The Market Report

Food Depot Supermarkets Owner: Orfilio Chaviano and Nick Gonzalez Opened:  June 30, 2023 Cooperative:  Krasdale Foods Location:  325 Washington Ave, Belleville, NJ Photographed:  July 2, 2023 We are back at the Belleville Food Depot to check it out! The 12,000 square foot, Krasdale-affiliated store opened on Friday 6/30 in a former Walgreens that was originally built as an ACME. Food Depot has extensively renovated the interior and exterior of this store, and we saw it about two weeks ago almost finished with the final touches being put on. The store is in its soft opening phase, and as we'll see it's very very close to complete. There are some price tags that need to be added and a few sections of an empty shelf here and there, but it's basically ready. As we can see above, the store feels much larger than it is and feels like a complete supermarket, not like a little store in an old drugstore. Produce lines the right side of the first aisle, with meat on the left...

Food Depot Supermarkets Owner: Orfilio Chaviano and Nick Gonzalez Opening:  2023 Cooperative:  Krasdale Foods Location:  325 Washington Ave, Belleville, NJ Photographed:  June 14, 2023 Food Depot Supermarkets is preparing to open its third store, joining existing locations in Newark and Kearny. The Kearny store is quite nice although much smaller than Newark, and I've photographed it but haven't quite gotten to post it yet. Food Depot is also rumored to be working on a fourth location, in the former Western Beef in East Orange, but I'm not clear on how close to opening that store is, or if it's even happening. More on that here . This store of roughly 10,000 square feet was built in 1942 as an ACME which closed in the 1980s, and was then a Walgreens for a long time before closing around 2020 to be replaced by a new store at 175 Washington, about a third of a mile south, on a property originally housing a ShopRite turned Pathmark, then an Associated, then the Motor...

Food Depot Supermarkets Owner: Orfilio Chaviano and Nick Gonzalez Opening:  not yet announced Cooperative:  Krasdale Foods Location:  1 Main St, East Orange, NJ Photographed:  June 14, 2023 and July 25, 2021 Well, it's not the greatest picture (just out of a bus window) but here's a look at what will soon be the Food Depot in East Orange. The store was for a long time the Western Beef , although the store closed around 2020 and a banner went up on the old building announcing Food Depot was coming soon, a local chain with locations in Newark , Kearny, and Belleville coming soon . While there hasn't been any signage installed subsequently -- and unlike Belleville, there's nothing on the Food Depot website about this location -- there's been substantial renovation progressing around the building. The shot above is from just a few days ago but I realized I had photographed the store pretty extensively during its major construction but never posted the pictures. Those a...

Original Grocery Tenant: ShopRite (closed 1992) Address: 2919 Lehigh St, Allentown, PA Opened:  unknown Closed:  1992 Later Tenants:  Food 4 Less (closed 2006) > Food Depot (2006-2007) > Bottom Dollar Food (2010-2014) Photographed:  January 8, 2021 Today's snapshot is a building that's had quite a few grocery tenants over the years. It was constructed around the 1960s as a ShopRite, likely owned by Saker/Foodarama but I'm not certain of that, then closed by 1992. It became a series of discount supermarket, first Food 4 Less, then the independent Food Depot (unrelated as far as I can tell to the NJ chain ), and most recently Bottom Dollar until their closure. When I visited, the store was being prepared to be converted to an auto parts store. But the massive metal sign structure remains out by the street, not to mention still with its painted-over Bottom Dollar sign. Check out Bottom Dollar in business here , and before they opened here . We're about three and...

Back in June, we saw a tour of the Food Depot supermarket in Newark. The store operates with a sister store in Kearny. Unfortunately, the success of Food Depot doesn't seem to have made it out of the Newark/Kearny area. Dover previously had two Bravo Supermarkets, one here and one at 36-42 W Blackwell St . The West Blackwell location remains in operation, but this one at 120 E Blackwell St didn't make it. Up until somewhere around 2010, this store was operating as a store called Pre-Unic Supermarket (I have no idea what that name means). A 2013 Google Maps street view shows us Pre-Unic, closed up. (It's in business in the 2007 view, but there's a big VMS in front of the store, obscuring the view.) By 2016, the store was fitted with a new Fresh Meats & Produce Supermarket sign, along with Food Depot signs for parking on the right side of the building. My 2017 visit shows that the building has remained vacant but has been painted. I wonder if another tenan...

One of the most often-cited examples of successful efforts to bring supermarkets into food deserts of New Jersey is the Food Depot in Newark. This store opened as a new-build, 31,000 square foot facility in Newark's Central Ward in 2012. The following video from PBS gives a pretty good look at the background of the store during its grand opening.   And for an idea of what the property looked like before Food Depot came, check out this street view from Google Maps. Future Food Depot Supermarket, 75B 1st St, Newark, NJ. Google Maps street view from 2007. When I visited in the fall of 2017, I was happy to find a large, clean, and full-service supermarket. It hasn't really fallen apart since the opening. Food Depot is a member of AIM (Association of Independent Merchants) within Krasdale. They do have a cool LED animated sign on the street! There are two entrances. The main one here, closer to First St, leads to produce, deli/hot food, and a new bakery...