The Market Report

Original Tenant:  A&P Address:  375 Tompkins Ave, Rosebank, Staten Island, NY Opened:  1960s Closed:  1990s Later Tenants:  Waldbaums (1990s-2015), Food Universe Marketplace (2016-2018), Freshway Supermarket (2018-2019) Photographed:  March 2020 This location was a longtime A&P that was converted to Waldbaum's by the 1990s before closing early in the 2015-16 bankrupcty. New Jersey-based operator Kevin Kim (oh boy, do we know him -- from Fairview , Plainsboro , and Belleville ). This store as a Food Universe actually seemed to do okay. It even got some nice renovations . But of course, after just about two years, it was converted to the Freshway banner and switched from Key Food to General Trading/Retail Grocers Group. The "win a car" sweepstakes from Plainsboro's grand opening never finished because the store closed before the contest ended, so that was transferred to this location. In fact, in this picture you can see the ban...

We're here once again at the Fair Ridge Mall in Fairview, NJ to return to the store that we saw: As a Key Food Marketplace in May 2017 , As a SuperFresh in June 2018 , and most recently, As a Freshway in December 2018 . Note that all of those stores were owned by the same person, Kevin Kim, a supermarket owner out of Queens. Kim has at this point sold or closed all of his stores except this one. We've seen his store in Plainsboro  and Belleville , and a few of his other stores will be coming soon to the blog. As I mentioned, this is his last store and it's pretty obvious that this one is closing as well. Many of the shelves are empty around the store, but where it was most obvious is the meat department -- so often a centerpiece department that makes up for most of the store's perishable sales. Well, you'll notice this store's service butcher is closed and covered over with paper from the circular the store no longer uses. Oh, and although the...

Quick Bay Ridge interruption... We've been to this store a few times now, first seeing it as a Key Food Marketplace in photos from May 2016, then revisiting it as a SuperFresh with photos taken in April 2018. The Food Basics-turned-Key Food Marketplace-turned-SuperFresh has now been turned Freshway, along with another one of owner Kevin Kim's locations in Staten Island, NY at 375 Tompkins Ave. On the outside, not much has changed in the past two and a half years. The store is still sporting its Food Basics entrance sign and awning, but it now has a real, lit logo (if a slightly off-center one). If you zoom in, you can see that the store is now featuring Fine Fare sale posters in the windows, as Freshway is run with General Trading of Carlstadt, NJ, which also runs Fine Fare. Heading in, we find that surprisingly, most of the signs have actually been updated to the Freshway logo... Okay, I didn't say updated well, I said updated. Either way, the store is stil...