The Market Report

Original Tenant: Pathmark Address: 757 NJ-15, Woodport, Jefferson, NJ Opened:  by 1970 Closed:  2015 Later Tenants:  Fresh Emporium Food Market / Fresh Imperium Food Market (2016-2017) Photographed:  September 2016 & May 2020 Crash and burn, anyone? After Pathmark closed here following decades of successful business, Fresh Emporium opened up in 2016, closing the following year -- but not before Key Food, owners of The Food Emporium banner, sued. Tour Fresh Emporium here . Fresh Emporium then became Fresh Imperium... I thought I had already posted these pictures, from September 2016, but apparently I hadn't. If you zoom in, you can see that there was no real sign change, just a new banner for the word Imperium. So that was back in 2016 when the store was still in business. Fast forward to May 2020, Fresh Imperium has been closed for a few years, but a nearby business didn't get the memo... And the store is in the middle of route 15, with the northbound lanes at ...

When new tenants took over Pathmark stores, some gutted the stores and remodeled them . Some made the existing decor their own with some strategic decals. Others did even less. Fresh Emporium, owned by Bronx-based investor Neftali Medina, covered some  of the Pathmark logos at their store here in Landing (we toured their other location in Jefferson a while ago). Once Key Food threatened to sue them over their use of the Fresh Emporium name, arguing it's too close to their banner The Food Emporium, Fresh Emporium made a quick switch to Fresh Imperium. While I wish I had interior pictures from when the store was in business, I was stopped by a manager early in my tour who very nastily informed me photography was not allowed in the store, having me delete the pictures I took and leave my phone at the front office while I was in the store. It was very early in my photography, and I had no idea she didn't have the power to tell me any of that. (If that happened now, I'...

The Rise & Fall of the Imperium Fresh Emporium / Fresh Imperium, Jefferson, NJ While the urban and suburban A&P locations often were the subjects of intense competition and bidding from outfits looking to purchase them, those farther out from the immediate NYC or Philadelphia areas more likely quietly closed without purchase. Surprisingly, independent investor Neftali Medina of the Bronx bid on two former Pathmarks, this new-build location in Jefferson, NJ, built in the 1990s (for $1.45 million), and a former Grand Union in Landing, NJ. (at only $400,000!). Medina claimed he would open the supermarkets "three to four weeks" after the purchase but in reality opened about two months later. He also claimed both locations' pharmacies would reopen shortly after the stores themselves did...which also didn't happen. Fresh Emporium promoted itself online (on their Facebook account) prior to the opening as an upscale, natural and gourmet food market. This outfi...