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TOUR: Stop & Shop - Morris Plains, NJ

Stop & Shop
Opened: 2001
Previous Tenants: Edwards (late 1990s-2001)
Location: 245 Littleton Rd, Morris Plains, NJ
Photographed: June 2020
We are heading across Littleton Rd from our other post today, the former ShopRite in Morris Plains, for a look at the Stop & Shop (formerly Edwards) at Littleton (Route 202) and Route 10. Acme Style covered this store back in 2013, and not a whole lot has changed since then although we'll see the deli department has been remodeled and it seems that new lighting had been put into the grand aisle. 
The 67,000 square foot store seemed to me to be looking a little better than when Acme Style visited. The decor package seen here is the ultra-no-frills version of the mid-2000s decor package put in a lot of Stop & Shop stores, and it looks much better in Union where there's a more deluxe version of it.
Floral is up here in the front corner of the grand aisle, while we saw in Union it's at the other side of the store next to bakery. Notice the dimmer and focused lighting, which I actually think works really well here.
What was probably previously a cheese/olive/salad island now seems to be prepared foods. The newly remodeled Stop & Shops have greatly improved prepared foods, but clearly nothing to the scale of the Greater Morristown ShopRite.
Prepared foods and deli are at the back of the grand aisle, with seafood and meat next.
I really like the wooden structures at the deli here, although I haven't really seen these in other stores.
Let's head into the grocery aisles. This store has a fully intact natural food section in the first aisle, which we've seen closed up in other locations.
Edwards flooring is still intact, as Acme Style points out.
Here in seafood, the signage has been painted to match the newer decor in the deli. As we move into the meat department, there's no updates except definitely notice that one of the category markers has been switched out for a newer plant-based sign...
Does anybody know if the Something Special signage is original to this decor package?
These huge Stop & Shops have enormous nonfoods selections, although I do think the stores built as Super Stop & Shops (not Edwards) were designed with even bigger nonfoods departments.
If I recall correctly, aisles 22 and 23 are frozen, and 24 is dairy. Note that these aisle markers are newer than the rest of the decor but older than the deli decor.
Dairy (plus a little more frozen foods) in the last aisle.
Bakery and pharmacy in the front left corner of the store. Once again, in a similar store like Union, floral is also in this corner. But I do believe Union was built as a Stop & Shop, not an Edwards.
A look across the front end back towards the grand aisle. Notice that the checkout lane markers seem to have been updated at the same time as the aisle markers.
Don't forget to check out the former ShopRite across the street here, and tomorrow, we're moving to the east just a bit along route 10 for our next tour right here on The Market Report!

Comments

  1. That flooring is truly an atrocity. Most of my experiences with Stop & Shop have been in Monmouth and Ocean counties, where the stores are mostly converts from Grand Union or new builds. I find these to be in much better shape than the former Edwards stores. Howell, for instance, has had 3 decor changes since it opened. In that same time, for instance, Jackson (only 10 minutes away) hasn't been touched.

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  2. I actually really like the décor package here. It may be "ultra no-frills" but I love the backlit bar that extends all around the store. Helps breakup the overload of yellow on the walls.

    The remodeled deli and prepared food departments have the best looking décor I've ever seen in a Stop & Shop! Too bad they didn't carry it throughout the whole store. Seems like they're just trying to hang on here rather than step up their entire game to combat competition from ShopRite and Wegmans. The place must be doing ok though to have full-service seafood and the Starbucks still in operation.

    One question: How has the seafood signage been painted to match the deli?

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    1. It hasn't! Didn't pay close enough attention. See how the bar is brown and then only the box around the lettering is color-coded to the department? I was under the impression that the whole bar was originally that color.

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  3. Jackson opened as a Mayfair Foodtown. I remember at one time Norkus was intending to move into the previous Mayfair Foodtown, but there were Asbestos issues in that building and the plans fell through.

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    1. Looks like the older store is now a Dollar General and Planet Fitness (according to photos by Josh Austin) and was at the corner of County Line and New Prospect).

      I seem to remember going to some other store in that area - it was on that side of the road, but seemed to be almost across the street from the current Stop & Shop site (possibly where there is a roller rink now?).
      Can't remember what that was - must have been some type of small chain, though (not sure how I would have found it otherwise).

      That was one time, then maybe a year or two later finding the Stop & Shop (at Christmas time), so that had to be after the Edwards conversions (his photos also mention it being Edwards in 1995 from Foodtown). But I don't remember seeing that store the prior time (though it had to be there). Hmm...

