Aqui Market
Opened: ca. 2015
Owner: Araceli Perez
Previous Tenants: ACME Markets (1970s-2010) > Fine Fare (2010-ca. 2012) > Twin City Supermarkets (ca. 2012-ca. 2015)
Cooperative: Retail Grocers Group/General Trading
Location: 216 Garfield Ave, Jersey City, NJ
Photographed: January 7, 2026
Before we begin, just a heads up: this was originally posted in October 2017, but was rewritten with new photos in March 2026. Now for the post! Jersey City, one of the largest cities in the state, has multiple different neighborhoods that all have very distinct personalities. A while back, we toured the
Aquí Market on Sip Ave in Jersey City (since closed), which is in the Journal Square neighborhood, a cosmopolitan and very diverse section of the city. We're here for Aquí Market's other location, in the far-south part of Jersey City on the Bayonne border, a quieter, more suburban neighborhood. This store opened in the 1970s as an Acme.
The Acme closed in 2010 and was replaced soon after by a Super Fine Fare.
Fine Fare didn't last. You can check out the interior of Acme and Fine Fare
here on Acme Style. Soon after Fine Fare closed, Twin City Supermarket opened.
Twin City is a local chain, and this store shared an owner with the Sip location and another store in
Bridgewater, NJ. Around 2015, that group split from Twin City and converted these three stores to Aqui Market.
This store is about 25,000 square feet, and if you read Acme Style's extensive coverage, you can see that the layout these days is still very similar to the original ACME layout. The produce department is still located in the alcove in the front-right corner -- and check out the rounded corner above, which is a signature ACME design element of the 1970s. Now, though, the produce department overflows into the first aisle, which is extra-wide and has dairy lining the right-side wall. A combined butcher, deli, and seafood counter is at the back of the first aisle, with packaged meats on the back wall. Frozen is in the last aisle on the left side.
This store was remodeled (cosmetically, at least) around the time that it switched from Twin City to Aqui Market. You can see the ACME and Fine Fare decor in Acme Style's post.
It looks like somebody (maybe ACME?) took out the first aisle here, which Aqui Market has used to expand the produce department.
Much of the refrigeration here even appears to be left over from ACME.
"Boucher" and "peixes" are both in Portuguese (neither this part of Jersey City nor neighboring Bayonne has a large Portuguese community, so that confuses me a little).
It appears that the deli was originally in the front-left corner, where ACME had their bakery, but Aqui Market has eliminated that deli/bakery area and moved it all to this corner combined with the butcher counter.
Big Aqui Market logo here on the back wall, very different from the ACME days with bland, blank walls.
The grocery aisles are bright and open with the high ceilings, and there's a selection of Latino and mainstream groceries.
One odd layout change: Aqui Market actually moved milk out of the dairy department in the first aisle, and into the last aisle, which also has frozen foods.
Old pictures and maps of Jersey City now cover the walls here, a nice touch.
Incidentally, Aqui Market is supplied by General Trading and sells Parade and Life Goods / Life Every Day items. Same goes for Twin City.
Below, you can see signage for the now-gone deli in the front-left corner, which is where ACME's bakery was. Although the deli was removed, the signage wasn't.
It's cool to see the ways that the subsequent tenants here have updated this decades-old ACME while keeping the bones intact!
This post was rewritten on March 30, 2026 with new photos.
Aqui did a very nice job fixing this place up! I especially like the design of the meat counter.
ReplyDeleteThey sure did, and the meat counter is very nice. More like what you'd see in a gourmet store than a lower-end ethnic market!
DeleteI agree with you guys, I love the décor here!
ReplyDeleteAnd it's even better with the extra-high ceilings. Unfortunately you can't really tell that until you visit. Acme Style mentioned it but I didn't fully appreciate that until I went.
DeleteWhen i was a kid, this Acme was where my mother shopped most of the time. It's a rough neighborhood between Jersey City and Bayonne- the carts wern't allowed into the parking lot because people would steal them, so the local kids would hang out outside the place and take your groceries out of your cart and follow you to your car so you were more or less obligated to give them money. Maybe things have changed since the late 80's and early 90's. I see the last aisle (frozen food cases) is still uncomfortable narrow.
ReplyDeleteThis neighborhood didn't feel particularly rough, but I also know very little about it. You are free to take the carts into the lot now, although they most likely are auto-locking carts so they can't leave the property. Aquí fixed this store up with a lot more deluxe decor than their other two previous stores (Bridgewater and the one at Journal Square), so I assumed the area was a little nicer. In general, yes, the aisles are narrow with the exception of the first.
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