Updates: April-May 2024!

'Tis the season: supermarket stuff is happening! Here's a roundup of some of the latest I've been able to cover.

Cherry Valley Marketplace

Fordham Heights, the Bronx

The Cherry Valley Marketplace in Fordham Heights, just across from Fordham University, is undergoing a major renovation. Read all about it here.

Bedford Park, the Bronx

And a bit to the north, their store across from the New York Botanic Gardens is preparing to relocate into a new building next door. Here's a look at those stores.

Brooklyn Fare

Two Bridges, Manhattan

Brooklyn Fare replaces a Lower Manhattan Pathmark -- ten years later. Take a tour of the new store here.

Food Universe Marketplace

Flatbush, Brooklyn

Out in Flatbush, Brooklyn, a Food Universe we toured four years ago is preparing to expand into a neighboring storefront, and it looks like the new space will be nearly 8,000 additional square feet -- roughly doubling the size of the store. I couldn't get a good look inside because it's all behind construction walls and scaffolding, but a door was slightly ajar, revealing a glimpse of a refrigerator case...

Food Bazaar Supermarket

West Side, Bridgeport, CT

After Food Bazaar renovated both of their Bridgeport stores, they're preparing to open a third. A contributor brings us this picture of signs posted on the former Stop & Shop. No opening date has been set yet, but work is ongoing.

ShopRite

Livingston, NJ

New Jersey-based ShopRite operator acquired Gourmet Garage in 2019 (and subsequently Fairway, another New York City chain, the following year) and elements of those brands are showing up in their other stores. I spotted a Gourmet Garage-branded prepared foods department within the Village Food Garden at the Livingston ShopRite, and the new Old Bridge location has significantly more branding -- as well as Fairway cheese and coffee departments.

South Plainfield, NJ

Check out the brand-new store, opened May 8th, here!

Giant Farmers Market

Oakland, NJ

Giant Farmers Market has had, well, a complicated past few months. Last June, owners John and Diana Lee were fined for failing to pay employees overtime, and possibly as a result of that, the Oakland and Waldwick locations were sold between June and September 2023, when a distributor sued the new owners, Joseph and Abraham Abdallah, who also own other grocery stores and other businesses. In late April, Oakland and Waldwick Giant Farmers Market joined Key Food, and both stores are being reset. (The original location, in Hackensack, wasn't sold and hasn't changed.)

This has pushed both more towards being mainstream supermarkets rather than produce markets, and the reset has brought in Urban Meadow and Essential Everyday products distributed by Key Food. But the rollout hasn't been flawless...

A lot going on in this one picture, which shows Essential Everyday (Key Food) tags in front of Avenue A (Associated Supermarket Group) products with sale tags from General Trading. I saw quite a few Avenue A products between the two stores, and I'm unclear whether it's some form of ongoing distribution arrangement or whether Giant Farmers Market briefly joined ASG between my most recent visit in December and the time they joined Key Food in April.

Waldwick, NJ

Waldwick was being reset when I visited the day after the two stores joined Key Food. Most shelves already had Urban Meadow products on them, and most departments were looking quite good although dairy and frozen were very light on stock. I don't know if there was a reason for that beyond the ongoing reset for the switch to Key Food.

Waldwick had significantly fewer Parade (General Trading) and Avenue A (Associated Supermarket Group) products than Oakland, and most of them were clustered at the front. Oddly, though, they weren't marked down or in any way advertised other than being on a shelf next to the registers.

Asian Food Markets

East Brunswick, NJ

Asian Food Markets quietly opened their latest location, in East Brunswick, on April 18th. I happened to have the good fortune of driving by on April 19th. Check out the beautiful store here.

SuperFresh

Highland Park, NJ

The former Stop & Shop is expected to reopen later this summer. Read more here.

More news...

• America's Food Basket has opened in a former Walgreens in the Dorchester section of Boston at 130 Bowdoin Street. It joins a smaller, much older store just a few blocks away at 217 Bowdoin.
• Christa's Kitchen & Market, a supermarket in Bushwick, Brooklyn, burned down on Thursday, also displacing residents in nearby houses.
• Cornucopia Natural Foods, a Long Island natural food store, is preparing a New Jersey location at 565 Millburn Ave in Millburn, NJ.
• Food Bazaar has recently held grand reopenings for newly-renovated stores in Trenton and Brownsville, Brooklyn.
• Food Universe is open in Passaic. Here's my last coverage, from when the store was slated to be called SuperFresh instead.
• Nature's Food Markets has opened in Hackettstown where Shop Fresh Marketplace most recently was. It's owned by natural food store chain A Matter of Health, which has locations in Manhattan and Rockland County.
• Saker ShopRites opens their new South Plainfield location Wednesday. The store replaces the nearby Piscataway store and joins another Saker ShopRite across town. They might be looking to replace the Manahawkin location, too, and if we can believe rumors on Facebook, the Jackson, NJ store, too.
• Save-A-Lot stores are changing. Locations in Hillside, Orange, and Newark, NJ have been reset to have a selection more closely resembling a small-scale full supermarket, such as a Key Food. In fact, Orange sells some Urban Meadow (Key Food) products, and Newark has carts from Key Food affiliate Tropical Supermarket, so it's possible they share ownership. To the north, a location in Indian Orchard, MA, has actually become a Key Food, while one in Holyoke, MA has become a SuperFresh affiliated with Key Food.
• Stew Leonard's opens their Clifton location on May 17th. They are also preparing a location in Connecticut.
• Stop & Shop is closing their Jackson location, citing poor performance. That alone makes me think that a big announcement isn't coming tomorrow, when Ahold Delhaize promised an "answer" on Stop & Shop -- why would you close one store before announcing a major change, like a sale of the whole chain or more store closures or a rebrand? Why not just make it part of that process? (Update: the Q1 results call didn't seem to include any specifics on Stop & Shop, and looking back, I think I assumed that was the call they were referring to. Instead, it looks like it will be discussed in detail at Strategy Day, May 22.)
• Sunny Farms Marketplace has opened in Middle Island, NY, in a supermarket most recently occupied by Fine Fare at 868 Middle Country Road.

That's all for now, and I hope to get to a few of these other locations soon for more updates! In the meantime, here's today's regularly scheduled post, and from here on we're back in New England!