Food Universe Marketplace
Opened: 2023
The Market Report has a couple stops in the Paterson area this weekend, including two in Clifton and one just north in Glen Rock. Here in Clifton, it's time to revisit the Food Universe on Lexington Avenue, which opened in a former Rite Aid in the spring of 2023. About a year later, the original owner, Kevin Kim, sold the store to Teofilo de Jesus, who owns nearby SuperFresh stores in Passaic, Clifton (a couple blocks away), and Woodland Park. The new owners are making some minor changes in the store, including resetting the produce department and replacing the produce bins. See the store when it opened here.
There's a lot more grab-and-go prepared produce and similar offerings, and it looks like this refrigerator might actually be new.
The cases for frozen seafood have been removed from the seafood department, along with the short grocery aisle here (you can see the aisle marker remains). I'm not sure what will go in here, but the SuperFresh stores under the same owners have a bakery and a juice bar, which this one doesn't.
You can see something being built out here, and I'll have to go back to check on what's coming in here. You can also see some patching in the floor -- I'd love to see a new floor going in here, because although the store is only about two and a half years old, the uneven flooring makes it look much older.
Frozen cases moved up to the front-right corner, which used to have another aisle for nonfoods. That shelving has been moved into the last grocery aisle, which was double-wide.
These csaes aren't full yet, but these are the fixtures that used to be in the seafood department.
I'll be back to check out what all these changes will be! For now, here's this weekend's other posts...
Owner: Teofilo de Jesus
Previous Tenants: Grand Union > Rite Aid
Cooperative: Key Food Stores
Location: 435 Lexington Ave, Clifton, NJ
Photographed: December 3, 2025
- Food Bazaar's southern Brooklyn remodel comes close to completion
- We check in on updates at New Jersey Food Universe stores in Clifton (this post) and Glen Rock
- Corrado's Market in Clifton begins its renovation -- finally
- Extra works on a major renovation in Newark
I wonder if that area with the replaced floor was the old frozen section in the Grand Union that was the original tenant. I doubt it, but it reminded me of that. They didn’t even have an aisle; it was just one little alcove with a coffin case in the middle.
ReplyDeleteI remember when they closed the store in 1997. That neighborhood lost its two major food store options within a year of each other (the former Foodtown on Lakeview Ave., where Dollar General is now, closed in 1996), and until Aldi opened a block away it was basically a food desert. You either had to drive down to the Botany Plaza Pathmark, which wasn’t easily accessible at all on foot or by public transit for those residents, or if you wanted to take your life in your hands go over to the Paterson A&P (which was disgustingly dirty by that point and wasn’t long for the world).