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    2. The other store you're thinking of was at the corner of County Line and Brewers Bridge Rd, behind the Burger King. I believe it opened as a Foodtown (not Norkus), then was Doyle's Supermarket (same owners as Shop N Bag in Farmingdale), then sat vacant for quite some time. It is now NPGS, a Kosher grocery store.

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    3. That makes sense - I think they used the Thriftway name for that store (after you mentioned Shop N Bag, since they were part of the same group).

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  4. Did they add (or replace) the self checkout more recently? Seeing as how most of the Stop & Shop stores I ever saw had the self checkouts set up just like regular lanes where this looks like a clustered format that many other stores use (since you can't access them from the main aisle with those soda coolers in the way)?

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    1. Probably a pretty recent change at this store. The Clifton Stop & Shop got this new self-checkout set-up during the recent remodel. This is how they've been doing them in the Giant remodels for a while now.

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    2. Yes, probably a recent change.

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  5. Is Stop & Shop able to compete against ShopRite any better than Acme can or A&P did? If I were to guess, the answer is "no." And unlike those chains, it's more perplexing to see Stop & Shop in New Jersey, since its "home base" is Southern New England, where (I believe) it absolutely dominates.

    On a slightly different note, I'm not sure that A&P did any worse of a job than Acme or Stop & Shop when it came to competing against ShopRite. Though A&P clearly couldn't compete against ShopRite, I suspect the chain would still be in business were it not for the huge amount of debt used to finance its acquisition of Pathmark.

    --A&P Fan

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    1. I think the one advantage S&S has over ACME with competing against ShopRite is advertising. S&S has commercials on TV all the time while ACME has none.

      Look no further than Wycoff, NJ to see Shop & Shop's ability to compete. ShopRite opened a brand-new store in January 2019 a stone's throw from S&S and is till open to this day. I really thought they were going to close down. (They did everything they could to prevent the ShopRite from building on the former A&P's property) It's a huge store to maintain if business isn't really strong so they must be doing ok.

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    2. S&S seems to compete fairly well on price, and they can easily position themselves as the anti-ShopRite. I miss having that option, because now if I don't feel like dealing with a store besieged with a crowd acting as if they're fleeing an erupting volcano, my only choice is ACME, whose prices are just too high to be my regular store.

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    3. Seems there are still other stores besides Acme and ShopRite in the area?
      They may be a bit further to go to, but it always seems many don't think about them - comes from being in an area where aside from one store close by, everything else is a 15 minute trip no matter what the direction. If you used that criteria, you may find other branches of stores to go to should the local options not be workable.

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    4. Yes, although in the Morris County area alternatives for conventional supermarkets are rather hard to find. Whole Foods and Kings are the other two chains with any significant presence other than ShopRite, Stop & Shop, and ACME, although to the north there is the Foodtown in Lake Hiawatha and to the east is the Wegmans in Hanover/Parsippany.

      Anecdotally, it seems from my own experience and others I know that Stop & Shop and ACME tie for the "anti-ShopRite" position you mention. It seems that where they both are present, people prefer the perishables and storebrands at ACME, but the prices and the selection at Stop & Shop. Maybe I've just had bad luck, but I've long held the impression that Stop & Shop is consistently more expensive than ACME (but I know others don't agree). I don't like Stop & Shop's perishables at all, but their selection of general grocery and nonfoods is way better than ACME's. ACME (+ Kings) has more stores in NJ than Stop & Shop (roughly 90 to Stop & Shop's roughly 50) but I wouldn't be surprised if the sales volume of ACME/Kings and Stop & Shop is about the same because Stop & Shop's stores tend to be larger and higher-volume.

      I say that to make the point... I think Stop & Shop and ACME/Kings can coexist. I think both have struggles when put up against ShopRite, but ultimately Stop & Shop seems to come closer to ShopRite on price which is a very large concern. I also think that Stop & Shop's facilities are overall in noticeably worse shape than either ACME's or ShopRite's, which really isn't a problem for them now but could be really hurtful in a few years if they don't invest in the stores and people start noticing. Similarly, I think ACME's pricing and selection is fine now, but if they don't keep improving, it can hurt them down the line.

      That all said... I don't think ShopRite is bulletproof, either. They're certainly not going anywhere anytime soon in their core market, but they've been slipping outside NJ. In-store operations have really hurt (again anecdotally, ShopRite's produce across a few different operators has been really pitiful lately, and some prices have shot way up to higher than Stop & Shop or ACME, or even Foodtown and IGA stores). So they're still the clear champion of New Jersey, and I don't expect that to change anytime soon, but again, they'll have to stay on their toes or in a few short years that can all go very differently.

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