Skip to main content

TOUR: ACME Markets - Elmwood Park, NJ

ACME Markets
Opened: 2015-2019
Previous Tenants: Pathmark
Later Tenants: LIDL
Location: 58 Broadway, Elmwood Park, NJ
Photographed: August 2019 and December 2020
We're just over the river from Paterson, the largest city in the Bergen - Passaic region, here in Elmwood Park, formerly East Paterson; Woodland Park was formerly West Paterson. Notice that both have kept their EP and WP initials. ACME bought this early-00s built Pathmark in the 2015-16 A&P bankruptcy, but closed it permanently in fall 2019. Discount grocer LIDL will be moving into the left half of the Pathmark/ACME. What really did in the store, though, is the coming ShopRite opening two blocks west in a former Kmart.
The facility, at 45,000 square feet, is much smaller than many modern supermarkets including the coming ShopRite, which will be almost double the size of this ACME. That said, because it's a relatively newly built store, it's still in great shape.
I intended to visit the store before its closing, but I didn't realize the closing liquidation would start so soon after the store's closing had been announced. This was my first time in a supermarket's closing liquidation, and even though it was still pretty early in the liquidation, the store was pretty cleaned-out. You can see the store back in happier times in Acme Style's 2017 post here.
Inside, the interior is gloriously Pathmarky. Path to Savings decor, flooring, and fixtures remain throughout. You enter to a grand aisle with bakery in the front right corner, deli lining the right side wall, and seafood at the back of the first aisle. Produce faces these service counters. Meat and dairy line the back wall, with dairy on the outside of the last aisle; frozen faces and lines the second-to-last aisle. Bread is in the front corner opposite the entrance.
Small international alcove in the front corner. This corner would typically be used for pharmacy, but this store doesn't have a pharmacy.
Bakery and deli lining the right-side wall of the store.
Deli beginning to clean out but still functional. They even still had rotisserie chickens!
Produce was mostly empty, with the remaining stock consolidated in the front of the store. Seafood was cut way back but still operating...
Up next on the back wall is meat.
This meat case had been emptied out entirely, with the remaining stock being consolidated near the service counter.
Natural foods lining the first aisle don't seem to be flying off the shelves...
We can see that the store closing liquidation was still in its early stages at the time of my visit really in the grocery aisles. Perishables went quicker, and may have even been transferred to other stores.
The store is certainly brighter and cleaner than any Pathmark I ever went to!
Seasonal was pretty cleaned out, while candy and snacks were still fully stocked.
HABA at the far end of the store.
Frozen foods in very new cases, pretty much cleaned out in the second-to-last aisle.
Dairy was surprisingly full, with the remaining frozen looking pretty empty. The floor is in excellent condition here! We can see, however, that the ACME sign added to the dairy sign to the right has slipped slightly.
From this angle you can hardly tell the store is in liquidation!
Packaged bread in the front corner of the store.
A look across the front-end, which makes the store look much larger than it is.
Customer service is at the entrance side of the front-end...
I drove by in December of 2020 to see the status. Surprisingly, the store was still looking exactly like a Pathmark.
On any other store I'd say I'll come back when the replacement opens, but I have no interest in visiting another LIDL. Up next we have three more Fair Lawn stores, starting tomorrow on The Independent Edition tomorrow, then we'll be moving from Bergen County back over to Passaic County into Paterson, the largest city in and the county seat of Passaic. The Silk City will provide us with a look at four supermarkets and one former supermarket.

Comments

  1. Nice pictures! I have to wonder just how many stores that still have the Pathmark décor are still out there. Clearly one fewer after this one closed, I suppose...

    I'm surprised the perishables emptied out so quickly, especially so early on in the liquidation. I've only been to a few grocery store (Kroger) closings around here, and from my experience they seem to stock perishables pretty well. I'm guessing that gets limited towards the final weeks/days, but early on not much is different. In fact, as far as dry groceries are concerned, I'm pretty sure stuff that doesn't sell is just sent to a nearby store (for those situations where one is present).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! On the question of Pathmark decor (and this doesn't count the stores that still have decor but are abandoned), here's the numbers I have roughly:
      - decor still fully intact, with just the name changed - 3 (ACME on Crittenden St in Philadelphia; SuperFresh at 3501 Amboy on Staten Island; Chelten Market IGA in Philadelphia)
      - decor intact but altered - 1 (7 Day Farmers Market in Wilmington, some decor appears to have been removed and the walls have been painted)
      - decor moved into a different store - 1 (Food Universe in Port Chester, NY, although I haven't been back since the store switched from Compare Foods to Food Universe and it's possible the switch included removing the Pathmark decor, but that store itself was never a Pathmark)
      ...so not very many stores at all.

      That's interesting on the store closings. I do think that same packing-up-and-shipping-nearby happens around here, but I really don't know what the process is.

      Delete
    2. I haven't been there in a while, but the last time I was there, the ACME on 440 in Jersey City was still very much a Pathmark.

      Delete
    3. Ahh, you are correct. Thank you!

      Delete
    4. You're welcome, and thanks for the list of stores remaining with that décor package! Pretty strange that the décor would have actually been moved from a different building to that one location, haha.

      Delete
    5. Yeah, I think the decor reuse and moving is more common in this area, especially in the small stores, than it is in your area... I'm thinking of the Jersey Farmer's Market post you just commented on a few days ago :)

      Delete
  2. So, do you have any idea as of when Lidl would be opening here?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, unfortunately. Some of LIDL's stores open very fast but others take much longer, so I couldn't really tell you.

      Delete
  3. No idea, but work is finally happening. I would guess by June.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment