ShopRite
Welcome back to the Little Falls ShopRite! This is one of the few ShopRites left that's a single-store member, so the owners of this store don't own any other locations. And it's a pretty great store, if suffering from a weird layout due to several generations of expansions and remodels, and an even worse parking lot for the same reason. But since my last visit, the store has seen yet another remodel if only a small cosmetic one.
The entrance on the left side of the store takes you into the bakery and produce departments. The specialty cheese department was also previously here, but it's been moved to the deli area on the other side of the store. As you enter the main supermarket, pharmacy is in the front-left corner, with HABA in the first few aisles. Meat and seafood are on the back wall. In an expansion out the right side, which happened shortly before my previous post, a few grocery aisles run parallel to the front wall with dairy and frozen in the back. Deli and prepared foods are in the front-right corner, along with the newly-relocated cheese counter.
This store has a very beautiful bakery, and its setup is very similar to the LoCurcio stores in Nutley and Belleville.
I rarely see stores with such extensive fresh bread counters these days, as many have transitioned all of these to packaged (and inferior) offerings, including other ShopRite operators. Here, the fresh bread counter is a centerpiece of the bakery.
Produce, with fresh decor matching the rest of the store, is up next to the right.
New decor in the pharmacy and on the front-end, but as I mentioned, the remainder of the store got a remodel in 2019-2020 and hasn't gotten that many significant changes.
So our look at the rest of this ShopRite will be somewhat quick, since not a lot has changed.
You can see the building is old here, with these very old-school round air vents in the ceiling.
This decor was installed in 2019-2020, and it's in excellent shape for going on 5-6 years old now. Crazy that that's how long ago 2019-2020 was...
The right side expansion got the most attention in the 2019-2020 remodel, especially because part of it was built from scratch during that time. As you can see, it looks quite a bit more modern than the rest of the store, even if the decor is all the same now.
Deli and prepared foods in the front-right corner.
And here you can also see that the cheese island has been relocated to this corner, which makes a lot more sense than its previous location in produce.
Prepared foods counters line the front wall of the store in this area, with packaged grab-and-go items opposite.
There's also an entrance and exit on this side of the store, along with what used to be a cafe but is now protein bars. If I remember correctly, this part was built ever so slightly before the coronavirus, meaning that it was originally intended to have a seating area that was basically immediately rendered useless.
And a look at the front-end back towards produce/bakery. This store is looking good and it's nice to see continued refreshes even though it remains an extremely high-volume store -- the owners haven't become complacent.
Opened: 1970s in this location
Owner: Chuck Infusino
Previous Tenants: none
Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.
Location: 171 Browertown Rd, Little Falls, NJ
Photographed: June 18, 2025
The Amazon Fresh across the highway has also gotten a few small updates, plus a new supermarket is opening just half a mile west on route 46. Check out all the news this weekend here!
Saturday
- Whole Foods opens new Daily Shop locations in Hells Kitchen and Stuy Town
- LIDL opens a new Downtown Brooklyn location as it prepares another in nearby Williamsburg
Sunday
- More LIDL news as we check out one of their new NJ locations plus another on the way
- Signage goes up for the latest SuperFresh coming soon
- An Indian supermarket moves into a strip mall once home to an ACME in Passaic County
- We check in on a renovated ShopRite (this post) and a newly rejiggered Amazon Fresh across the street from each other
I have to imagine that their grocery people mostly come from Whole Foods, which doesn't exactly compete with a store like ShopRite.
ReplyDeleteWhy they would choose to half-ass entry to what might be the most competitive grocery landscape in the country is beyond me. An area with less competition, in order to get your feet wet, would have made more sense. An area like Chicago, which is dominated by a not beloved chain like Jewel, would have made more sense if you ask me.
They were under the mistaken impression that if they put "Amazon" on the front of the store, people would flock to it. The exact opposite has happened, especially when people saw the prices and bizarre brand mix.
DeleteSo I just stopped in this store about a year for the first time in many many years. I was shocked to see the place had FINALLY been updated. Previously stuck in a time warp and in pretty terrible condition. Now a days, this is absolutely without a doubt my favorite ShopRite I have ever stepped foot in! It's true. While the parking lot is still a bloody nightmare, I have discovered the trick is to enter on the eastern side (up the hill) and park right at the top. You're actually much closer to the entrance than you think you would be. Parking always available there and easy-in, easy-out.
ReplyDeleteBack to the interior, the layout is a bit strange and hodgepodgie but you know what? It works! I love how the bakery and produce are like their own little shop. One of the nicest and most extensive ShopRite bakeries I've ever seen. Produce is displayed much nicer than most ShopRites as well. When you step into the main store you immediately see the HABA aisles, shelving with spectacular lighting! Looks amazing. The front-end is beautiful and look at that... no sales bins to clutter up your path to a registers ala Saker ShopRites! After the grocery "shop", you head into the newly expanded area which has a warehouse feel. Some of the nicest prepared foods ever seen in a ShopRite. Frozen and Dairy to the rear which are both nicely arranged as well. If I remember correctly, this part of the store was home to just grocery and always felt like a super lame addition to the store. Now it's a destination! Overall it's one hell of a remodel and the store is extremely well run. I love too how there are self-checkouts on both sides of the front-end, yet manned registers right next to the self-checkouts. I'm always in and out of this store in a flash! (Well now that I've cracked the code of the parking lot as well) Interesting to learn that this is a one-off ShopRite. Helps explain why it's so fantastic!
One final note of interest, the two entrances ALWAYS have an employee cheerfully greeting shoppers. No doubt placed at the entrances to prevent theft as both are tucked away from the front-end, reducing visibility from most of the working staff.