ACME Markets
Opened: 2016
Opened: 2016
Previous Tenants: A&P (ca. 1997-2015)
Location: 550 Myrtle Ave, Boonton, NJ
Photographed: January 2020
We are here just to the northeast of downtown Boonton to tour the ACME, formerly A&P, which is the largest supermarket in town at just under 50,000 square feet. This A&P was built in the late 90s, putting the nearby IGA out of business, and then closed in 2015. It was not part of the initial group of stores purchased by ACME from A&P, but was later added to the list along with Patterson, NY. The store was closed before reopening several months later as a fully-renovated Quality Built ACME, although we'll see there's still plenty left from A&P.
We enter to the grand aisle with a front-corner Starbucks, something that was added after the store opened. Check out an early post from Acme Style here.
The layout is almost entirely left from A&P, with produce lining the right side of the store. Deli and seafood are in the back right corner, with meat and then bakery on the back wall. Frozen and dairy are on the left side. The only places I think ACME may have changed is the pharmacy/customer service counters; customer service is on the produce side and pharmacy is on the dairy/frozen side. Did they move pharmacy to the far end?
At the beginning of the coronavirus while everyone was going crazy with panic-buying, I switched over to this store for weekly shopping and it was a pleasure. That said, for a brand-new store that opened in 2016, this store is honestly not all that impressive. The store was closed for several months for renovation but it opened looking much like the quick-redos at the acquired A&P stores that didn't close. Check out this Fresh Grocer, a Wakefern banner, which was an acquired Pathmark and opened in early 2016 also. Big difference! This store feels no-frills, if still fairly attractive, comparatively (and that's not a particularly high-end Fresh Grocer, and yes, we'll be touring it soon enough).
Corner deli and then meat/seafood are along the back wall.
Unremarkable grocery aisles, although it does look like the lighting has been replaced. Notice that the darker flooring was not added to the aisles -- it looks like the white tile in the aisles is left over from A&P but resurfaced.
I will say this, the store is very bright and clean. Always has been.
Rather bland looking bakery here in the corner. I will say that I think the version of Quality Built used up in Shaw's in Massachusetts is far more exciting.
Frozen in the last two aisles (notice that the middle row of cases, right, has been replaced from coffin cases).
Dairy in the last aisle. Looks like these cases are left over from A&P and have been painted.
I believe, although I don't know for sure, ACME relocated the pharmacy here from the other side of the front end near customer service, where it looks like a department was perhaps removed...
Here's a look across the front end from what I assume was previously the pharmacy. Notice that we can see the store is certainly a good size but it's not enormous. That wraps up our tour of the Boonton ACME, but check out the former IGA next door here, and a look at the Kings across town here. Tomorrow, we have our last town in the Parsippany group with three stores and one on each blog!
Based on the pictures that the webmaster took, I think that Acme has done a good job maintaining the store. I've seen instances where Acme did a sloppy job when taking over former A&Ps, but that doesn't appear to be the case here.
ReplyDeleteI remember that the Boonton A&P supermarket and the similar A&P on Route 10 in Randolph (which was a replacement store for a Centennial that was demolished) opened at about the same time. Doing my research on Newspapers.com confirmed this: the Boonton A&P opened on October 27, 1999 while the Randolph A&P opened in March 2000.
A series of industrial buildings on Myrtle Avenue (including the headquarters of a defunct trucking company) were razed to make room for the Boonton A&P. Interestingly, this store actually represented A&P's return to Boonton after a long absence. The previous A&P was located at the corner of Washington Street and Monroe Street. It closed on or around October 31, 1972. Based on historic aerials, it opened in the pre-Centennial Era and was demolished in the 1970s. A now-closed bank was built in roughly the same spot.
--A&P Fan
Yeah, I think there were a lot of sloppy conversions from A&P stores to ACME, but I think they've improved over time too. This one has always been pretty nice, but it's not all that exciting. Thanks for the history!
DeleteThis was the odd one - I believe (if I am remembering correctly) that the announcement that Acme would take this store was only made the day (or maybe the day before) it was due to finish it's closing sale as A&P (since it was at that point expected to just close outright, which itself is surprising given the lack of much else in the town, aside from the Kings).
ReplyDeleteI think I was in once when it was still A&P and maybe once after Acme, so I honestly can't remember about the pharmacy, but it seems a possibility. The counter in front of the current spot kind of resembles what an in store bank might use, but no clue if they ever had that as A&P or not.
Saw this (along with the old IGA) fairly often (given their proximity to 287) as we got into going that way vs. the GSP after 287 was finished up to the NY Thruway - it seemed faster (particularly at first, when all the tolls were still there, before they were made alternating one way and before any had the high speed EZ Pass, as certain ones seemed to back up quite a bit).
We never stopped in this area until discovering that they were doing the painted animals (mostly dogs) in the summers (that, of course being the origin of the joke on one of the 12/24 posts asking if everyone was getting one of those for Christmas, being these stores were being posted on 12/25).
You're right, this was not one of the original ACME purchases. Otherwise, thanks for the history and memories!
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