TOUR: Foodtown - Washington, NJ

Foodtown of Washington Township

Owner: David Maniaci / Nicholas Markets

Opened: 2016-2020

Previous Tenants: ACME > ShopRite > Vitale Foodtown > A&P

Later Tenants: The Fresh Grocer

Cooperative: Allegiance Retail Services

Location: 315 Pascack Rd, Washington Township, NJ

Photographed: July 2016

At the time of my visit in July 2016, the 45,000 square foot Nicholas Markets-owned Foodtown in Washington, NJ had just opened in a former A&P after some light renovation. The A&P had, in turn, replaced a Vitale Foodtown in 1998, which took the place of a much earlier ACME-turned-ShopRite. What's now Rite Aid at the south end of the strip mall had been built as an earlier A&P. As of late February or early March 2020, this location along with two of Nicholas Markets' other three locations was converted to Wakefern's The Fresh Grocer banner. We've previously seen Nicholas Markets' flagship North Haledon location here.

The former A&P monument sign had gotten a nice upgrade from its A&P days, but the storefront and the store itself were less lucky, each getting only a quick refresh before the store opened. It quickly became clear to the owners that that was not sufficient, and the store was gut-renovated with a totally new interior and exterior in 2018. I do want to note that the renovation was completed when the store was under the Foodtown banner and the switch to Fresh Grocer came a good 2-3 years after the renovation was complete, so the switch consisted of only changing exterior signage and a few signs inside.

It seems the exterior rebranding from A&P to Foodtown was only temporary, but the interior was supposed to be permanent. But at the time of my visit, the store was dead. Clearly, a more aggressive remodel was needed to further distinguish the store from A&P.

The A&P capsule shape has been refitted with a Foodtown panel and the "food market" along the bottom has simply been covered by a Nicholas Markets panel. That's not even the actual Foodtown logo.

I was rather disappointed to find this store as bland and A&P-like as it was. A full remodel was quite necessary here, as I loved North Haledon and have enjoyed shopping at Cedar Grove for many years on and off.

While the ceiling had been removed (a very nice touch), the rest of the produce department is much like A&P's. Some of the signage even remains (the greens sign), while the newly installed department graphics look cheap and amateurish -- nothing like what Nicholas has at its other locations, nor in this store post-renovation. I keep bringing up the remodel, and don't worry -- that will be tomorrow's post! In fact, I'm just gonna add the link here, although it won't actually work until tomorrow: 

At the time of my visit, the A&P flooring was still very much intact.

Looking across the front-end from the first aisle, which contains produce and deli with meat and seafood on the back wall.

Floral and customer service on the front wall. You can see some exposed lighting where it seems Nicholas Markets may have taken out a grocery aisle.

Clearly it wasn't sustainable to operate the store in this condition. Perhaps Nicholas was just waiting to see if it was even worth investing all that money into this location.

Deli and a small prepared foods section in the back corner.

Opposite is... well, not much of anything.

An empty salad bar...

...sale items...

...and lots of watermelons. The renovation has really made the most of the space, which is good because so much of the store was just dead space when I visited.

Seafood is next along the back wall, with half of the department now serving sushi.

Service butcher is next, with packaged meats lining the rest of the back wall.

With a bonus! The A&P decor was still on the walls when I visited back in 2016! Of course, all traces of A&P are now long gone. At this time, the decor had all been painted brown.

Grocery aisles looking nearly identical to A&P, just with some natural labels around where there are natural and organic selections.

One of the problems, of course, with keeping A&P's decor when you do a reset is that the same things are not always in the same place.

Nicholas Markets' dairy selection seems to bleed into where A&P had meat on the back wall, with the rest of dairy in the last aisle.

The aisle markers, however, have been replaced.

As you can see, the store was empty at the time of my visit.

Green Way organic and natural products, formerly an A&P brand, had just arrived at Foodtown with nonfoods coming first. However, most of these products were just A&P-era products with different labels...

You can see the label for OnPoint, Inc., A&P's distributor, underneath the Allegiance label.

Frozen and dairy with all original cases and new category markers.

A mostly-A&P bakery department in the front corner has been livened up with some new decals on the walls.

The original A&P sign remains, though, just with a new coat of paint and a wood texture background...

Next along the front wall is a small cafe in front of a manager's office.

Looking towards the last aisle.

A former self checkout area is now just empty with sale items blocking it off from the main sales floor.

Looking back towards the first aisle along the front end.

Notice the high-stacked endcaps, something we typically see in urban stores, not in affluent suburbs like Washington. Of course, what's stacked on the endcaps is very different -- here, we see Nicholas-branded imported olive oil and balsamic vinegar on an endcap to round out our tour here.

And of course, the thing on everyone's mind... what does this store look like now as a Fresh Grocer? Come back tomorrow to find out!