The Market Report

Trader Joe's Opened: 2019 Previous Tenants:  unknown (not grocery) Location:  110 Brick Plaza, Brick, NJ Photographed:  November 2019 Our first store of the day is the Trader Joe's at Brick Plaza. Brick (formerly known as Bricktown) is home to quite a few grocery stores, among them ShopRite, Stop & Shop in a former Grand Union, LIDL, ALDI, and a Corrado's in a former Pathmark. I've had family in Brick for my whole life, so I have visited many of those stores but I haven't gotten to photograph many of them. We saw a quick look at a small farmers market in Brick back in 2019, but today we have this Trader Joe's and an independent grocery store out towards Mantoloking. The Brick Plaza was also previously home to an A&P, which never received a Fresh remodel. And that wraps up our look at the shore! Hopefully someday I'll get back and get more solid coverage of the southern part of the shore, but for now this will have to do. Up next we'll be circ...

ShopRite of Belmar Owner: Richard Saker / Saker Supermarkets Opened:  unknown-2021 Previous Tenants:  unknown Cooperative:  Wakefern Food Corp. Location:  1801 NJ-35, Belmar, NJ Photographed:  December 2020 Today's store tour is really something special! At only 29,000 square feet, it has to be one of the smallest ShopRites out there, if not the smallest. This was built as a Penn Fruit (the other Penn Fruit-turned-ShopRites are Village in Essex Green , which stood on the property where the current store is; and Glass in Paramus , which was abandoned for years before being demolished). Styertowne confirms that it is indeed a former Penn Fruit, but I'll add one thing to their history: this store would've had to have become a ShopRite before the other two did in 1976. Note that this photo from The Star-Ledger shows the store, probably in the late 70s, with the ShopRite logo featuring the silhouette of a woman with a shopping cart instead of just a stylized shopp...

Original Tenant: Rex-Gene Food Warehouse Address: 136 Monmouth Rd, West Long Branch, NJ Opened:  unknown Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  unsure of exact location Photographed:  January 2021 Bear with me on this one. I am fairly certain that this 26,000 square foot segment at the far right of the Kmart of West Long Branch was previously a Rex-Gene Food Warehouse -- but I am not entirely convinced that the Rex-Gene wasn't at the far left side of the Kmart, since I recall reading that Kmart expanded into the Rex-Gene space. The Kmart closed in early 2020 and, to my knowledge, remains vacant. Rex-Gene is not a chain about which there is a lot of information on the internet, but I'm going to give a few details here. The chain originated in Brooklyn and later expanded to New Jersey, eventually moving their headquarters to Red Bank. I am unsure how many stores Rex-Gene had at its peak, but by early 1998, they were down to five: Berkeley, West Long Branch, Rahway , Sayrev...

ShopRite of West Long Branch Owner: Richard Saker / Saker Supermarkets Opened:  1973 Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  Wakefern Food Corp. Location:  145 Monmouth Rd, West Long Branch, NJ Photographed:  January 2021 Here we go with our first "shore" ShopRite! Like so many ShopRites in this part of the state, the West Long Branch store is owned by Saker Supermarkets, but is not their latest prototype. In fact, this one is a few models ago, having been built in 1973 as a replacement for a gorgeous arched-roof store nearby. Most of the Saker stores have one of the latest three prototypes -- see #1 (~2010s) , #2 (~2000s) , and #3 (~1990s) . If my memory serves me, only this store, Edison, and Freehold remain with the 1970s design. The interior, however, has been remodeled, probably last in the 90s. I think it's fairly likely Saker is preparing to move over to the former Kmart space just across the street. (That's our other store for the day, since it also had...