TOUR: ShopRite - West Milford, NJ

ShopRite of West Milford

Owner: Inserra Supermarkets

Opened: 1968

Previous Tenants: none

Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.

Location: 23 Marshall Hill Rd, West Milford, NJ

Photographed: July 2020

The 72,000 square foot ShopRite of West Milford is well known for how it used to look, which I mentioned back in New City. The original building appears to be around 40,000 square feet, which actually feels a bit large for a store opening in 1968 so it may have been expanded even earlier. A total renovation over the course of several years modernized the store and totally changed the way it looked and functioned, moving the grand aisle from the left side of the store to the right side. Today, the grand aisle features produce along the left side with bakery, deli, and prepared foods on the right and seafood at the back. Meats continue along the back wall with natural foods in the first aisle, and HABA, frozen, and dairy on the left side of the store.

The expansion, by the way, also included a modernization of the backroom space and adding loading docks. Today it appears this ShopRite has loading spaces for five trucks, whereas my ShopRite has loading docks for ten trucks.

Sushi is in an island to the right of produce. I must say, the new ShopRite sushi program is amazing. I've tried a few new stores' sushi counters (including Elizabeth, which we'll be revisiting to see its beautiful renovation soon), and they are absolutely restaurant-quality sushi.

Bakery department in the front corner of the store.

Turning around and looking out at the rest of the grand aisle from the front corner. The rest of the grocery store continues behind the produce cases to the left.

Deli and prepared foods towards the back of the grand aisle. I will say, as beautiful as this store is, it's a bit gray for my tastes. Not enough color on the walls, I think, especially compared to the newest Village stores.

Seafood looking great at the back of the grand aisle. (The wet floor signs form a temporary line for the seafood counter, but I hope they come up with a more attractive solution.)

Looking back up towards the front of the grand aisle across produce.

Natural foods, labeled as "wellness," takes up the first aisle.

Notice that nearly all of the branding, similar to the new Village stores, inside is for Inserra, not ShopRite. We'll see a similar thing at another new Inserra shortly.

Looking across the back wall of the store with meats on the back wall.

Clean and nicely organized grocery aisles. Look at that floor!

The designers (Broden Design Group) got creative on the back of what I believe is the Kitchen Shop signage, representing oil and salad dressing.

Butcher counter at the far end of the back wall.

If I remember correctly, frozen foods lines one side of the second-to-last grocery aisle and one side of the last aisle, with more in an alcove in the front.

And milk is at the back of the last aisles.

Nice and wide aisle with dairy and frozen at the far end of the store. I think this side would've originally been the grand aisle, with the entrance probably at the alcove now occupied by frozen foods... (I visited the store once pre-renovation, but that was 5+ years ago and I don't really remember how it was set up.)

Pharmacy is next along the front wall with a beautiful HABA aisle opposite...

And now for a look at the bright and open front-end before we head out...

I'm pleased to report that West Milford's larger supermarket is looking really good and seems to be a very well-run store. (And if you missed West Milford's other, smaller supermarket, check it out here!) It's certainly a different store from what it used to be! This part of New Jersey is very sparsely populated with a lot of green space, but we're going to head to Ringwood, the next small town to the east, where we'll see a former supermarket on Grocery Archaeology about seven miles southeast of this store tomorrow.