Bravo Supermarkets
Owner: Fahkry Musleh
Opened: 1983 (probably under a different banner)
Previous Tenants: unknown
Cooperative: Krasdale
Location: 1245 W 7th St, South Plainfield, NJ
Photographed: July 2020
Our second store tour of the day is also our first store in South Plainfield! Over on The Independent Edition, we're also touring Meat City Market, just 700 feet away from this Bravo, or essentially diagonally across the street. The original Meat City opened in 1980, followed in 1983 by this store's opening. While records indicate the company was formed in 1983, the Bravo banner did not yet exist, so I assume it was under a different name for the first decade or so of its life. Meat City, however, burned down in 2014 and was reopened under new owners in 2017. The new owners of Meat City converted it from a small butcher shop to a fairly substantial 8900 square foot supermarket. Clearly, that threatened this approximately 14,000 square foot Bravo, which seems to be suffering following Meat City's reopening.
The facade of the Bravo's strip mall was remodeled in 2019, although that appears to be the work of the property owners rather than Bravo's owners, since the interior of the store was not touched. And it really could use it. Anyway, here's what the storefront previously looked like. An improvement for sure. It does appear that the supermarket space originally would've been closer to 20,000 square feet, with the fish market and pharmacy spaces to the right likely once included in the grocery store and later subdivided, but it's hard to tell for sure. Let's head in.
Despite the fact that Meat City is much smaller than this Bravo, I got the distinct feeling that it had more stock and selection. Here we have the grand aisle, with produce on the right side and deli/prepared foods in an island on the left. The deli counter, as we can see, was almost empty, the hot food bar was empty, and the service butcher at the back was empty. And as I said, there seemed to be less produce here than Meat City, although I don't know if that's just an illusion.
I can't exactly place the decor. It has the leaf-motif that we see in stores done by DY Design, but the decor seems to be a little older than that and simply repainted with newer colors. It wouldn't surprise me if this was the decor the store opened with in 1983, just painted.
A look across the back wall of the store. The aisle markers are definitely newer.
The Bravo felt completely dead, devoid of both stock and customers, compared to Meat City. There's frequently a difference in experience between two stores that are very close together like this, but it's rare it's so obvious.
Juice on the back wall, with a pretty beat-up Bravo logo. We also see evidence of something else having been painted over behind the word Juice.
Double-wide last aisle with frozen and dairy. The area in the front with the darkened windows may be offices, but I couldn't entirely figure out what, if anything, took up that space.
Yeah, this interior is pretty depressing. The aisle markers, by the way, are newer than the rest of the decor.
Moving towards the front end, we have some general merchandise displayed along those windows on the front wall, and then it opens up to a few registers.
That's all for this Bravo, and it's sad to see how it's struggling presumably due to the brand new store across the street. While Meat City is in Piscataway, this store is just over the border into South Plainfield, and that's where we'll be seeing our next few stores, continuing with a former supermarket just to the east on Grocery Archaeology tomorrow!
Comments
Post a Comment