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TOUR: Foodtown - Wayne, NJ

Super Foodtown of Wayne
Owner: Jack Shakoor / Jack's Supermarkets
Opened: ca. 2000-05
Previous Tenants: Food Fair > Rag Shop > Leeward's > Michaels
Cooperative: Allegiance Retail Services
Location: 1466 NJ-23, Wayne, NJ
Photographed: August 2019 and July 2020
This is one of those stores I've driven by a million times but never actually went in until I set my mind to it, visiting maybe two dozen stores in Bergen and Passaic counties in the summer of 2019. I don't know why, but I never found myself here before. Anyway, the 21,000 square foot store has been recently expanded into a neighboring storefront. I returned almost a year later to see the progress on the store, and for whatever reason I had assumed this expansion was going to be the deli department. That's not true.
2019
This is the storefront, just to the right of the Foodtown, which has been expanded into.
2020
For a little history on this store, it was built as a Food Fair anchoring this mall, and is actually a barrel-roof store (hiding behind that absurdly tall facade). It later had three non-supermarket tenants, a Rag Shop, a Leeward's, and a Michaels craft store. Jack's Supermarkets, whose Caldwell location I love and which we've toured here, moved in at some point between about 2000 and 2005, though I don't have an exact date.
2019
It might be a slightly updated sign from what we saw in Caldwell, but yes, Jack's is still the friendliest supermarket around. Because this store has not been a supermarket for so long, and because Jack's renovation was extensive when they moved in, there are virtually no remnants of any prior tenants inside. We enter to produce in the first aisle, with sushi, bakery, and deli at the back. Meats line the back wall with frozen in the second-to-last aisle and dairy in the last. A recent renovation has slightly changed that layout, moving deli, sushi, and prepared foods to an island facing produce. Bakery takes up the former deli, with a few more grocery aisles in the expansion in the front corner.
2019
A very attractive produce department greets us as we enter along the front and left-side wall. Unfortunately, the barrel roof is not exposed inside.
Moving into the first grocery aisle, we have the good old fashioned layout of condiments facing produce. This has come to be a very comforting layout for me.
2020
Comforting as it was, the store's layout was outdated. A new island, visible to the right here, has been constructed for deli and prepared foods, with a cheese counter at the back. The produce selection also seems to have been expanded. For the record, the flooring was later replaced here with a wood texture.
2019
Produce lines the other side of the first aisle.
2020
Produce/packaged deli (left) wall of the store, with a much-expanded deli department in the facing island.
2020
Overview of the deli-cheese area.
2019
A freestanding sushi department (sadly missing an I) rounds out the first aisle. The deli/bakery was under a drop ceiling at the back of the store; it's possible the back wall has been pushed out into former backroom space.
2019
The former deli on the back wall. This area is now bakery. I must say, even though it's not a local store, I've started shopping fairly frequently at Jack's Caldwell location, and I love the deli-bakery.
2019
An overview of the deli-bakery corner, now just bakery.
2020
2019
2020
Meats line the back wall under a lower drop ceiling. Even though this store was never a Grand Union, it has a distinctly Grand Union-like feeling to it (especially pre-renovation), very similar to the Pleasantville Key Food before its renovation. Grand Union was headquartered for a time here in Wayne at the end of its life, so it's possible some of the folks who designed for GU worked on this store soon after the company went under.
2019
Looking across the back wall at the meat department. It looks like some of these fixtures may have been secondhand when the store opened.
2020
These pictures were taken in almost the same location. The added deli island also creates a new wall that previously didn't pose a design challenge. While I don't know which firm designed this store (my gut tells me DY Design), they rose to the challenge with some awesome graphics...
2020
The back wall of the store now continues the wood motif with a "Thank You for Shopping" sign.
2020
2019
Very nicely organized grocery aisles...
2019
You can see some of the Grand Union-style lettering on the back wall here. The store has clearly been very well maintained, when you consider that flooring is at least 15-20 years old.
2019
Frozen foods in the second-to-last aisle. I like the custom category markers! They've been replaced with new custom category markers...
2020
2019
Dairy lining the last aisle.
2020
There's now a doorway to the expansion at the back and front of the store. The one in the back takes us to the new milk coolers...
2020
Unfortunately, the expansion room is totally decor-free in its two grocery aisles...
2020
Heading back over into the main store for a look at the doorway...
2019
2020
Nice! I didn't realize how nicely that before-and-after lined up until I was just writing it now.
2019
Looking across the front-end from the dairy side to produce. Customer service is between the entrance and exit where the red wall is.
2020
You'll excuse me for only getting one picture of the front-end in my 2020 revisit. I was carrying a gallon of milk, a case of cat food, and a large box of cat litter. These are items whose weight I greatly underestimated, deciding I didn't need a shopping cart. Bad decision.
2019
And looking in the other direction towards the deli expansion. That wraps up our tour of this Foodtown! This Foodtown is located only about a mile from the Wayne-Lincoln Park border, and we'll be returning to Lincoln Park for coverage there (but that's Morris County, so it'll have to wait). First we'll be visiting a former supermarket across 23, then heading up to Paramus, Paterson, Clifton, and Passaic!

Comments

  1. Seems a possibility that some of that could be not just Grand Union styled, but actually Grand Union items (based on this opening around the time that chain was dissolving)? Either from a store nearby that was being renovated for another chain, or even something they may have had at that nearby HQ (samples of different styles they may have used for tests, perhaps) that was now just surplus and a way to get a few extra bucks for the bankruptcy people.

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    1. Fair enough, that could definitely be the case here. I've seen this decor (and variations on it) popping up in other stores as well, so it's also possible it's just a generic one from a wholesaler or something like that.

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  2. Another nice décor package! Well -- the new one, that is :P I like the use of yellow and other pops of color along the wall, as well as the illustration style graphics in certain areas and the vertical stripe elements (such as at the deli and doorway). Definitely a great before and after shot of that doorway, by the way! And yeah... I don't know how you managed to take even as many pictures as you did, holding all that stuff!

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    1. Definitely! And actually, I liked the old one too. To be fair, the milk and pet products are all sold at the far end of the store, meaning I only actually had to take that one picture of the front-end while holding them since I circled the store and ended there.

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  3. I didn't realize the renovation or expansion were as recent as they were. Having only been in here after the renovation, I always thought it was, oh, maybe a few years old. It's interesting to see the old décor, since it's pretty much identical to the look of the store in North Arlington, a store I have some pretty fond childhood memories of. That being said, I'll agree that the new look is vastly superior.
    That façade really is monstrous, especially compared to the size of the actual store. It's really strange, and kinda imposing in person. I never got the chance to see the shopping center's old façade, and I can't seem to find any photos of it anywhere. I wonder how it looked?
    I can't think of many shopping centers where the former anchor went from being a supermarket, to being a different store... back to being a supermarket. It's an unusual situation.
    I've also always wondered... could that giant rooftop sign be left over from Food Fair? I believe a few of their stores featured similar signs, and that style of signage really doesn't seem like something that would be built now, especially for a suburban highway shopping center.

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    1. Yeah, I was very surprised to see the full renovation in here when I visited most recently. I've always wanted to get out to North Arlington but still have never been!

      I'm absolutely positive that I once saw a picture of the shopping center with the Food Fair. There was no facade, and so the storefront was just the arch roof with an overhang extending along the front of it -- kind of like a pitched-roof ACME, but I don't believe the upper section was glass. And yes, the tall sign on the roof is definitely a Food Fair leftover.

      I can't find that picture I've seen right now, but this is the best I can do...
      https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1407443616023942/

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