Update: Kings Food Markets!

Summit

We return to our updates at Kings Food Markets with a look at what's been going on at two Kings stores here in northern NJ. First let's stop by the Summit store, which we last saw an update of in August and the original tour was back in June. Not much to see in the way of changes (the above photo is from January 2021 by the way, two days before ACME officially took ownership), but we do have four self-checkouts added to the tiny store...

Four self-checkouts plus three service registers, which I believe is down from four full service registers. Not that I ever saw this store with more than two registers open anyway. A side note is that the future of this store may be in question as the city has considered this site for a public housing development, although I do believe that development will be happening elsewhere. Focusing on the liquor store...

Note that the price tags on the alcohol are different from the standard Kings/Albertsons ones, suggesting that in fact the liquor store is owned by an outside vendor.

Livingston

We come back once again to Livingston, which is the location of the world's slowest supermarket remodel. In fact, I suspect the plans may have changed for one reason or another. Since ACME has been putting liquor back into some of the acquired A&P stores, I wouldn't be surprised if they're hoping to reopen the liquor store here in Livingston.

Here's the former liquor store, shot through the doors, which was supposed to be opened up for kosher foods. Again, it's not so much looking like that's happening.

I stopped by the store on a Saturday night in mid-August to find that the shelves were starting to get very empty. A corporate-type guy was hanging around the store, which surprised me because why would he be there on a Saturday night? Well anyway, he was there again the next day as the shelves thinned out even more, pictured here.

Some of the outages were extremely noticeable, others were less so because the products had been faced but with only one or two actual items on the shelves.

Obviously, I assumed the store couldn't go on like this, so it was pretty certain to me that they'd either be completing a big store remodel or a reset in the coming days -- or else, they were preparing to abruptly close the store the following week.

Well, I returned to the store on that Monday to find the store packed with at least a dozen employees from a retail consulting firm doing a top-to-bottom store reset in all the departments, as well as a parade of trucks delivering in the back. And it did confuse me (and continues to confuse me) that most of these deliveries are still coming from Wakefern, but not all...

The Albertsons (Signature, O Organics, Open Nature) brands were being put out on the shelves as well, and they seem to be -- at least temporarily -- supplementing, not replacing, the existing Kings and Balducci's brands.

For that reason, we see a lot more O Organics and Open Nature brands than Signature brands, although we see Signature in HABA and nonfoods.

There are, however, no Lancaster brand meats. Meat is all under the Kings brands.

Consistent with what I've heard from a few customers, the selection has significantly increased since these resets (which I assume have been coming into all the other locations too, as the Albertsons brands are now being advertised in the Kings circulars), and they have also drastically increased the presence of private label brands on the shelves. Of course, Kings still has way less private label presence than ACME or Shaw's, or other legacy Albertsons banners.

We finish off with a look at the presence of both Kings and O Organics on the shelf here. I assume Kings brand items will someday be replaced by Signature, but that remains to be seen. I have no more updates on this store remodel because it has apparently been at a standstill for the last few months. Don't forget to see what else we have here!