ACME Markets
Opened: 2015
Opened: 2015
Previous Tenants: A&P
Location: 507 Prospect Ave, Little Silver, NJ
Photographed: December 2020
It's our second ACME tour of the day! Check out Fair Haven, just a little over a mile to the north, here. Little Silver is a bit larger than Fair Haven, at around 26,000 square feet, and it's a former A&P Centennial model as we can see from the above image -- though the exterior has been nicely remodeled. Acme Style, as usual, has pre- and post-ACME takeover images on their post here. I must say, although the exterior is freshly redone, the interior is looking much more rundown -- although it still looks nice. (And I believe that since I visited the store has received a full interior Quality Built remodel.)
Produce and bakery line the right side of the grand aisle, with deli and prepared foods in an island on the left. Meat and seafood line the back wall, with dairy in the last aisle, and frozen in the second-to-last aisle and an alcove in the front. Notice that some, but not all, of the produce cases have been replaced. Very little work has been done around the store and it's showing its age by now.
As we can see, some of the cases are new (such as this asparagus case) but the rest of them are all left from several renovations ago, I believe.
Cheese cases to the back of the island, which I assume will be replaced with upright cases soon enough anyway.
Not a great picture of the bakery, but we can nevertheless see some updated cases making their way into the department.
Meat and seafood on the back wall. It seems that the A&P Fresh 2.0 decor package looks great in pictures, but in person it always comes off as dingy. This store has been maintained nicely, though, and it's not as dirty as A&P (at least my local A&P was).
Unlike Newport, which had the same style of shelving and decor, Little Silver's in-shelf lighting remains, and no lighting has been installed on the ceiling.
You can see how cramped some of the aisles are here. Little Silver was originally a 13,000 square foot barrel-roof store, which was expanded out both sides. This is where the arched roof ends at the left side of the store.
Another shot of the back wall. The lighting in this section remains pretty much intact from the A&P days, which is why the overall light level is much lower and the lighting is more focused.
New (and much-needed) lighting here in the frozen aisle. Dairy lines both sides of the last aisle...
Lots of stocking going on in dairy. A small section of one side is bread. Notice that the Fresh 2.0 decor has been fully removed here, and there aren't even any category markers. The slow upgrades make me think either the store is bound for closure or the store is going to be much more extensively renovated soon (see Stamford for what ACME can do with a small Centennial). Pretty sure the second is what's going on here.
There's a small frozen food alcove in the front corner, with customer service (and checkouts) next on the front wall.
I'm linking Fair Haven again here for good measure. Now we've done two stores a day for the last few days, but tomorrow we switch back to one a day with a tour over in Red Bank here on The Market Report!
It's interesting to see the ACME logo mounted on an oval here. I wonder why that wound up different from the rectangle in the original rendering that ACME Style linked to.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing ACME didn't have much, if any, input on the renderings and the artist just did what seemed to make the most sense. Regardless, kudos to whoever pitched the idea of doing this cool oval logo!
DeleteYeah, I would assume decisions like that are made by the landlord primarily and not the tenant.
DeleteThe landlord did an amazing job transforming the exterior of this ACME as well as the rest of the shopping center. When I photographed the store it was in the midst of construction and was wondering how ACME would address the red paneled section where their sign would be installed. Red on red wasn't going to work. They initially put an aluminum oval sign that looked pretty cheap. I can't find a photo of it online now but I'm sure I have seen one recently. Eventually this really cool 3D oval sign was put up. A huge improvement over the last one.
ReplyDeleteThe store has received Quality Built and by the sounds of it, had some extensive work done inside. I've seen reviews from people mentioning the inconvenience of the work being done. A few pictures online show the grand aisle with the new hardwood floor treatment but that's about it. No pictures showing the décor or other upgrades.
Have to say it's nice to see ACME renovate this store when it's been hit with some major competition in nearby Shrewsberry with the brand-new 71,000 square foot Saker Shoprite! This place definitely has convenience on it's side and will forever be a really nice neighborhood store. ACME has been investing heavily in their smaller stores in the past few years which is great. Hoping they will do Hoboken soon. The place really needs an overhaul!
I think the ShopRite in Shrewsbury and this store, though in fairly close proximity, draw two completely different crowds. Acme draws the affluent convenience crowd from Little Silver, Oceanport, and Shrewsbury. ShopRite draws the folks shopping on price from the entire area, as well as those from west of 35 with no store nearby. It probably also gets some who like this store more than the disaster of a ShopRite that is West Long Branch.
DeleteYou're absolutely right. I was also picturing the ShopRite closer in proximity than it really is. Took a better look at a map of the area and saw I was wrong. Speaking of Long Branch, anyone knows if there are plans to replace that store? They could easily hop over to the Kmart site.
DeleteSo the aluminum sign I mentioned can be seen on the "street view' in the parking lot. Only one angle shows it... if you position yourself right up front at the left side of the store. After taking a second look, the sign was definitely temporary and... probably not made of aluminum. I recall seeing it twice in person and really thought it was the permanent sign at the time.
A motorcycle dealership took over a large portion of the Kmart building, so I think ShopRite missed their opportunity.
DeleteIt sure is nice to see investment in this store since it is certainly smaller and older. Acme Style, I think we've been looking at the same Google Maps photos because that's exactly what I've found too! I do think this store is in closer competition with the Foodtown in Red Bank than the ShopRite in Shrewsbury, both in terms of proximity and in terms of demographic similarity. Foodtown and ACME both have perceptions as higher-priced stores than ShopRite, and these stores are both smaller than any of the nearby Saker ShopRites, so you have differences in that way too.
DeleteThe West Long Branch ShopRite is one of the most wonderfully awful stores I've visited lately. That's coming up on the blog here in a few days! No replacement plans I've heard of lately, but we'll see -- it's probably just a matter of time.
Acme's investment in smaller stores is impressive and should probably continue. We talked about this on the blog in the past (how Acme typically has better luck with smaller stores) and recently I commented in a reddit post (Acme Markets sub) about how there is an opportunity for Albertson's to expand the Kings brand. If this (or the Fair Haven store) were located in northern NJ, they would make perfect Kings locations with small and limited product selections but the ability to sell more expensive products to an affluent local clientele.
DeleteFor sure -- I think changes with ACME and Kings are going to take time. They took nearly eight months just to reset the Kings store and bring in Signature/O Organics, so changes are happening really slowly.
DeleteI thought Quality Built has been featured on here.
ReplyDeleteThe decor package sure has, but not in this store since it was remodeled after my visit.
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