SuperFresh
Opened: October 2023
Welcome back to the Middlesex SuperFresh! This store opened in the fall of 2023, and around three years after its original grand opening, it's getting some work done as the store is cut back. It seems like this store never quite got to the volume it needed, though it was decent enough to keep the lights on and the doors open apparently, but it's being cut back from its original size of around 56,000 square feet to around 40,000 square feet -- still a large supermarket, but smaller than originally intended. The owners of the supermarket will open a laundromat in the remaining space along with shifting their UPS store into that area, similar to the change at the Linden SuperFresh (though that seems to be a rather high-volume store).
The supermarket's original layout had floral and produce on the left side with seafood in the back-left corner. Deli/bakery and packaged bread were on the back wall, with frozen and international foods in the last few aisles on the right side. Then, a "meat and dairy barn" was created on the far right side of the store from a former cold-storage section of a previous tenant. Now, meat has been moved over into part of what used to be the produce department, with the service butcher counter moving into the former bakery. Packaged bread has moved up to the front wall, where kitchenwares used to be, and dairy is in what used to be the last international aisle. The "meat and dairy barn" section is now closed off, and that'll be where the other new tenants go. In essence, they've reverted to a version of the layout the previous tenants had.
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What used to be a gift shop area is now a pharmacy up at the front of the produce department...
And the produce department has been reduced slightly, but that's mostly simply by putting less on the shelves. Previously, the refrigerator case running along the left side of the department had two shelves, and now it has four to use the space better.
The meat department now runs along what used to be the right side of the produce department.
No changes in seafood...
...but the former deli/bakery area is now the deli and service butcher counter. The meat room has been moved over to the back wall here, so that it's across from the packaged meat department.
The deli counter is also smaller now to accommodate.
And the area next to deli/bakery that used to have packaged baked goods and packaged bread is now sale items.
The grocery aisles haven't really changed much, so no real need to do a before-and-after there.
Even with these changes, the store still seems to be in good shape and the perishables looked very good (especially produce). In other words, it doesn't seem to be a completely failing supermarket, it just seems like it needs some adjustments to make it work.
The former kitchenwares department between the entrance and registers on the front-end is now packaged bread and baked goods...
No in-store bakery here, but there wasn't one previously, either.
No change to the frozen foods aisle...
...but while international foods used to be in long aisles running the same direction as the grocery aisles, they're now in shorter aisles running side to side.
Italian foods used to be in this last international aisle; they've now been divided between the front aisle and a couple endcaps. A new row of dairy coolers has covered up the former Meat & Dairy Barn...
...but the basic setup is still very similar.
What used to be the Barn is now closed off and will eventually be the space for the other tenants.
It's been temporarily blocked with this row of shelves, but it looks like eventually the plan is to put a wall across here dividing it.
And in the meantime, the former meat department is simply used to hold equipment that's not otherwise in use...
I believe the UPS store is currently on the front wall of the supermarket next to customer service, and it looks like it'll be moved into what used to be the dairy department in the front of the Barn.
No changes on the front-end, though...
I'm interested to see what comes of these changes, and whether they'll be enough to make this store successful in the long run. For now, though, here's a look at the rest of the posts for this weekend!
Owner: Howard Lee
Previous Tenants: ShopRite (1968-1984) > Pathmark (1984-2015) > Price Saver Fresh Marketplace (April 2019-September 2019)
Cooperative: Key Food Stores
Location: 242 Lincoln Blvd, Middlesex, NJ
Photographed: August 5, 2026
I'm including some of the pictures from the store's opening here, too, so you can make the comparison. These changes were mostly well-done -- you wouldn't walk into the supermarket with the current layout and think that it's strangely cut back.
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