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Update: ShopRite - Livingston, NJ

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By Zachary
ShopRite
Opened: 1960s
Owner: Robert Sumas / Village Super Market
Previous Tenants: none
Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.
Location: 483 S Livingston Ave, Livingston, NJ
Photographed: January 8, 2026 and February 3, 2026
The ShopRite of Livingston recently got some renovations including new fixtures and an expanded kosher department. And last fall, the store held an official grand reopening with a ribbon cutting. But now, the renovations appear to be ongoing and in fact addressing other parts of the store. It's a little odd, and even odder is that the renovations don't seem to make a lot of sense (just yet, at least).
Some fixtures have been taken out from the grand aisle, which has seen most of its specialty and prepared foods counters removed over the years. The remaining fixtures have been spread out to fill the space, and I'm not sure if there's some other plan for this area. I also am not sure what the impetus for this decision was, since it seemed perfectly fine before.
The former cafe, which has been used for online order prep since COVID, is now being walled off, and the refrigeration that used to hold prepared foods here is gone. Now, self-checkouts are over in this area, with new beverage cases going into the previous home near the wall.
They've cut off some of the sales floor here by building out this area further. The service sushi counter used to end where the Ruby Foo's sign is; you can see the Hydration Station sign where the refrigerated drinks used to be. You can see a lot more pictures from years ago here.
And the former sushi counter (which before that was subs, and before that it was a grill) has been covered up by refrigeration. All of these changes seem to be minor operational things, but I do just wonder why bother doing this all now when it didn't seem to be a problem before.
The deli has been retooled, too, with the actual service deli counter removed (it hadn't been used for a couple years and was filled with crackers and gift baskets and the like). Now, everything is pre-packaged, though you can still order deli items sliced to order, I believe.
A new cheese counter has also been added in the corner, along with the large cheese department that's in the refrigerators opposite.
New fixtures in the seafood department, and this setup looks quite nice.
A reset was definitely still in progress in the whole grand aisle, such as this mostly-empty produce case. Again, I'm not quite sure what the endgame is here, but we'll find out soon enough.
It looks like a walk-in cooler or expansion of the meat room might have been added, as this corner previously had an angle.
I assume the decor won't be changed here, since they seem to be working around this Craft Butcher sign rather than preparing to replace it.
The above two pictures are from a couple weeks ago.
Now heading over to the other side of the store. How about that great new expanded kosher department? For reasons that may someday become clear, they're resetting (removing? I can't tell) the kosher aisle. Kosher food has been mostly removed from this aisle and moved into temporary shelving at the back of the store. My best guess is it's something simple, like they're going to replace this shelving or something.
Here's the temporary home for about half of the kosher groceries. I don't get this change, although of course this is temporary. But why not do this before the grand reopening?
I did notice that the rest of the grocery aisles also seem to be getting a reset, and it felt like the nonfoods selection was a bit smaller than it used to be (not totally sure if that's true, but this store had a lot of nonfoods, and it's pretty large at around 70,000 square feet). I wonder if perhaps an aisle will be removed to make way for a double-wide kosher aisle -- and, possibly, reducing the overall shelf space, if that's a concern.
I'll be back to check it out! I'm sure everything will become clear in time, since you wouldn't embark on work like this without a plan. It's just a mystery from the outside what that plan exactly is right now. And for now, here's this weekend's other posts.

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