The Market Report

Patel Brothers Owner: Swetal & Rakesh Patel Opened:  ca. 2013 in this location Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  none Location:  1555 Oak Tree Rd, Iselin, Woodbridge, NJ Photographed:  June 2020 We've crossed into Iselin, an unincorporated community at the northern border of Woodbridge Township, from Edison where we saw an Apna Bazar , a Patel Brothers just half a mile west of this one, and India Grocers . While that Patel Brothers is a former A&P, this new-build store opened around 2013 immediately next door to an older location about half the size (which almost looks like an expanded Wawa...?). Let that sink in: Patel Brothers has basically quadrupled its square footage in this very short stretch of road, and both stores are very busy, beating out the copious competition. Impressive. This 12,000 square foot store is noticeably smaller and worn than the slightly larger and newer (by about 3 years) location just up Oak Tree, but it's still solidly the second-best

Patel Brothers Owner: Swetal & Rakesh Patel Opened:  unknown Previous Tenants:  A&P Cooperative:  none Location:  1681 Oak Tree Rd, Edison, NJ Photographed:  June 2020 Today we're jumping right into our second Oak Tree Road store tour with this Patel Brothers! (If you missed yesterday's Apna Bazar across the street, check it out here .) There's a very interesting history behind this store, beginning with its construction in the 1960s as a Centennial styled A&P. Closing by the 1980s, it later became a liquor store , which closed around 2014. By 2016, Patel Brothers had set up shop here -- just half a mile west of a one-year-old new-build location also on Oak Tree Road, which we'll see shortly. Patel Brothers seems to be far and away the favorite store along this stretch, and easily the highest-volume. It's possible that the chain, which is the United States' largest Indian grocery chain, found even the newly built store wasn't enough to handle t

The Fresh Grocer of Colonia Owner: David Maniaci / Nicholas Markets Opened:  2020 Previous Tenants:  Stop & Shop > Circus Foodtown > Nicholas Foodtown Cooperative:  Wakefern Food Corp. Location: 510 Inman Ave, Colonia, NJ Photographed:  June 2020 and July 2021 The fourth and final Nicholas Markets store that we haven't seen yet is here in Woodbridge, in the Colonia section. We've previously seen their Washington , North Haledon , and Cedar Grove locations in their Foodtown and Fresh Grocer incarnations. Unfortunately, I didn't get to photograph this store before its conversion to The Fresh Grocer, but this was the first Nicholas Markets store to convert back in February. Nicholas Markets acquired this store in 2015 from Food Circus (later Circus Fresh Foods), which owns other Foodtown stores to the south, in Monmouth and Ocean counties. They've been struggling for many years now, as has Foodtown in New Jersey in general, but some stores are still hanging on.