Elmora Farmers Market - Elizabeth, NJ

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 moved in. Cost Cutters, which was owned by drugstore chain Drug Fair, went under with the rest of the chain around 2008 or 2009, and the space was subdivided between a Dollar General and this Elmora Farmers Market.

This is one of the larger stores of this type, and is also more similar to a full supermarket than a minor greengrocer shop. The bulk of the sales floor is taken up by produce, with refrigerator cases on the right side. A few grocery aisles, along with dairy and frozen, are on the left side with floral in the front-left corner. Large meat, seafood, and deli service counters are on the back wall.

The interior is as plain as they come, but the format here is high volume and low prices.

This store competes with a Food Bazaar (previously Pathmark) just diagonally across the street, and a ShopRite about two blocks away.

These photos were taken at an off-time -- a weekday morning -- but this store is often very crowded on weekends and later in the day.

The service counters here are no-frills, but actually fairly extensive, with fresh fish at the back of the produce department and a butcher/deli counter in the back-left corner.

It's great to see that, even decades after the supermarket closed here, a grocer remains in the building. The neighboring Dollar General has a lot of dry goods, too, meaning that there's enough here to get all the essentials.

The vast majority of the meat here is fresh in the service counter, with only a small case (visible to the left below) of packaged meat and cold cuts. Many of these fixtures may have been secondhand when Elmora Farmers Market opened, especially given that the previous tenant here wasn't a supermarket so they wouldn't simply be left behind.

Center-store grocery isn't the focus here, but it's still present, and there are about three or four grocery aisles on the left side of the store.

No consistent storebrands here, but instead a rotating variety of assorted items, mostly from Krasdale. The grocery section isn't merchandised like a typical supermarket.

Dairy, frozen, and bread in the last aisle. No bakery here, but there's bread from America's Bakery and other local bakers.

The registers are up at the front, with floral in the front-left corner.

The registers are set up with two in each island, facing outwards. They're set up a little more like a convenience store than a supermarket, as there's no belt but just a counter. As I recall, this store also doesn't use bar code scanners, but instead individually prices each packaged item and the prices are entered by hand -- a very old-school approach.

Not exactly a full supermarket, but still a substantial grocer with a lot here -- and it's always good to see a new independent grocer in this longtime supermarket space!

This post was rewritten on January 6, 2026 with new photos.