The Market Report

Original Tenant: Food Circus Foodtown Address: 853 NJ-35, Middletown, NJ Opened:  1956 Closed:  1991 Later Tenants:  Spirits Unlimited > Circus Wines Photographed:  January 2021 Nothing special about this 25,000 square foot former Foodtown, now a liquor store, here in Middletown, right? Wrong. The store closed in 1991 and doesn't appear to have had a replacement (Food Circus, now called Circus Fresh Foods, owns stores in Port Monmouth and Atlantic Highlands along the coast to the north, and Red Bank, Ocean, and Sea Girt to the south. They've had other stores around which have closed but we'll be seeing three of those four stores.) Now let's jump into this location... Very cool, barely visible neon sign for Circus Liquors which previously took up a narrow strip along the side of the building but is now the entire building. The property is massive, spanning well over six acres. It contains two outparcels and I'm pretty sure Circus could have comfortably built a 6...

Stop & Shop Opened: 2001 Previous Tenants:  Grand Union Location:  850 NJ-35 Photographed:  January 2021 Moving on to our two final stores in Middletown! This one is a 51,000 square foot Stop & Shop which opened in a former Grand Union in 2001. (I was actually surprised to find it's that large upon researching it on Google Maps, since it feels quite small in person -- although I didn't go in.) This is one of a handful of Stop & Shop stores in the northern Jersey Shore area, with their farthest-south shore store in Toms River. Make sure to check out our former store across the street here ! Up next, we're heading south down to the other side of the Navesink River, for a tour at our next two stops here on The Market Report !

Original Tenant: ShopRite Address: 1447 NJ-35, Middletown, NJ Opened:  1970s Closed:  1990s Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  January 2021 I'm a little unclear on where exactly the boundaries of this former ShopRite are, but it appears that this entire strip -- starting with what's now Furniture Town on the right, all the way through the Party Fair, Retro Fitness, and Walgreens spaces to the left -- was built as a 47,000 square foot Saker ShopRite in the 1970s with the mall. The store was later replaced by a 75,000 square foot, much more modern but poorly situated new store at the other end of the mall in the 1990s, which in turn was deemed too outdated (and too hard to get to, I'm sure) by around 2020 when construction of an all-new ShopRite began in a former Sears just across the highway. For a look at the current and future Middletown ShopRites, check out today's post over on The Market Report . Tomorrow, we're heading a bit east along 35 to see a small...

ShopRite of Middletown, NJ Owner: Richard Saker / Saker Supermarkets Opened:  1990s-2021 Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  Wakefern Food Corp. Location:  1361 NJ-35, Middletown, NJ Photographed:  January 2021 It's time for our next Saker ShopRite here in Middletown! The approximately 75,000 square foot store was built in the 1990s as a replacement for an older, approximately 47,000 square foot store at the other end of the mall.  Less than 30 years later, it's already been replaced by a brand-new , even larger store across the highway. It's in a former Sears, spanning over 120,000 square feet. We'll get a peek at the new facility at the end of this post. Like in many cases, though, I'm fairly certain the move is less about the size or age of the existing facility and more about the location. This is an extremely difficult mall to get into and out of, and you have to drive through the entire rest of the mall to get back to the ShopRite, which is right n...