Update: Stop & Shop - West Caldwell, NJ

Stop & Shop

Opened: 2011

Owner: Ahold Delhaize

Previous Tenants: Stop & Shop (ca. 1970 - 1980) > Kings Food Markets (1980-2010)

Cooperative: none

Location: 875 Bloomfield Ave, West Caldwell, NJ

Photographed: September 11, 2025 and September 25, 2025

I love to see a new sign going up or an old one coming down! Here in West Caldwell, I happened to stop by the Stop & Shop just as the new sign was being prepared for installation. (The picture above is from a few days later, when the sign was up fully.) It looks like they were planning the exact position with this white poster or banner, and then the letters would be installed based on that. In fact, it looks like the bolts to mount the new sign might come through the white sheets, which look like they're just paper.

This store opened in 2011, but the history is more interesting than that. Stop & Shop first built this store  around 1970 as a combined Stop & Shop supermarket-Medimart pharmacy, selling it to Kings in 1980 when they left New Jersey. The Medimart became a Walgreens. Stop & Shop, of course, reentered New Jersey in 2000, but during that time remained the landlord here. In 2010, they decided not to renew Kings' lease, and when Kings closed and Walgreens relocated, Stop & Shop built a new location of just under 60,000 square feet on the combined Kings-Walgreens footprint.

See my past post about this store here. The exterior was still in progress when I visited a couple weeks ago, but the interior was mostly done, so I've included the "before" pictures in this post so you can see the inside before and after.

It's likely that Stop & Shop wanted to freshen the store up before a new, 90,000 square foot ShopRite opens directly across the street. But Stop & Shop has been remodeling a lot of stores recently, and has most recently opened up remodeled stores in New City, NY and Trumbull, CT.

A look at the outside before the remodel...

Outside, really the only change is a fresh coat of paint and a new sign, and that's very similar to the treatment inside.

Not crazy about the white paint on the front wall here, but it's bright and crisp.

The grand aisle has been freshened up a bit with new paint and signage on the walls, but none of the fixtures were replaced, and the flooring and lighting haven't changed.

This new signage in the produce department is a big upgrade, though, as there was previously no signage over the produce cases.

Nothing about the layout has changed, so the grand aisle is still on the left side with prepared foods, deli, and bakery on the left-side wall and meat/seafood at the back. Dairy and frozen are on the right side, with a natural foods department and a florist in the front-right corner. I don't know if it's still to happen, but to my surprise, the natural foods department was not eliminated in the remodel and in fact got new signage. The vast majority of recent Stop & Shop remodels eliminated the separate natural foods department and integrated those products into the grocery aisles. The separate natural foods department came standard on stores from the 90s up until about 2018, though.

The new signage is a nice update. The New City and Trumbull stores I linked above seem to have gotten at least some new fixtures in the perimeter departments, or at least a fresh coat of paint, so maybe that will still happen here in West Caldwell.

Earlier versions of this decor involved more lit signage, but even this less-deluxe version has several illuminated signs. Each department name is also lit up.

As you can see, the older fixtures very much don't match the newer decor and color scheme, so I really hope they get at least new paint.

You can see the bones of the store are exactly the same as before, but just with a few new cosmetic touches. It's a nice refresh, but I have to assume it won't exactly bring in any new customers. This store has done fine against the small existing West Caldwell ShopRite for 14 years, but when the new one opens, it might be a different story. On the other hand, if customers are looking for a lower-key shopping experience, they're not going to the enormous new ShopRite.

It's clear the remodel wasn't quite finished when I visited, so I'll return to see what else has happened.

It looks like the store is a little bit too big for Stop & Shop, as they've removed an aisle on the right side.

And it looks like the remodel has added some sale and seasonal displays to the middle of this double-wide aisle, but it's still one whole side of seasonal.

Dairy and frozen on the right side of the store.

But again, with the fixtures not (yet?) changed or painted, and the drab gray color everywhere, it doesn't have the feeling of a newly renovated store. It still feels like an older store, and it would probably be easy to walk in and not even realize it had gotten any updates if you weren't paying attention. The same absolutely could not be said for many other new remodels, such as this ShopRite about nine miles east.

This temporary-looking milk banner confused me -- it was installed around 2020 or 2021, but almost seems to match the ca. 2005 decor. Now, there's a permanent, lit milk sign here and a fresh coat of black paint looking sharp. I don't understand why they are in love with the greenish-gray color -- it's gone back a few decor packages -- but if you ask me, the black would be a much sharper look throughout. Then again, nobody asked me.

Not much you can do here in the last aisle because of its low ceiling, although I appreciate the gray and green stripe at the top of the cases on the left. Still, it kind of falls flat because it doesn't exactly match anything else here.

As I mentioned, to my surprise, the natural foods department has been kept in the front-right corner.

Maybe eventually it'll be replaced with something else, but notice that the shelves have new green natural category markers and a health-focused message is up on the wall. This is the first Stop & Shop remodel since around 2018 that I'm aware of that hasn't integrated the natural foods into the grocery aisles.

But this very minimal (at least so far) remodel still leaves several things unresolved, such as this really bad patching job on the floor of the natural foods department. There were also at least three or four lights flickering around the store, which should also have been fixed if you're remodeling the store. Still, since it was still in progress when I visited, I'll have to go back and see if they've fixed those issues.

Floral is looking pretty good, though, with new signage that actually matches the dark flooring here quite well. And I like the white walls around this area, which to me look much more bright and modern than the gray-green.

I will be back to see what else happens with this remodel, and of course to check out the new ShopRite! But before then, there's lots more to see this weekend...

Saturday

• ShopRite prepares a new store in North Jersey while finishing up a remodel at another North Jersey store
• Stop & Shop remodels a North Jersey store (this post)

Sunday

• Fine Fare's latest Manhattan location opens
• Food Bazaar remodels Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island locations