ShopRite of Clark
Opened: 1990s
Time for a look at some ShopRite renovations going on in New Jersey! Not too long ago, we checked out the Danbury and Springfield ShopRites. Today we're going to see Clark and Bernardsville. Now, I haven't actually posted a tour of Clark yet (just a quick look at the outside) so these photos from Clark are going to be a combination of pictures from last summer, labeled 2024, and from earlier this month, labeled 2025.
The Clark ShopRite held its grand reopening in early April after a remodel. This is one of three ShopRites in New Jersey owned by SRS, or ShopRite Supermarkets, the corporate division. (For those unfamiliar, ShopRite stores are independently owned and operated, and each owner owns an equal part of the overall company that handles distribution and marketing and the like. That company then also owns about 30 ShopRite stores, mostly in New York, so in effect ownership of those stores is shared among the owners of the other stores, but they're run as an autonomous entity.) SRS keeps their stores up really well, generally, and this extremely high-volume Clark location has always been a beautiful store.
You enter to the grand aisle on the right side of the store, with floral and produce on the right side. A cafe seating area is to the left of the entrance -- there's also a Dunkin' Donuts in the foyer -- with prepared foods and deli in the island on the left. Bakery is at the back of the grand aisle, with seafood and meat on the back wall. HABA is in the first few aisles with pharmacy in an island at the front. Dairy and frozen are on the left side of the store.
The remodel brought some minor layout changes, but it was mostly cosmetic. Still, the work was rather extensive. As you can see, some new fixtures for produce went in, along with new flooring and decor.
Prepared foods are at the front of the deli island, with the deli counter behind that facing produce.
Interesting that they actually built a wall over the counters, since as you can see before there was no partial wall, just hanging signs.
As I said, this store has always been very nice, but the renovation modernized it a little. A look at produce before...
...and after. Notice that the track lighting appears to have been replaced, too.
Deli behind the prepared foods. I'm not a fan of this font, but the decor otherwise looked pretty good before. I tend to prefer this version. There was also a much simpler version.
New deli signage, and it looks like they did actually install a drop ceiling over the deli counter and prep area. You can see the walls behind the counter have changed, too.
The only really significant layout change in the grand aisle is that the cheese island was removed. There's now a much smaller cheese section next to the deli, but there are also refrigerators in front of the deli with cheeses. Still, it was nice to have the large cheese island.
Bakery has been reshuffled a bit with some new fixtures, but generally not much has changed here.
Breads, previously part of the bakery counter, are now in an island.
And rolls and bagels, previously in this case on the back wall, have also been moved to an island.
Notice that the bones of the old bakery signage remain, but it's still a nice update.
New bakery fixtures, including cakes where the breads used to be.
Here's the relocated cheese department at the back of the deli department...
One very noticeable change is the downsizing of the service seafood counter. Sure, it's done so that there's more grab-and-go packaged options, but notice how much bigger it was before...
...than it is now.
HABA and pharmacy was redone more recently than the rest of the store, so it wasn't updated in the renovation.
The only change is that an aisle of natural foods, originally branded Live Right, was removed when those products were integrated.
You can see some minor changes to the signage here, but mostly, it's the same.
Out of the grand aisle, there weren't many changes in the remodel other than replacing some decor.
I like this new signage.
The grocery aisles didn't really change in the remodel, as far as I could tell.
Here's a change, though: this awkward corner in the back-left side of the store has been redone. I don't know what happened here (was there previously some other department that was removed? Was this an expansion into backroom space?) but there was a corner with exposed concrete floor and shelving for bulk items on the outside walls, with milk cases on the left side. This has been mostly covered with new meat cases, blocking off most of this area, but the dairy cases remain accessible.
Notice, in the picture below, the edge of a meat case on the right side. You can see how much they've closed in this corner, which is a good call. It was just kind of confusing otherwise.
A fresh coat of paint on the freezers, and some new flooring.
Dairy runs along the outside of the last aisle and continues onto the front wall.
