The Market Report

ShopRite of Pennington Owner: Richard Saker / Saker Supermarkets Opened:  1960s Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  Wakefern Food Corp. Location:  2555 Pennington Rd, Pennington, NJ Photographed:  January 2021 You know how all Saker ShopRites more or less look the same, such as Lawrenceville which we saw yesterday? Well now it's time to see one of those few Saker stores that look very different. We saw Belmar a while back, but it's closed now as a brand new replacement store opened across the street. There are a few others out there ( Edison , Freehold, Bordentown) but the 33,000 square foot ShopRite of Pennington is now the smallest and oldest operating Saker store. It also formerly had a ShopRite liquor store next door, which I believe remains vacant. The Laurenti family apparently owned several ShopRites in the Trenton area (before selling to Big V, which in turn sold some stores to Saker), so it's possible this was one of those stores since we don't see...

Wegmans Food Markets Opened: unknown Previous Tenants:  none Location:  240 Nassau Park Blvd, Princeton, NJ Photographed:  January 2021 Our final stop in Princeton is by far the largest at nearly 120,000 square feet. This Wegmans is located in the 120+ acre Nassau Park Pavilion, which is also home to TJ Maxx, Michaels, Target, Dick's Sporting Goods, Party City, Raymour & Flanigan, Best Buy, Home Goods, At Home, The Home Depot, and many more. It actually also has a recently-closed Walmart and a recently-closed Sam's Club. There are two enclosed malls nearby, the Quakerbridge Mall just to the south and MarketFair just to the north. The Wegmans competes with a Whole Foods (in a former Pathmark) and a Trader Joe's to the north, and a ShopRite just south. The ShopRite, of course, is a measly 78,000 square feet and that is tomorrow's tour right here on The Market Report!

Patel Brothers Owner: Swetal & Rakesh Patel Opened:  2017 Previous Tenants:  Genuardi's Cooperative:  none Location:  72 Princeton Hightstown Rd, East Windsor, NJ Photographed:  February 2021 Recognize that exterior? You very well may, because this Patel Brothers is in roughly half of a former Genuardi's supermarket. The 52,000 square foot building has been split almost exactly in half for a Patel Brothers on the right side and a Kohl's on the left side. Patel Brothers' entrance is in the glass tower, and while the exterior has barely been changed, the interior looks very different (but much like the past Patel Brothers we've toured). Patel's Fresh Kitchen is up first on the front wall, immediately inside the entrance. Produce lines the right side of the store, with dairy/refrigerated on the back and frozen in the last aisle to the left. As we see, unfortunately there doesn't seem to be anything much left from Genuardi's (except maybe some of the p...

Original Tenant: Thriftway Address: 660 Plainsboro Rd, Plainsboro, NJ Opened:  unknown Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  Asian Food Markets (??-2020) Photographed:  February 2021 Yesterday we saw the brand-new Asian Food Market in Plainsboro Plaza , and they moved out of this 20,000 square foot location a little more than a mile east of Plainsboro Plaza. If memory serves me, this store was built as a Thriftway in the 80s (or possibly a Shop n Bag?) and later became an AFM around 2000. This store had closed just about 6 months before I visited, right before the new one opened. Quite the difference between the new store's interior and this one's interior (see here and here ). So far, I haven't heard of any tenants (grocery or otherwise) that are interested in this space. Unlikely, I think, that another supermarket would be interested in the space. Here's the entrance/exit on the left side of the storefront. I'm unclear on what the layout was, but I believe the grand...

Original Tenant: SuperFresh Address: 10 Schalks Crossing Rd, Plainsboro, NJ Opened:  1988 Closed:  2000s Later Tenants:  Planet Fitness Photographed:  February 2021 We return to Plainsboro where A&P's SuperFresh division built a 40,000 square foot store in 1988 (pictured here). Around the early 2000s, SuperFresh moved into the former 82,000 square foot Caldor at the other end of the Plainsboro Plaza, then closed in 2013. In February 2018, Key Food owner Kevin Kim opened a new SuperFresh in 42,000 square feet of the space, coinciding with a renovation of the whole mall's facade (see before here ) which we toured back in July 201 8 . It then closed in October 2018, and by August 2020, the Asian Food Markets at the other end of town had moved into the space, closing their older location. The current Asian Food Markets is today's other post , and tomorrow we'll check out the former location here on Grocery Archaeology along with a small grocery store in the same st...