ShopRite - North Bergen, NJ

ShopRite

Opened: late 1990s in current building; 1960s previously

Owner: Inserra Supermarkets

Previous Tenants: none

Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.

Location: 3147 Kennedy Blvd, North Bergen, NJ

Photographed: March 6, 2026

Before we begin, just a heads up: this was originally posted in March 2017, but was rewritten with new photos in March 2026. Now for the post! Welcome to the ShopRite of Columbia Park, a roughly 68,000 square foot store built in the late 1990s on the property of an older ShopRite dating back to the 1960s.

It's owned by Inserra Supermarkets, one of the larger Wakefern members that owns ShopRite, Fresh Grocer, and Price Rite stores in NJ and NY. Over the last ten years or so, Inserra has freshened up their store fleet, purging most of the worst outdated locations and replacing them with fresh new locations (or else simply extensively renovated them). The ShopRite here in North Bergen seems to have escaped Inserra's attention, as it still looks practically the same as it has for decades.

You enter on the left side of the storefront to bakery in the front-left corner and a now-closed food court just behind it on the left side wall. Produce is in the back-left corner with deli and seafood in an alcove off of the back wall. Meat is on the right half of the back wall, with frozen and dairy on the right side of the store. Customer service and pharmacy (which has been closed for a couple years) are in islands facing the front-end.

I doubt this store struggles with sales volume, but it's closed quite a few services while replacing them with...not much. Here's part of the bakery department which has been covered over with shelving and an ice cream cake case...

...although the rest of the bakery is functional, of course.

The same can't be said for the Chef's Express, which was originally a food court that included a hot food bar, items made to order, and seating at a bar counter along with some chairs and tables in front of it. Most of that is gone and, again, not really replaced with anything.

There's still a sushi counter here.

This is one of a short list of truly outdated ShopRites. Even some of the oldest have gotten upgrades in recent years, but this one hasn't.

The produce department is in the back-left corner.

In this immediate area, there are a lot of small supermarkets in the busy business districts of North Bergen, Union City, and West New York. But ShopRite is one of two bigger, more suburban-type supermarkets in the area. The other one is a slightly smaller Food Bazaar just under a mile south.

While I do love this lit ceiling feature, it would benefit from all of the lights actually working. We'll see the same over in the deli/seafood area.

Some small updates have been made, such as this refrigerator which seems to be pretty new.

But here you can really see that the ceiling dome structure is cool but in pretty bad repair.

And in these service departments, too, you can see cases that are empty and have been covered with posters or have shelving pushed in front of them.

The deli and seafood counters have both been cut back in size. While that's not unusual as stores move towards more grab-and-go offerings, that isn't what's happened here -- the original fixtures remain, just empty. You can see an empty deli case below behind the person sitting on the bench.

The meat department runs along the rest of the back wall.

I imagine all of this decor and these fixtures is original from the store's 1990s opening.

Between the grocery aisles and the registers are two islands, one for customer service and one that previously had the pharmacy.

This is also the area for all your personal care needs, such as razor blades...

Something tells me you wouldn't get a very close shave with these razors. Something also tells me you maybe shouldn't use these razors with water.

Dairy begins on the back wall and runs down the last aisle.

And frozen foods are in the front part of the last aisle, continuing into an alcove on the front wall.

The store isn't particularly dirty or messy, though it's certainly not orderly and organized, but it's somewhat rundown and dated compared to most ShopRites.

A look across the front-end...

A couple things have closed here on the front end. I believe above was the pharmacy, which is now covered with potato chips. And below may have been other offerings from the food court (sometimes Inserra would have frozen yogurt or coffee shops or something like that).

Looking back over to the bakery/food court corner...

And in the other direction...

We'll see if this store gets a renovation sometime soon. Given how crowded and congested the area surrounding this store is, I think it's unlikely they'll relocate as they have done in other locations. For now, that's your look at the North Bergen ShopRite!

This post was rewritten on March 19, 2026 with new photos.