TOUR: Central Farmers Market - New Providence, NJ

Central Farmers Market

Opened: 2014

Owner: The Farmers Market Group

Previous Tenants: A&P (ca. 1960-2010)

Cooperative: none

Location: 598 Central Ave, New Providence, NJ

Photographed: March 17, 2018

Our first installment in Farmers Market Week is this store in New Providence, NJ. It's owned by The Farmers Market Group, which also runs similar grocers across north and central Jersey. The building was constructed around 1960, then later renovated and expanded in the 1970s as an A&P, before finally closing in 2010 and moving to the location where ACME is now. For more detailed history, read through Acme Style's various excellent posts on New Providence here.

The strip was totally remodeled in 2014, which included the replacement of the old A&P with two smaller businesses, Central Farmers Market and the Fitness Factory Health Club.

Note that A&P would have taken this entire space, and the entrance/exit vestibule is still intact, just divided between the two businesses.

The panel where "The Shoppes at New Providence" is, is where A&P would have ended.

It looks like the space was almost exactly divided in half, making the Central Farmers Market somewhere around 15,000 square feet.

It's a very tasteful facade design, and certainly more modern than the previous design that A&P used.

Let's head in. We enter on the front wall, not into this vestibule. Most of the store is produce, although there is a large deli along the back wall.

Produce cases line both side walls, with deli along the back and some grocery selection towards the back of the store.

Quick look across the front end of the store. You can see that it's not a large store, but all the fixtures are also very low, so there's nothing obscuring our view across the whole room.

Generally, it seems that fruit is on the entrance side and vegetables are on the far side, although that's clearly not entirely true.

Like many other stores of this format, the store is packed with rows of really cheap produce piled high. That seems to be a type of store that's pretty flexible, working in lower-income urban areas just as well as affluent suburbs and eveerything in between.

At the back of the first aisle is the bulk foods area, with nuts, dried fruit, and packaged snacks.

Also tucked away in the back corner of the store is the olive bar, a nice touch that also includes some fresh cheeses including feta and mozzarella.

A look back up towards the front of the store from the second aisle.

Towards the back of the store, a few of the cases display dry grocery goods, although they tend to be specialty or imported items more than standard staples. This store mostly supplements, rather than competes with, the nearby ACME.

Large Boar's Head deli in the back of the store, with the small dairy department just next to it.

Just next to the main deli counter is this smaller counter, which sells salads and other premade dishes.

There's a separate register at the deli, although it doesn't appear to be in use anymore. That might mean the deli is (or used to be) a separate, outside vendor.

The selection at stores such as this one is highly variable. Here you can see a huge display of imported Italian pasta, but you won't find more common brands like Barilla or Ronzoni most of the time.

More specialty items. This farmers market doesn't use typical grocery shelving and tags each item individually, because the selection seems to vary based on what they order each week as opposed to having a single "set" of items and prices that's sold regularly.

Lots of locally-baked specialty breads available near the deli here, although you're also able to choose from a standard selection of America's Bakery and Teixeira's Bakery rolls delivered fresh.

Closer look at dairy in the back corner, as well as a small cheese/packaged deli selection. Looks like there's some more nice fresh mozzarella here too. We're looking towards the back wall here.

Moving back towards the front of the store, we can see where the grocery items meet the produce section, which extends across the front of the store.

As I mentioned, the far side (closer to the exit) seems to be heavier on the vegetables. However, there's also cut and prepared produce in that aisle.