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TOUR: ACME Markets - Newport, Jersey City, NJ

ACME Markets
Opened: 2015
Previous Tenants: Waldbaum's > A&P
Location: 125 18th St, Newport, Jersey City, NJ
Photographed: December 2020
Welcome to our first of two ACMEs today! (Check out the other one in Hoboken here.) This one started out as a Waldbaum's, later an A&P, and then an ACME starting in 2015. You can check out Acme Style's earlier coverage of this location here. To my surprise, I actually stumbled into the early stages of a remodel here, as we'll see throughout the tour. We enter the 58,000 square foot store in the front right corner to produce and bakery on the right side of the grand aisle and deli/prepared foods in the island facing. Seafood and meat line the back wall, with frozen in the second- and third-to-last aisles. Pharmacy is in the front left corner. I'll note that my pictures were a little lighter than I would've wanted here due to customer crowding and security presence, but we do still see the store as it is and as it began its renovation.
Produce fixtures were what tipped me off to the remodel -- some patching on the flooring shows A&P's cases had been removed and the department was being rearranged. Floral used to be on the front wall in front of the windows, but that was all removed for produce cases. I believe floral has been downsized to an island on the other side of the entrance. Notice the 2015-era produce case at the left of this image, which Acme Style also points out, and the older A&P white shelving still remaining. As we'll see, ACME had already replaced all of the lighting throughout the store, although A&P's attractive decor and awful dingy ceiling remain. We'll revisit the lighting in a little bit.
All the bakery fixtures have been replaced, though it's clearly early in the remodel because the promotional signage on top of the bread cases hadn't been installed yet. Also notice that the service counter was cut back in size slightly to accommodate more bread cases.
All new deli cases for the service counters as well. We see they're not entirely stocked yet in these pictures. A&P's islands in front of the service counter were also replaced with these nice new black ones. The single-tiered cheese case at the back of the deli counter has been replaced with upright cases. As Acme Style notes, A&P shrunk the prepared foods counters over the years. In their latest remodels, ACME has been removing unused fixtures and making the setup look more intentional -- so notice that the hot food case is smaller, but fully stocked.
Here we see the new islands, which are at a 45-degree angle or so. They're installed consistent with the existing flooring, so I'd assume that any remodel ACME will go on to do here will not include replacing the flooring.
This area looks to have been redone too, with meat and seafood being condensed into one counter. On the back of the deli island, ACME has added some frozen foods cases, probably for frozen seafood.
This is a good spot to point out that ACME has redone the lighting throughout the store. When I was in the store, I didn't entirely realize that but just thought Acme Style was exaggerating how dingy the store was. Nope -- there's a real difference. The lighting was also redone in the grocery aisles, with the new tube lights running across the whole store, and the lighting built into the shelving removed.
Again, I'd assume that's a sign ACME does not plan to replace the grocery shelving. It's in pretty good condition, so there's really no reason to.
A cluttered seasonal/clearance area here, combined with the fact that the aisle 5 aisle marker is entirely blank, suggest that ACME reset the store before beginning the remodel, which seems to be what they're doing now. Not sure if that's true or not, but it happened that way at my ACME.
Cold cuts and dairy round out the back wall, with the rest of dairy lining both sides of aisle 14. Aisles 12 and 13 are frozen foods...
The ceiling fans were installed back in 2015 when ACME opened.
Dairy seems to have already been reset, with the layout looking more like my remodeled ACME than some others I've been to. Plus, the new category markers are up on the cases already.
Pharmacy and "Natural Beauty" in the front corner. As Acme Style has pointed out, these are the only named departments in Fresh 2.0, the decor package this store has. The ceiling is very low in this corner, as you can see, so it's possible there are offices above.
I couldn't say for sure, but I do think this is again new lighting, despite the fact that ACME just replaced this lighting in 2015.
The front end, having been redone in 2015, is looking very good despite never having received an ACME sign...
That wraps up this ACME, but if you haven't checked out Hoboken yet, you can do so here! Tomorrow we'll be heading over to Grocery Archaeology for a former supermarket in Hoboken.

Comments

  1. I’m not in the Acme as often as the Hoboken store but I can give some updates to this post as well…

    Remodel is done. The produce department is amazing. Stunningly beautiful. The floors have been redone all the way over to the far side of Seafood. (The rest of the store did not get new floors and they’re really needed in some areas).

    The cafe is completely gone and now the space is used for sale displays.

    Pizza oven and station completely gone. Cases for hummus and dips in that area.

    A very interesting twist here is that they painted (I believe) the yellow tile on the walls behind the deli. Haven’t seen that done in any other store. They went with plain beige. I was in this store several times before I even noticed the color change!

    Quality Built decor has been put up throughout the store however, for some strange reason, A&P’s register lights remain in place. Particularly odd since Acme has been replacing the register lights in a lot stores that haven’t been remodeled.

    All new frozen food cases have been installed.

    And finally, the Natural Health and Beauty sign remains hanging in the Pharmacy department. I don’t know how this sign has lasted all of these years. Originally, A&P had really nice wood shelving and tables under the sign with a wide range of “natural” products. A few years after the “fresh” remodel, they eliminated the section but kept the sign. And looks like Acme is going to hang on to it too!

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    Replies
    1. Interesting, thanks for the remodel updates! I'm going to have to get back to this store to check out the changes soon.

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    2. Updates:

      The Natural Beauty sign has finally been removed!!! Happened just in the past month of two. Wonder who finally said "we gotta get rid of that thing".

      Quality Built register lights have also been installed... just in the past month or two. Each one leaning just a bit, or more, off center. Not sure why ACME cannot figure out how to install them better. They're clearly too top heavy for the poles and base mounts that are being used.

      The former Cafe area, which has kinda become dead space, since the remodel now has a few table and chairs for people to eat in-store. Does give the area a bit more purpose.

      Also noticed today that the store has hardly any carts! They must be getting stolen. There used to be two gigantic lines of new black carts on the sidewalk (often with chains strung through them so they could be locked up at night). Today there were about 10 and only a handful in each cart coral.

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    3. Thanks for the updates! I'm posting some ACME updates on Tuesday including some of your pictures -- always nice to hear what's going on in the stores I don't get to visit all the time.

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  2. The windows above the produce aisle facing the front were very common in late 80s Waldbuams. Many locations on Long Island and in queens had them

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