The Market Report

Key Food's On the Move - Again We're seeing rapid growth and development in Key Food's new Superfresh banner. A while ago I reported that there were more Superfresh stores on the way. Key Food has bought the URL http://www.superfreshfood.com (the website http://www.superfreshstore.com directs to the two Staten Island stores) from A&P as part of the deal. Until recently it redirected to a version of the Key Food website with the Superfresh logo instead of Key Food: However, visiting the URL http://www.superfreshfood.com will direct you instead to http://www.keyfood.com/superfresh , a page about Superfresh specifically. At first glance the website looks great. A short introduction, a map showing where the locations are, and the list of locations. One problem, though - there is one location on the map that doesn't exist (yet?)! (Consequently, there is one fewer location listed underneath than is labeled on the map.) Image from keyfood.com/superfresh . ...

A Supermarket From Another Time Former Buy Rite Market, Union, NJ Images in this post are my own (only the first), Google Maps (GM), or Acme Style (AS). Welcome to MagieMart Food Store & Deli of Union, NJ. It doesn't look like much, and it's really not. It just looks like - and is - a fairly standard small neighborhood convenience store. It's not much to look at. But, let's head back in time to 2007: GM OK, so we can all agree that the renovation was an improvement. Based on the signs in the windows, it looks like a liquor store. It was potentially part of this chain , which also has a location across town in Union on Morris Ave. But before becoming Buy-Rite Liquor, this was the long-standing Buy Rite Supermarket. It closed sometime between 1981 and 2007, likely closer to the 1981 side. Where this gets really interesting is if you compare the photo above to any photo of a 1940s Acme. Consider the following picture of the Palmerton, PA Acme in the 1...

Elmora Farmers Market Opened:  ca. 2009 Owner:  unknown Previous Tenants:  Food Fair (ca. 1950-early 1970s) > Pantry Pride (early 1970s-1979) > Mayfair Foodtown (1979-1990s) > Cost Cutters (1990s-ca. 2008) Cooperative:  none Location:  190 Elmora Ave, Elizabeth, NJ Photographed:  December 9, 2025 Before we begin, just a heads up: this was originally posted in January 2017, but was rewritten with new photos in January 2026. Now for the post! Welcome to the Elmora Farmers Market, an unassuming produce market and grocery store of around 15,000 square feet in Elizabeth, NJ's Elmora neighborhood. This building, which underwent a big renovation in 2008 , actually dates back to about 1950 when it was built as a Food Fair. In the early 1970s, it became a Pantry Pride discount store, then a Mayfair Foodtown  -- where, incidentally, my father worked in high school -- in the late 1970s. Foodtown closed by the 1990s, and discount store Cost Cutters m...

Key Food Operators Opening More Superfresh Stores Specifically, Kevin Kim, who owns the following stores: The Food Emporium, Garwood, NJ Key Food Marketplace, Fairview, NJ Key Food Marketplace, New Brunswick, NJ Photos from Patch.com   and the City of New Brunswick Kevin Kim's Edison, NJ store is staying a Superfresh, and his Queens, NY store is staying a Key Food Marketplace. On Staten Island, on the same road as the Amboy Rd. Superfresh - but 6 miles away - a former Pathmark operating transitionally as a Key Food Superstore has reopened as a Superfresh. Image from Google Maps . The City of New Brunswick article above claims that Key Food plans to convert its existing NJ stores to Superfresh, which I doubt. Many are already Superfresh or are becoming Superfresh: Belleville, NJ (Superfresh Food World) Bloomfield, NJ (Superfresh Food World) Edison, NJ (Superfresh) Fairview, NJ (Key Food Marketplace > Superfresh) Garwood...

A Real Ethnic Warehouse Store Universal Supermarket - Rahway, NJ When big-chain American supermarkets' "idea of international foods selection is carrying both Ortega and Old El Paso" , it's quite a shock to step into Universal Meat Supermarket (the "meat" seems to be a holdover from its previous life as a Western Beef). Universal is a real ethnic store. As much as I like stores CitiGrocer and Supremo , they somehow don't have a true authentic feeling, and are extremely Americanized. When you enter this store, or Kam Man Foods , if you're looking for Chinese groceries, the experience is very different. This store opened as a Food Fair, which later became Pantry Pride. It later became a Rex-Gene supermarket, followed by a Western Beef. Universal opened some time around 2005. (Most of this information came from here . Also click to see a daylight photo.) Universal clearly did minimal, if any, renovations after opening in the old Western Be...