the poster in the first pictu...

Original Tenant: ShopRite Address: 164 Speedwell Ave, Morristown, NJ Opened: 1959 Closed: 1983 Later Tenants: subdivided Photographed: June 2020 Our second post of the day is this former ShopRite at Speedwell and Sussex Avenues in Morristown. JoshAustin610 lists the ShopRite as 164 Speedwell, and the convenience/dollar store seen at the point of the triangle lists its own address as 158 Speedwell. My assumption, though, is that the ShopRite probably took most of the first floor of this roughly triangular building -- because even if it took every single square inch of the building's first floor, it would be just barely over 10,000 square feet. Especially for a ShopRite that lasted until 1983, anything much smaller than that would be awfully small. I assume this store was a Village Super Market-owned location, since its replacement in 1983 was Village-owned. This corner entrance looks to me like a supermarket entrance, though the space currently has several tenants. The tiny L...

Original Tenant:  A&P Address:  107 Morristown Rd, Bernardsville, NJ Opened:  1959 Closed:  1978 Later Tenants:  Jaeger Lumber > Village ShopRite extension Photographed:  June 2020 Today's store is one of three Bernardsville stops. It was built in 1959 as a fairly standard A&P centennial model, but closed in 1978 -- probably from the competition from ShopRite next door and ACME (later Kings ) across the street, and the fact that there was no ability to expand on this property. Occupied by an outpost of local company Jaeger Lumber from 1982 to 1991, it was then taken over by Village Super Market, the owner of the ShopRite, as an extension of the 42,000 square foot grocery store. This store sold nonfood products that didn't fit in the rather small ShopRite, including gardening products and hardware. Check it out before its CVS conversion here . Make sure to tour both those stores above, and tomorrow we're heading out west to ...

Original Tenant: ACME Markets Address: 2661 Morris Ave, Union, NJ Opened:  late 1950s Closed:  1968 Later Tenants:  Village ShopRite Photographed:  September 2016, March 2019, & May 2020 Our next stop is this 40,000 square foot former supermarket on Morris Ave, just down the street from Gold Valley in Springfield. Built as a 21,000 square foot 1950s-era ACME, then expanded out three sides, this building later hosted a Village ShopRite until 2014. Since I don't know of any other cases where Village directly acquired a former ACME, I think it might actually be more likely that Good Deal moved in around 1970 before selling to Village in 1976, as was the case in Millburn just about a mile northwest. (Also, whoops... the first few pictures in this post are repeated from my previous post . Sorry.) You can see a lot more about the history of this store, as well as the other former ACME in Union which we'll be seeing shortly, over on Acme Style , who visited the Shop...

Original Tenant:  Village ShopRite Address:  407 Main St, East Orange, NJ Opened:  1960s Closed:  1987 Later Tenants:  C.H. Martin > Lot Stop Photographed:  July 2020 The earlier Village ShopRite in East Orange was here all the way at the eastern end of town. It was also -- not accidentally -- located directly across the street from a Kings Food Market . In 1987, this location was replaced by the newly built ShopRite of Brick Church downtown according to JoshAustin610 . A question for any folks from East Orange... did this 6700 square foot store with no parking lot really survive all the way until 1987? My theory is that this store didn't make it that long, but instead was replaced in 1976 with a former Good Deal at 563 Central Ave , which then moved 11 years later. Village, to my knowledge, bought several Good Deal stores in the 70s, which would make a bit more sense to me. Anyway, our next and final stop on Main Street is the indepen...