H Mart
President: Stacey Kwan
Opened: Late 1990s or early 2000s
Previous Tenants: ShopRite
Location: 321 Broad Ave, Ridgefield, NJ
Photographed: June 2020
A sprawling 123,000 square foot shopping plaza here in Ridgefield, originally an Inserra ShopRite and Rickels, has been turned into an indoor mall primarily catering to the Korean-American community here in town. The anchor is a very large H Mart, which is slightly larger than the former ShopRite.
The storefront faces the side of the property, instead of Broad Avenue. However, there's something worth seeing out on that side...
That's right! There's still a ShopRite (round) sign frame on the street! However, inside, we see almost no signs of the former ShopRite. The store seems to be partially renovated, and perhaps in progress. My memory of the store, to be honest, is a bit foggy because of the very odd flow they had set up for social distancing and one-way aisles and so on. It quite simply didn't work. (In my experience, the stores that most effectively provide social distancing are the ones with layouts closest to normal. Then people don't have to retrain themselves and just modify their shopping trip slightly. This store felt hectic because everything was one-way but the one-way circuit around the store didn't actually take you through each department, and you had to backtrack in several places. Anyway.) The store is very nice though, and it's going to look even better once the renovation is completed.
Produce is on the right side of the store, with meats and seafood on the back. I love the ceiling and lighting design here!
Looking towards the front we have a corner that looks like it may have been a different department or maybe another tenant but is now stocked with sale items. The flooring is quite old here, it's possible that's left over from ShopRite. Also notice the walkway to the registers closed to the right here, moving all traffic towards the back of the store which then jams up that section.
Meats begin in an island at the back of the produce aisle and continue along the back wall. Once we turn the corner, we see a totally different design in the section that has been renovated.
And moving into the grocery aisles, we see updated flooring and shelving.
It seemed that some of the aisles were in the process of being reset, with some aisle markers missing or slightly off.
Looking across the middle dividing aisle to the far side of the store.
Notice the flooring change between the old and new. Obviously this is temporary.
This H Mart's grocery aisles look great, but perhaps a little more cramped than the newer stores.
Now jumping back over to the back wall, where we find service seafood in an island.
Kimchi follows, just around the corner from the service seafood department.
This section has been fully updated to the new decor.
Dairy, with beautiful new decor, fills the back corner on the other side of this wall.
In the last aisle, we have frozen foods opposite a large nonfoods department, with several tenants filling space in the front area. A food court, temporarily closed for coronavirus, is beyond that.
Some of these aisles in the nonfoods area are quite narrow.
You can see the food court at the far back of this image.
Food Avenue, a takeout restaurant, is located along the front wall. Some old flooring here that seems to have been patched many times.
Here's a look at the front-end, where we see the orange ceiling style and lighting from the prior decor package, matching the produce department.
And a look at the indoor mall area as we leave the supermarket. This store is a huge place and a bit hectic and a little overwhelming. But nonetheless a great store! Up next we're heading about half a mile east to a brand new supermarket over in Fairview on The Independent Edition. Stay tuned!
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