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TOUR: Supremo Food Market - Perth Amboy, NJ

Supremo Food Market
Owner: Eddie Trujillo
Opened: late 1990s
Previous Tenants: unknown
Cooperative: none
Location: 270 King St, Perth Amboy, NJ
Photographed: June 2020
Our final Perth Amboy store is also the largest downtown, at more than double the size of the CTown. In turn, it's about half the size of the ShopRite outside downtown, and comparable in size to the SuperFresh in Hopelawn at around 30,000 square feet. The Supremo here in Perth Amboy is in the ground floor of King Plaza, a residential tower.
The store itself is under the tower and its parking garage, with parking for the store underneath as well. As we'll see, the store is one of the older Supremos but has been updated, probably in the spring of 2020 in preparation for SuperFresh's grand opening. Even though the stores serve very different markets, the reality is they're less than two miles apart.
You enter on the right side of the storefront, with produce and juice along the right side of the grand aisle and meats opposite. Butcher and seafood are at the back, with dairy lining the rest of the back wall. Frozen foods line the last aisle on the left side of the store, with a deli and bakery section in the front corner. The bakery department was still in the process of being installed at the time of my visit.
The flooring and some produce cases have been recently replaced, with the walls having been painted. Previously, the colors were actually inverted, with green lettering on a white wall instead of the reverse. We'll see at least one more example of this decor package having been refreshed like this, and one more example of this decor package in its original form before we leave New Jersey.
I believe the section in the front here was previously a pharmacy. It looks like that space has been sectioned off for an outside vendor.
I do wish there were some lighting here on this signage. This Supremo is clearly on the older side as compared to the other stores we've seen.
Signage for butcher seems to have been removed, but the sign for seafood is still up. It looks like these fixtures are older, but they're in very good condition.
We see along the back wall that they have chosen orange for dairy. An interesting color choice.
I'll say this much, it does brighten up the space.
It also helps that the space is actually, for the most part, bright and not dingy. But obviously, the big factor is that the store is spotless and very nicely stocked.
In the grocery aisles, I'll take a minute to point out that I'm really liking Supremo's organic selections, which have grown substantially in the past few years. It helps that they sell Wild Harvest products (before 2014, they had only White Rose, but they have now switched to Essential Everyday and Wild Harvest, and the affiliated UNFI/Supervalu storebrands).
The aisles are looking great with the new flooring. Notice that this is a shade of wood flooring we haven't seen previously in a Supremo. Honestly, the darker variation we've seen more probably wouldn't work very well here with the low ceilings, it would make the place look too dim.
Dairy looking good in the back corner, but once again, the decor falls flat because it's not lit enough. I'm thinking about Irvington here, for example, which has wonderful high ceilings. That store is nicer, but it also feels more hectic because it's much busier and more crowded. This one feels peaceful and quiet, though I'm sure at peak times it's not.
THIS is what a frozen foods aisle should look like! This gorgeous, clean, and spacious aisle forms the last grocery aisle at the left side of the store. Deli and prepared foods are at the front of this aisle.
And on the corner is a bakery department and seating area, which appeared to be under construction at the time of my visit.
We've previously seen the Pan+Plus program at Fine Fare stores in the Bronx and Manhattan, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time we're seeing it in New Jersey. You can see a bar with seating to the far left, and there were a few tables not yet out.
A look across the pleasantly spacious front end before we head out of this store. In my opinion, by the way, this is the nicest grocery store in Perth Amboy. Obviously the SuperFresh in Hopelawn beats it on that count, but that's technically over into Woodbridge. And this store, as you can probably see, is clearly taken care of much better than the ShopRite. Anyway, that's all for Perth Amboy, and we're embarking on our new group to the south tomorrow. In addition, there's been a lot happening lately, so once again, we have a bunch of updates tomorrow. Three are here on The Market Report and one on The Independent Edition!

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