The Market Report

I'm having trouble posting anything with pictures, for some reason, so my planned posts are going to be delayed. In the meantime, though, I'm almost done with a spreadsheet of the Associated Group stores, and I'm going to be posting on my Flickr photostream , so check there! More posts to come...

Lots of exciting stuff on the way. Because of a slight glitch I couldn't get the post I wanted to up yesterday, but I'll try again later today. Make sure you check back for... - A tour of La Placita C-Town in Peekskill, NY - A tour of the new Food Bazaar Supermarket in Elizabeth, NJ - A tour of Fresh Emporium in Jefferson, NJ And plenty of never-before-seen material, including: - A tour of Food Bazaar Supermarket in Bridgeport, CT - A tour of Supremo Foodmarket in Allentown, PA - A spreadsheet of the Associated Group stores And lots more! Stay tuned...

An excellent read about attempts to fix food deserts in the city of Philadelphia. Watching Philly Grocery Shoppers Is Changing How Cities Build Supermarkets

Supermarket Mysteries I: Decor This post includes: - Greenport IGA, Greenport, NY - Key Food Marketplace, Beacon, NY - Jack's Foodtown, North Arlington, NJ The Greenport IGA Image from Google Maps Street View. The Greenport IGA seems normal enough from this Google Maps street view from 2012. Any seasoned supermarket expert will tell you right off the bat this is an A&P Centennial model, and they'd be right. That's not the mystery here. Here's a close-up of the storefront taken by a family member. Seems average enough, right? Take a look inside through those windows. First of all, that Customer Service sign looks like it belong in an Acme Theme Park store,  not a small IGA. (By the way, it's not from an Acme Theme Park store. Does anyone recognize it? I'm not too familiar with Long Island supermarkets, but it could be Waldbaum's or King Kullen, neither of which I know well.) But take a closer look at the signage on t...

A matter of blocks from Columbia University in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan is the small Appletree Market . It is very convenient for college students (as is the Morton Williams directly across Broadway from Columbia), and as a result, the prices are ridiculous. But it's a very nice and very compact store. Mostly I took these pictures because of the Krasdale truck, but they show you a little of the store. Appletree does not fit my criteria for a "supermarket", which are: Must sell fresh produce Must sell fresh meat Must sell frozen foods Must have "supermarket-style" checkouts with multiple lanes  Appletree sells fresh produce, fresh meats, and frozen foods, but the checkout counter more closely resembles that at a small drugstore than a supermarket. Ironically, about 7 blocks north into Harlem, there is a C-Town supermarket - also Krasdale-supplied, of course, but you already knew that from my Krasdale spreadsheet! - which is...

Coming home from the Superfresh Food World in Bloomfield, I drove past the 99c & Discount Depot of Bloomfield, NJ. It's a former Food Fair with the arch intact. Check out more pictures and a better description on Styertowne's Flickr photostream here .

 Price Rite vs. Aldi  I'm not generally a big fan of the no-frills discount stores, but I do think two (in this area) have really set themselves up for success by being a little better and/or different. In my opinion, those are Price Rite and Aldi. Price Rite is the discount end of Wakefern Food Corporation, the corporation that runs the ShopRite cooperative. According to their website, they offer "impossibly, incredibly, inconceivably low prices everyday," but I think their real strength comes from not just focusing on the cheap, sodium and fat-filled canned goods, frozen foods, and packaged goods most discount stores sell. Sure, Price Rite sells these - as does just about every other supermarket - but because of their comparatively larger store sizes, they also have the space to offer more fresh options. This image is from an article about the grand opening of a Price Rite from universalhub.com. As the article says, Price Rite has no service departments, but ...

While visiting the Wilbur Chocolate museum in Lititz, PA - and believe it or not, not buying any chocolate at all - I saw these old storebrand tins for cocoa in the museum. Jewel T: A&P: Asco (American Stores / later Acme) Grand Union: These were a pretty cool find!

I couldn't do a better job of explaining the history of this location than Acme Style does! See their description here: Sparta Acme

Before I started photographing stores regularly, I would occasionally take a picture of something I found interesting at a supermarket. When I visited the Flanders, NJ ShopRite - a very nice former Weis, built 1999, that closed around 2002, and is now operated by the Romano family - this tall sign facing Rt 206 caught my eye. Because the store is situated on a hill, above Rt 206 (the main drag through Flanders), this sign catches your attention. There are also several billboards directing people going in both directions on 206 towards this store, as it can be complicated to get to. I don't know what kind of a sign Weis would have had when they were in business here. As you can see from this picture, the storefront has not been substantially changed since Weis built the store, although a Gold's Gym has been added next door. There is a brand-new Weis directly across 206 in a former A&P that opened in 2014. That is also a beautiful store. I have a full tour of t...