CTown Supermarkets
Manager: Hiram Ramos
Opened: 1978
Previous Tenants: Food Fair > Foodtown (?)
Cooperative: Krasdale Foods
Location: 444 Madison Ave, Wrigley Park, Paterson, NJ
Photographed: August 2019
Today's store tour is the largest of three CTown stores in Paterson, and the only one I've photographed. It's about 18,500 square feet and located in a strip mall near Wrigley Park, in the northern central part of the city. Given the longtime low-income/high-crime combination here in Paterson, it's been a long time since there was any significant presence of big chains here, and this store dates back to the 1950s as a Food Fair. It's very possible that this became a Foodtown after that, but I don't know for sure. This store is owned by Certified Foodmarkets, a corporation dating back to 1978 but whose ownership has likely changed at least once. I was unable to track down an owner's name, hence going with the manager for the stats above. There was at least one other Certified in Paterson, located over on Park Ave, which has closed.
We enter the store to a deli/food court in the front right corner. The hot food seems to be a big draw here, and there's a large seating area just out of frame to the right.
Produce lines both sides of the first aisle, with seafood and meat at the back of that aisle. The decor we see here probably dates back to around 2010, when an exterior renovation took place. (Here's what it previously looked like.)
Seafood counter, which is an independent business, along the right-side of the produce aisle at the back.
Service butcher at the back of the first aisle.
Meats line the rest of the back wall. I really like how the decor is lit from the moulding!
Clean and extremely well-stocked grocery aisles!
Bulk foods, which are frequently sold in large quantities to local bodegas and restaurants, are seen here.
Nonfoods in aisle 8, with customer service at the front of the aisle.
Looking along the back aisle back towards the produce/butcher aisle.
Aisle 10 having been reduced in width slightly due to the addition of freezer cases along one side. Aisle 11 has more frozen on the other side of these cases with dairy on the outside wall.
Last aisle looks to have been opened up to be double-wide. The two managers taking stock at the other end of the aisle clearly noticed me taking pictures, but I had to do a double-take -- one of them looked just like my former boss, even wearing the same outfit that he frequently did. Some mutual surprise in this interaction.
Looking along the front-end from the first aisle towards the last aisle.
Some very nice custom decor elements above the registers! As we see, this store is looking great today but there's unfortunately no remnants of previous decor or tenants. Not a bad thing though! Up next, we'll be heading six blocks south on Madison Avenue and one block west on Ellison Street to tour a local independent store on The Independent Edition.
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