The Market Report

Bravo Supermarkets Owner: Juan Marte Opened:  2008 under current ownership Previous Tenants:  Food Fair > Foodtown > CTown Cooperative:  Krasdale Location:  275 George St, New Brunswick, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Our final New Brunswick store tour is here at the 8600 square foot Bravo in downtown New Brunswick! Not a huge store, but actually the largest store in downtown New Brunswick since SuperFresh closed in 2019. It started out as a wonderfully midcentury modern Food Fair and later became a Foodtown owned by the Davidsons. They closed the Foodtown in the 80s or early 90s, I believe, and intended to convert the store to a liquor store (notice that a tiny Davidson's Liquors remains next door). The city of New Brunswick instead subsidized the proposed CTown to replace the Foodtown and assisted the owners in opening, leading the Davidsons to sue, arguing that the use of the space as a grocery store threatened their existing business at their other Foo...

Original Tenant: The Fresh Grocer Address: 100 Kirkpatrick St, New Brunswick, NJ (aka 95 Paterson St) Opened:  2012 Closed:  2014 Later Tenants:  Key Food (2015-2017) > SuperFresh (2017-2019) Photographed:  July 2020 Welcome to Wellness Plaza, a highly-touted development in the center of New Brunswick that can be described as, at best, a complex with no real effect in downtown, and at worst, a largely-abandoned, expensive eyesore that detracts from the thriving city. The complex opened in 2012 with an RWJ (Robert Wood Johnson, a division of RWJ Barnabas, a healthcare provider affiliated with Rutgers University, I believe) Fitness Center, a large parking garage, and a 50,000 square foot supermarket. It was a location of Philadelphia chain The Fresh Grocer, which is located in several similar developments in and around Philadelphia. Almost immediately after this store opened, The Fresh Grocer's owners left the small and relatively weak cooperative Great Valu Marke...

CTown Supermarkets Owner: Edward Taveras Opened:  2000 Previous Tenants:  Xtra Savings Supermarket (2000-2017) Cooperative:  Krasdale Location:  333 Suydam St, New Brunswick, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 At just under 5000 square feet, today's store tour is slightly larger than the other store we're seeing today. It operated for over 15 years as the Xtra Savings Supermarket, which is still the co-branded name, but in 2017 the store also gained a CTown affiliation under the same owners. It's likely that the store was remodeled around the same time, with a new flooring and some new fixtures. In any event, the interior is looking very good. By the way, there was previously a much larger CTown in downtown New Brunswick for several decades, which rebranded to Bravo in 2011 under the same owners. We'll be touring that store as it is today in a few days. The first aisle here contains produce in the front 2/3 or so, and meat in the back 1/3. Service deli and butcher li...

Fine Fare Supermarkets Owner: unknown Opened:  ca. 2017 Previous Tenants:  A&P > Fine Fare Supermarkets > Compare Foods Supermarket Cooperative:  Retail Grocers Group Location:  621 Hamilton St, Somerset, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Notice anything funny about that Fine Fare logo? How about the fact that it's kind of the Fine Fare logo placed over the Compare Foods logo ? This store is just up the street from the slightly larger and much more recently remodeled Tropical Supermarket we're also looking at today, and Tropical seems to be the slightly preferred shopping spot. This store -- which is in 7500 square feet of a former A&P Centennial -- was previously a Rite Aid, later becoming Fine Fare which became Compare Foods which became Fine Fare again. It's unclear whether that's all the same owner or different owners. Here we can very clearly see the A&P centennial facade, although it's been covered by that awful blue siding. I get that the F...