The Market Report

Supreme Food Market Owner: Eddie Trujillo Opened: 2016 Previous Tenants:  GEX > Kmart (closed 2003) > Supremo Food Market (ca. 2003-ca. 2005) > Shop n Bag (ca. 2005-2016) Cooperative:  none Location:  7500 S Crescent Blvd, Pennsauken, NJ Photographed:  January 2021 We arrive at the final Pennsauken store which is also the last Supremo we'll see in New Jersey -- and yes, we've seen every Supremo in NJ along with all the former stores. This one is a bit different from the other Supremos that we've seen because, although I knew at the time it was really large, I didn't realize that the store (along with its associated wholesale warehouse division next door) makes up 70,000 square feet -- or almost double the next largest Supremo. This store and its strip mall were built on the site of an airport and was built as a GEX membership warehouse store , later Kmart, which closed in 2003. Supremo opened shortly thereafter, making this their second store in Pennsauken...

Original Tenant: Penn Fruit Address: 3949 US-130, Pennsauken, NJ Opened:  1950s Closed:  1970s Later Tenants:  Jewel T > subdivided Photographed:  January 2021 This unnamed strip mall at US-130 and Federal Street in Pennsauken is constructed around a roughly 16,000 square foot arched-roof Penn Fruit, which was later expanded to about 31,000 square feet. That became a Jewel T discount food store, and was later subdivided with Family Dollar taking the left side and part of the Save-A-Lot in the right side. The rest of the Save-A-Lot may have been a bank or other smaller business next to the supermarket. An overview of the whole strip mall from a conveniently-placed pedestrian walkway over route 130. You see how there's a raised section in the middle of Family Dollar's ceiling? I couldn't quite figure out what that is when I was in the store, but I think it's in the middle of the arch where the building roof is higher. The rest of the ceiling is much lower, as we ...

Save-A-Lot Owner: John Leevers / Leevers Supermarkets Opened: early 2000s Previous Tenants:  Penn Fruit > Jewel T Location:  3949 US-130, Pennsauken, NJ Photographed:  January 2021 You can recognize that arch anywhere! Part of this Save-A-Lot was originally a Penn Fruit, which you can read more about here . But the Save-A-Lot -- which today appears to be around 15,000 square feet -- unfortunately doesn't have any remnants of Penn Fruit inside, as far as I could tell based on a quick visit. Save-A-Lot really doesn't interest me, but I will say that the recent (and ongoing) switch to independent ownership does make the chain significantly more interesting. This was one of 17 stores acquired in April 2021 by Colorado-based Leevers Supermarkets. This store had not yet been remodeled by Leevers at the time of my visit, but my understanding is that they have a very different approach than corporate Save-A-Lot did. We see clear signs of maintenance neglect here, with the be...

Original Tenant: Mayfair Foodtown Address: 5100 N Crescent Blvd, Pennsauken, NJ Opened:  unknown Closed:  1991 Later Tenants:  unidentified Thriftway (1991-mid 90s) > Brown's Thriftway (mid 90s-1999) > Supremo Food Market (1999-ca. 2010) > Trujillo Thriftway (ca. 2010-ca. 2015) Photographed:  January 2021 This store, located at the corner of Browning Road and Crescent Boulevard (route 130) in Pennsauken, has quite the history which I'm going to attempt to piece together here. The earliest tenant I could find for the property was Mayfair Foodtown, which may or may not have been the original tenant (Mayfair, and Foodtown in general, tended to move into closed stores rather than build their own, but it's hard to say here). Mayfair closed in 1991 here, selling the store to a Thriftway owner who I haven't been able to identify. By the mid-1990s, that owner went bankrupt and the store was sold to a former ShopRite owner, later Melmarkets Foodtown executive, Stev...

Associated Supermarkets Owner: Frank Mejia Opened: 2015 Previous Tenants:  Costa's IGA Cooperative:  Associated Supermarket Group Location: 6100 Westfield Ave, Pennsauken, NJ Photographed:  January 2021 Welcome to Pennsauken! It's the suburb immediately to the east of Camden which is also its own town with its own business districts. At one time, it's where the owners of the factories in Camden lived and still has higher and lower end neighborhoods, with Mansion Boulevard intact today but with few mansions on it nowadays. In a very broad generalization, the township's makeup is roughly 50% white, 25% Black, and 25% Latino, with median household income at around $60,000 but based on my observations there's a lot of deviation in both directions from that MHI. Now, that's a lot of different populations living all together in a relatively small area, and it really looked like this store made an effort to cater, at least a little bit, to all of them. This store was ...