The Market Report

  I was a little surprised that Food Bazaar decided to take the Pathmark in Elizabeth given that there is a 70,000 square foot ShopRite just three blocks up Grand St. This ShopRite is nearly always packed with customers, and it's a very solid store as well. It's not one of the more beautiful Village Super Market stores, but it gets the job done. Opened in 1994 in a former skating rink that itself was housed in a repurposed industrial building, this ShopRite has not been significantly altered over the years. It's gone through several exterior repaints and since there are four logo or name signs around the building, they have all been updated at different times. The biggest change was around 2008 when they added the part that's painted white in the above picture. Although the property layout is almost identical to Food Bazaar (Grand St is to the right of the trees here), the store's layout is different. Aisles run parallel to Grand and the front end faces t...

Heading back out Elizabeth Avenue just east of Union Square to another small independent store, La Copa Supermarket. It's located at 547 Elizabeth Avenue and appears to have been in business for many years. There is a small parking lot in back, and the entrance to it is...rather amusing. Unless you're trying to get in when someone's trying to get out, and then it's not at all. (P.S. Because Food Bazaar took up three full days, Elizabeth Week is continuing through tomorrow with a new store tour.) Photographed April 2017

An Associated Supermarket opened in part of a former BMW car dealership at 416 Morris Ave in 2011, and it later switched to Bravo. Soon thereafter, it became an independent store known as Caribbean Supermarket -- but interestingly, kept its Bravo sign, which it still proudly displays to this day. What we're looking at in this rather bad picture is actually mostly the liquor store, with the supermarket entrance visible to the far right. I got this shot because you can see the Bravo logo still up. When I visited very briefly years ago, the store was in pretty sad shape, but I returned to pick up a circular maybe a year ago and they had really fixed up the place, got a new logo and circular design, and stocked all the shelves nicely. Maybe new owners. Photographed July 2016 (holy cow, that's three years ago already)

Citi Grocer Opened:  December 2015 Owner:  Eddie Trujillo Previous Tenants:  Food Fair > Pantry Pride > non-grocery tenants Cooperative:  none Location:  119 Spring St, Elizabeth, NJ Photographed:  January 7, 2026 Before we begin, just a heads up: this was originally posted in August 2019, but was rewritten with new photos in March 2026. Now for the post! One look at the outside of this Citi Grocer makes it clear that this is a relatively new store, but it actually dates back to the 1960s when it was constructed as a Food Fair supermarket. The approximately 40,000 square foot building was later converted to a clothing discounter named Daffy Dan's, which later became just Daffy's . When all their stores closed around 2012, this one was taken over by the owners of another nearby supermarket . And in late 2015, the Supremo Foods chain returned this building to its original purpose, opening Citi Grocer. Walking in, this store definitely has a strong wow...