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TOUR: Stop & Shop - Basking Ridge, NJ

Stop & Shop
Opened: 2001
Previous Tenants: Grand Union (1980s-2001)
Location: 553 S Finley Ave, Basking Ridge, NJ
Photographed: January 2021
I made it my mission a while back to photograph all of the supermarkets in northern New Jersey. Okay, not really, but I'm trying to get there. But the Stop & Shop stores just never really interest me that much, so we haven't seen too many of them. That said, those that we have seen are the interesting ones -- mostly the former Grand Unions, plus some old Mayfair Foodtowns -- which are the most likely to close, be replaced, or be renovated in the near term. If you're interested, here's a list of the Grand Union-to-Stop & Shop conversions we've covered here on the blog so far (and, admittedly, some of these are no longer Stop & Shops): Nyack, Butler, Eastchester, Greenwich, Ringwood, Ridgewood, Paramus, Tenafly, and most recently, Berkeley Heights a few days ago. I'm judging by the exterior appearance here when I say that I think Grand Union would've opened in the 80s (though it's possible it was the following decade) and the interior is largely intact from Grand Union -- anything that's not is left over from day one of Stop & Shop.
You enter on the right side of the store to produce in the front corner. Cold cuts and cheese line the back half of the first aisle, with deli, meat, and seafood on the back wall. Frozen and dairy are on the left side of the store, with bakery in the front left corner. By the way, the small town of Basking Ridge previously also had an A&P from 2002 to 2015, but is today served by this Stop & Shop as well as the Stirling ShopRite and the Bernardsville ShopRite to the north.
There are definitely some deluxe touches in this store, such as the cheese department on the left here and the tiny olive bar stuck into the refrigerator case. But it definitely strikes me as a low volume store and is sorely in need of updating.
Deli and meat on the back wall. Are those deli cases supposed to be lit? They look awfully dim to me.
Some prepared foods in the Something Special case. I assume this would've been Grand Union's The Best Takeout Restaurant In Town, since it's right next to the deli. Could be wrong about that, though.
I must say, this store is definitely old but clearly very well maintained. Maintenance here is way better than Berkeley Heights, which was renovated just a few years ago and is already falling apart.
But the seafood department is, of course, long gone (previously in this corner above, you can see the prep space in the above picture).
Unlike Paramus, which has the same decor package, the department still remains, it's just all packaged. Paramus had the department completely removed and replaced with shelving.
Dairy lines both sides of aisle 12.
And despite the store's small size, there is an inexplicably huge selection of frozen foods, taking up one side of aisle 13, both sides of aisle 14, and both sides of aisle 15.
This hanging sign comes to us courtesy of the 2001 Stop & Shop remodel. I don't believe Grand Union would've had any hanging sign here.
I believe all of the freezer cases -- and all of the cases throughout the store -- are original to Grand Union. Looks like the produce cases have been painted gray, but that's about it. The bakery is around the corner straight ahead in the above picture, but I don't seem to have a picture of it. You can see a little bit of it in the aisle 13 picture.
Weirdly dim front-end, too. Looks like the lighting unit could stand to be replaced about now. I'm glad I've gotten to photograph these old Grand Union conversions because I can't imagine how long they'll all be around! That said, it's been 20 years... but we shall see. Heading west tomorrow, we'll find out next two stops in Bedminster, both on The Market Report tomorrow!

Comments

  1. I'd suspect 1980's as well - any of the 1990's ones I know of were the ones with the greenhouse glass fronts and the deli that was an island in the front middle of the store. Though I can't say exactly where the switch was, but likely at least 1992-1993 as the latest for the greenhouse style starting (and could very well be earlier in some places, those are just the ones I know of locally).

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  2. 80's for sure but why the heck does the store have the mid-90's floor? Rare to see a store swap out the floor without doing all new décor!

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    1. Very interesting -- I definitely see what you mean. Is it possible this was a later 80s or earlier 90s store that had some kind of transitional hodgepodge decor package? I am reminded of the red fish-eye ACME logo that we saw on the trailer at the Middlesex store, which is kind of between the original fish-eye and the red-oval logo. But looking at the historic aerials... I was wrong. Actually, the Grand Union was built between 1963 and 1970, then expanded very significantly between 1991 and 1995. So it must've been at the very tail end of the 80s wood-paneling decor era that included the beginning of the later decor package's flooring.

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    2. That makes sense as well - depending on how the expansion was, they may not have done the new(er) style front, just upgraded or replicated the existing one for a larger frontage (being this doesn't even have the arches one would think of for the 1980's range).

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    3. Not sure if this would have been a hodgepodge décor package. Thing is... there was another décor package used after the 80's wood-paneling décor. It was very similar but had green and yellow as the primary colors. (I used to have some pics posted on Acme Style but not finding them at the moment). I could see that have being hodgepodged with the mid-90's flooring. Maybe the floors here were just so bad in the 90's, they replaced them with what they were doing in the other remodels at the time. Just strange to me that they just didn't go all white since the 90's floor accents don't really tie in with the 80's décor.

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    4. Are you referring to the Butler location (I found that on your page from 3/6/18) - though it only shows the flooring which is diamond shaped pattern.

      If so, that may be a bit later then you were thinking, as we had one of the (likely few) totally new stores here in Valatie in the late 1990's and that one had similar design and yellow/green colors - some still exists as it became Ocean State, and they don't do a lot of renovations unless needed.

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    5. No, not Butler. I think I had some pictures linked to a flickr account somewhere. I went through all of my Grand Union posts and couldn't find any.

      Just found some on flickr!!!
      https://www.flickr.com/photos/42552734@N05/4682520658/in/photostream/

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    6. Yep - that's Tannersville (NY) in Greene County - the only other store I know of in this area that was of that design (both the interior and the exterior white with green logo). Likely since by that time they weren't building much new, and probably only renovating if needed or if a store had need to be enlarged - in both cases these are towns with no other supermarket (at the time for Valatie, still in Tannersville).

      Valatie was very similar save that the front exterior has a central section without windows, as that is the service desk and office between the two side entries.

      I think (but not certain) that Tannersville was an existing store that was upgraded (possibly enlarged) around that time, where the Valatie was a totally new store (replacing an already expanded store next door).

      While this Tannersville store has a more plain looking floor (where you can see it in the front/produce photos), we had (and some still exists, as does the wall decor in places, thanks to Ocean State not redoing things unless needed, or where they added walls to make more storage space) the patterned version (which is what I saw in the Butler post).

      Somewhere in the mid-later part of the 1990's (after the glass front design, which you have with the Paramus store) but before their final try (the Mega Save, which only Albany got finished here, but there were a couple others in progress - the Albany one was open 6 months before closing with the bankruptcy).

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