The Market Report

ACME Markets Opened:  2015 Previous Tenants:  A&P (ca. 2005-2015) Location:  5774 Berkshire Valley Rd, Oak Ridge, Jefferson, NJ Photographed:  July 2020  Around 2005, A&P moved from a smaller store built in the 1960s and then significantly expanded in the 90s into this 61,000 square foot new-build location just next door. This seemed to be a big moneymaker for A&P, what with the major renovations on the older location and then this major new replacement store. Unfortunately, these days the store seems to be pretty slow -- it competes with an incredible new ShopRite about seven miles west in Sparta, which we'll tour when we move into Sussex County, and seems to have taken a big hit from that store's presence; but also deals with an older ShopRite and Weis just to the north in Franklin roughly the same distance away and then the Kinnelon Stop & Shop just about eight miles to the east. This store's competition was the source of a series of rather ...

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 ...

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...