TOUR: Food Bazaar Supermarket - North Bergen, NJ

Food Bazaar Supermarket

Opened: November 2016

Owner: Spencer An

Previous Tenants: Two Guys > Waldbaum's (1989-1993) > A&P (1993-2003) > Food Basics (2003-2015)

Cooperative: none

Location: 1425 Kennedy Blvd, North Bergen, NJ

Photographed: December 12, 2025

Before we begin, just a heads up: this was originally posted in November 2016, but was rewritten with new photos in January 2026. Now for the post! On the site of what had previously been a Two Guys department store, A&P built a 56,000 square foot supermarket in the late 1980s and it opened in 1989 under the Waldbaum's brand as part of a pilot to introduce the New York-based brand to a New Jersey market. It didn't quite catch on, and A&P converted this and the other New Jersey Waldbaum's to A&P stores in 1993. Here in North Bergen -- a mile west of the Lincoln Tunnel and just north of Jersey City -- A&P didn't seem to stick either, and in 2003, the chain actually reduced the size of the sales floor while converting the store to a Food Basics discount store. You can see more about Food Basics here.

In A&P's 2015 bankruptcy, the Food Basics closed and was put up for auction. Food Bazaar bid on this store along with an independent operator, Francisco Jin, who would've branded the store Golden Mango. Ultimately, an issue with Jin's bid (which was made via a broker, causing legal troubles) meant that Food Bazaar received this store along with three others from A&P.

Food Bazaar kept the store closed for about a year while it was extensively renovated. You can see Acme Style's pictures of the Food Basics before it closed in the link above, and as we tour this Food Bazaar you'll be able to tell just how different the new store is.

Food Basics had produce in the front-right corner, and so does Food Bazaar, but that's about all that's stayed the same. In Food Basics, baked goods and cold cuts were in the back-right corner with meat and dairy on the back wall, then frozen foods were on the left side of the store. Now, large seafood and meat departments are in the back-right corner, with dairy on the back wall, frozen towards the left side of the store, service deli and bakery counters in the back-left corner, and a liquor store taking up the last few aisles. The photo above, looking to the left immediately upon entering, is taken from almost exactly the same vantage point as this one from Acme Style -- and you can see just how much has changed, plus how Food Basics chopped off the last few aisles of the store.

The produce, meat, and seafood departments are in a separate room on the right side of the store, which is actually refrigerated. You can see the refrigeration units on the ceiling below.

Looking back up towards the front of the store...

Food Basics didn't have any service departments, but Food Bazaar has brought them back big-time with very large service seafood and meat counters.

Packaged and frozen seafood is opposite the service counter, and the grocery aisles are on the other side of the refrigerators to the left.

These pictures were taken in December 2025, almost exactly 10 years after the Food Basics closed and almost exactly 10 years after Food Bazaar opened. This post originally had my first set of photos from shortly after the store opened in 2016, but armed with a much better cell phone camera these days, I thought it was time to redo.

It's intriguing to contrast these two wildly different business models. Food Basics worked with a skeleton crew and simple, cheap decor to minimize overhead and keep prices low. Food Bazaar is a high-staff model with big service counters and expensive, elaborate decor. Ultimately, Food Basics couldn't make it in large part because their supply chain simply meant they weren't getting products cheaply enough, so any in-store efficiencies didn't make their prices that low.

But yes, Food Basics certainly didn't have a windmill in their dairy department. This aisle runs along the back of the store, with a dividing aisle between here and the grocery aisles. The basic layout of the fixtures is similar to Food Basics, but all of the fixtures were replaced in the renovation.

The first grocery aisle, which borders the produce/seafood/meat room, has sale items on one side.

There's a large international section here, and given that we're on the border of Union City -- one of the largest Latino communities in the region -- the main focus in the international aisles is Latin American food.

This grocery shelving looks something like the warehouse-type shelving Food Basics had, but it's new.

Similarly, although frozen foods appear to be in the same place they were when Food Basics was in the house, the cases are new. So are the penguins.

The frozen foods aisle appears to have been the last aisle at Food Basics, but Food Bazaar has a few more beyond it, plus the liquor store.

Service deli-bakery is in the back corner, and this is all new and built out by Food Bazaar.

Looking back over towards the back wall of the store...

The liquor store was originally a separate space, walled off from the supermarket with its own doors and its own register, but in the last few years, it was opened up and now you can enter from the front or back, and pay for the liquor at the registers.

The giant wine barrel mounted to the ceiling here remains one of my favorite supermarket design features.

Technically, this area makes up the last three aisles of the supermarket, but they're not numbered. 11 numbered grocery aisles, plus three liquor aisles, and the produce/meat/seafood aisle on the right side of the store.

And a look at the front-end, decorated for Christmas in these December pictures.

That wraps up our look at this store, now unrecognizable as its former self but still going strong selling groceries!

This post was rewritten on January 5, 2026 with new photos.