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Update: ShopRite - Danbury, CT

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By Zachary
ShopRite
Opened: August 2016
Owner: Cingari Family Markets
Previous Tenants: A&P (ca. 2003-2015)
Cooperative: Wakefern Food
Location: 1 Padanaram Rd, Danbury, CT
Photographed: October 9, 2025
Can you believe it's been 10 years since A&P went out of business? They declared bankruptcy in the summer of 2015, closing all of their supermarkets by the end of November 2015. This was one of them, in Danbury, CT, and it reopened under the ownership of Grade A ShopRite the summer of the following year. Now rebranded to Cingari Family Markets, the owners of this store have just completed a total renovation of the space which felt dated even when it opened. (Plus, see some progress pics here.)
Gone is the weirdly-placed ShopRite logo too high on the building. In its place, a larger logo, properly aligned and everything. Also gone is a "natural foods" sign left over from A&P. The outside still has the general A&P look, but it's been nicely freshened up.
And that's roughly the theme inside, too. This was an extensive remodel and the result is beautiful, but the bones are still A&P. That said, you have to work a little harder to find the A&P bones than you used to...
The grand aisle is the most dramatic change, with new lighting, flooring, decor, and fixtures. The rest of the store got significantly less work.
The layout hasn't changed, although around 2020 a Chase bank branch inside the store closed. It looks like A&P had a pharmacy here, but ShopRite doesn't and looks like it never did.
A modern and colorful design has come to the cafe in the front corner, bringing this store straight out of the 1970s and into the current era. What's particularly funny about that is, this store only opened around 2003, replacing an older store next door. The original Cingari/Grade A renovation made the store look older than it actually is.
A&P's script signs, done in the style of the older The Food Emporium logo, remained, but got a fresh coat of paint when Grade A opened here. Now, they're all gone.
Notice that these deli fixtures don't seem to have been replaced. They weren't that old to begin with, and probably just needed a fresh coat of paint.
The produce department is spacious and attractive, helped in large part by the high ceiling but improved by the new wall treatment here at the back of the department.
Bakery, at the back of the grand aisle, has a fresh look too...
The Grade A Markets chain has rebranded as Cingari Family Markets (although two Grade A stores remain), and the Cingari name is prominent throughout this store and their other new ones. They are working on remodeling all of their stores, approximately a dozen, to this same design.
Seafood looks great with a lit blue sign. It's amazing what a little paint and some well-placed decor elements can do to modernize the store.
Outside of the grand aisle, the store has gotten less work. The flooring and some of the fixtures are new, but it's easier to tell it's an older store.
I wish the darker ceiling had been continued throughout the store. In a few other Cingari stores, though, the ceiling in the grand aisle is black but the rest of the store is white, so that seems to be their standard.
New decor in the dairy/frozen departments, too.
But here in frozen foods, the cases haven't been replaced. Again, they probably weren't that old to begin with, but I'm surprised they didn't at least get a paint job on the top and bottom bumper to match the rest of the black fixtures.
Beer is in the front-left corner, with the front end extending beyond that. The Order. Pickup. Deliver. (previously ShopRite from Home) staging area is in front of that.
A look across the front-end.
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