This front corner also previously had a kosher section that was removed. Kosher foods have been moved into the grocery aisles, and the kosher refrigerated and frozen sections have been (significantly downsized) and moved into the rest of the dairy/frozen departments.
New decor, lighting, and flooring here in the last aisle, or at least they removed the diamonds. I'm surprised they went to all that trouble but didn't tile over the exposed concrete in the back-left section. It still feels unfinished.
Dairy continuing onto the front wall of the store. This signage is quite attractive.
And the front-end has some new signage, but generally looks quite similar.
I would say this remodel is an improvement for the Clark ShopRite, although it's also noticeable that several departments (cheese, seafood, kosher) have been downsized. For this extremely high-volume store, though, that's probably more just about making the product selections match what people are buying, rather than a sign of the store struggling.
Unlike Clark, we have toured Bernardsville before, so I'm not including any of the "before" pictures here. Let's jump right into the grand aisle, which is looking good with some new decor.
Bernardsville's remodel is very similar to Springfield's. It's gotten the new decor package, with some related upgrades, in the grand aisle, but the rest of the store wasn't touched at all. Bernardsville does still have a pharmacy, though. Springfield's closed.
We've seen this decor in the new Watchung and Old Bridge stores, and it looks really good in a 1960s-era store like Bernardsville, too.
Interesting that several ShopRites -- including Clark -- have moved rolls, bagels, and pastries to an island rather than cases against the wall. I wonder if some market research suggested that people found them more appealing in a display like this or something.
Gourmet Garage is in the house, too, with the prepared foods department rebranded to that. With the decor package this store previously had, Village referred to the prepared foods department as Bistro Street (see here) -- although this particular location didn't have Bistro Street signage -- and then later referred to the prepared foods department as the Village Food Garden. I still see that branding occasionally, but now, Gourmet Garage seems to be the main brand.
I love this decor package. Notice, though, that this store didn't get the Village Fruit & Vegetables signage that Watchung and even remodeled stores like Springfield did.
This is a slightly simpler version of the decor -- no hanging blue fish -- but it's looking really good here.
Smaller but still fun Hey Bernardsville, what's for dinner? sign here over the walkway from the grand aisle into the main supermarket.
Unfortunately, everything updated about the store abruptly stops once you leave the grand aisle, and now we're back in 2005.
This store (like Springfield) didn't hold an official grand reopening, so I don't know if there are eventually plans to redo the rest of the store, but it's very clearly showing its age at this point. Circa 2005 Village Market signage abounds, but other signs of aging are obvious, too, like the water stains visible on the ceiling here.
The grocery aisles got new shelving, probably also around 2005 or 2010 when the store was remodeled to its previous decor package.
It's also very obvious that the rest of the store's decor doesn't match the new grand aisle decor.
Still, the rest of the store is clean and not in terrible shape. It's not neglected, just confusing why they'd work on the grand aisle but ignore the rest of the store for 15 or more years.
Pharmacy is still open in the front-right corner.
New flooring on the front end is nice, though. I'm sure that there's not necessarily the need to update the rest of the store too extensively given that this is the only supermarket in Bernardsville, and there really isn't much competition in the immediate area.
An interesting sight, though, as we exit -- check out the two Village logos next to each other on the wall here! The ca. 2005 or 2010 Village Market logo on the left, and the newer Village ShopRite logo to the right.
Opened: 1990s
Owner: ShopRite Supermarkets (SRS)
Previous Tenants: none
Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.
Location: 76 Central Ave, Clark, NJ
Photographed: July 30, 2024 and May 9, 2025
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Now onto the Bernardsville ShopRite, a Village-owned store that got some updates in the last couple months!
ShopRite of Bernardsville
Opened: 1966
Opened: 1966
Owner: Village Super Market
Previous Tenants: none
Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.
Location: 93 Morristown Rd, Bernardsville, NJ
Photographed: May 9, 2025
And that wraps up our look at these remodeled ShopRites, but check out the other posts from this weekend here!
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