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Shop Fresh Food Marketplace - Bronx, NY (Highbridge)

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By Zachary
Shop Fresh Food Marketplace
Opened: July 2025
Owner: unknown
Previous Tenants: Pioneer Supermarkets (1985-2012) > Met Fresh (2012-2016) > Pioneer Fresh (2016-2025)
Cooperative: Associated Supermarket Group
Location: 1150 Woodycrest Ave, Highbridge, Bronx, NY
Photographed: August 6, 2025
Time for another before-and-after! (Did you see my post at 151 E Tremont?) This one is in the Highbridge neighborhood of the Bronx, where we most recently saw the opening of the Ogden Market Center in a former Rite Aid just three blocks from this store. This is an old-school store that's recently gotten a major upgrade. And another ASG store, which as I mentioned is on a roll lately. It's around 9500 square feet, and although I'm not completely certain of the building's history, it looks like the first supermarket on this site was a Pioneer opening in 1985. It became a Met Fresh around 2012, returning to Pioneer in 2016 or 2017. Not sure how many times it changed ownership in that time, but it looks like it's at least once or twice.
Unfortunately, when it switched from Met Fresh back to Pioneer, most of the Met logos weren't replaced, just removed, so it became simply Fresh Supermarket for a few years. Now, it's Shop Fresh Food by Associated. As I mentioned, although ASG's new stores are first-rate, their branding is not very good. So several Antillana SuperFood stores converted to the brand Shop Fresh Food by Antillana, and now this one is Shop Fresh Food by Associated. I truly don't understand what the benefit of having all these sub-brands is -- if the branding doesn't matter, which it clearly doesn't, why not just go with a simple Associated? Why use the alternate brand (Shop Fresh Food) if you're just also going to have a giant Associated logo on the outside?
Branding nitpicking aside, this store's transformation is impressive. I visited shortly before the renovation was entirely complete, although as far as I could tell everything was done except some last-minute repair work at the front of the store. Despite the switch from Pioneer to Met Fresh back to Pioneer, the interior didn't really get major renovations since it opened in the 80s.
Pardon the ladder, which was the single sign of renovation still ongoing. But for the rest of the store...
...it looks like all-new fixtures, including refrigeration and shelving, new lighting and flooring, and they even pulled out the drop ceiling and painted the exposed ceiling.
The layout didn't significantly change, though. Produce is in the front-right corner, with beer and dairy in the rest of the first aisle. Deli is in the front-left corner. Prior to the renovation, meats were on the back wall with frozen in the last aisle. Dairy has now been expanded onto the back wall, with meat and cold cuts in the last aisle. Frozen foods have been displaced into the second-to-last aisle.
Looking good with all-new fixtures and lighting, that's for sure!
It's a big change on the back wall, where the former meat department (under a lower ceiling than the rest of the store) is now home to most of the dairy department. The ceiling has been raised, making the store feel much more spacious even though it's actually quite cramped.
The bones of the grocery aisles are the same, but now with new flooring, lighting, ceiling and shelving. Oh, and aisle markers. Nice to see a really serious renovation happening at several of these stores!
I've said it before but I'll say it again: ASG is out of its slump. The years following the bankruptcy of AWI/White Rose, then the distributor to Associated, were very difficult for the newly-formed ASG, which merged the retail side of White Rose (Met/Pioneer) with Associated and Compare Foods. They misfired with lots of new store openings that didn't work and mediocre remaining stores. In addition to stores that closed, they lost over 100 stores, mostly to Key Food and a handful to other groups. But in the last few years, they've done a complete 180. These new ASG stores are as good as any of their competitors', and although I can complain about confusing brands or small issues here and there, they are firmly on solid ground again.
As was the case before the renovation, the shelving is very high to maximize selection in the small space.
The last aisle has been reworked to streamline the layout a bit. As you can see in the before photos, there were some inconveniently-placed columns and awkward corners, which are now all gone. You can tell it's still not a large store, but it's a much easier-to-navigate store than it was.
A look at the front-end before the renovation, which was similarly cramped and awkward...
...and the much more open, streamlined new look.
The deli is in the front-left corner of the store. It previously faced the rest of the store, and now faces the front-end.
This was about the best picture I could get given the cramped store and the many people around, but you get the idea...
Along with the other two new ASG stores we're seeing this weekend, it's great to see some big investment going into these old-school supermarkets. Lots more to see, too, so don't miss this weekend's other posts!

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