The Market Report

Ideal Food Basket Owner: Juan Diaz Opened:  April 28, 2023 Previous Tenants:  Food Fair (closed 1979) > Food Lane (1979-2001) > Ahart's Market (2001-2021) Cooperative:  America's Food Basket Location:  410 Montclair Ave, South Side, Bethlehem, PA Photographed:  August 25, 2023 Wrapping up this weekend with a look at the Ideal Food Basket in Bethlehem! We've been tracking this store from its time as an Ahart's , then its progress as an Ideal here and here . At just 18,000 square feet, this is a rather small supermarket, but Ideal has transformed it from its days as a dingy, neglected Ahart's to a spacious, modern supermarket. We enter with a refrigerator of deli and baked goods on the left, with sale items and the Beer Cave (plus a small cafe) on the right. Deli/bakery lines the right side of the grand aisle with produce on the left. Meat is on the back wall, and dairy/frozen are on the left side of the store. I was absolutely blown away by how different ...

Ideal Food Basket Owner: Juan Diaz Opened:  April 28, 2023 Previous Tenants:  Food Fair (closed 1979) > Food Lane (1979-2001) > Ahart's Market (2001-2021) Cooperative:  America's Food Basket Location:  410 Montclair Ave, South Side, Bethlehem, PA Photographed:  April 10, 2023 Contributor:  Lucas Finzi The Ideal Food Basket in the former Bethlehem Ahart's opened yesterday. Our friend Lucas was on-site a few weeks ago to check out the store in its final phases of preparation right before it opened, and we see that Ideal did a major renovation on the place, inside and out. While I haven't gotten to the store since my recent coverage, I'm hoping to check it out this summer. In the meantime, you can see a few pictures from WFMZ from Allentown, and Lucas might be able to return to get some interior photos before I can! As you can see, the entire property has been transformed, and if you look at the WFMZ pictures, you can see absolutely nothing is left o...

Original Grocery Tenant:  Hall's Grocery Address: 39 N 7th St, Easton, PA Opened:  1969 Closed:  ca. 2018 Later Tenants:  none Photographed:  January 8, 2021 You'd barely even know this space was home for many decades to a small grocer, now that the store has closed up shop, except for the Pepsi vending machine out front which is a bit odd to just have in front of someone's house. What I didn't realize when I was there is that the store actually had its entrance here in this building but most of the store seems to have been to the side, next door in the area with yellow siding that we can see in this street view when apparently the store was still in business. Sadly, this is all that's left these days, and I couldn't get a good look inside the store. But that wraps up our look at the Lehigh Valley! Tomorrow we're going to see some updates and special reports, and then after that we're off to the Stroudsburg area!

Original Grocery Tenant: A&P Address: 1520 Northampton St, Easton, PA Opened:  1950s (?) Closed:  1983 Later Tenants:  ShopRite (possible?) > Cramer's Home Center (1980s-1998) > CVS (1998- ) Photographed:  January 8, 2021 This 17,000 square foot store was clearly a centennial A&P, but interestingly enough also has an arched roof behind that facade with a small flat section on either side, suggesting it may actually have been an earlier build converted to a centennial in the 1960s. According to JoshAustin610 , it may have later become a ShopRite before a series of non-grocery tenants, most recently CVS. We have one more stop in the Lehigh Valley before we move on, which is a small former grocery store just north of center city Easton that we'll be seeing tomorrow right here on Grocery Archaeology!

Los Compdres Mini Market Owner:  Edward Ovalle Opened:  2013 Cooperative:  none Location:  1649 Washington Ave, Easton, PA Photographed:  January 8, 2021 That's quite the building exterior! This structure was built in the 1950s as a Food Fair, and I would recommend reading JoshAustin610's description of its history here . What he identifies as a former video store is now a small grocery store on the left side of the building, taking up maybe 3,000 square feet of the roughly 12,000 square foot building. It's not hard to tell this building was a grocery store, since it has all of the trademark features but also the beautiful marquee-style feature over what used to be the main entrance (see this example in Trenton for another similar design). The side of the building is clearly an old supermarket, though, between the columns and the bricked-over windows! What appears to be the former Food Fair entrance is now the entrance to Los Compadres Mini Market, a small bode...

Grocery Outlet Owner: Dane & Natalie Sanford Opened:  2018 Previous Tenants:  assorted non-grocery tenants Location:  2541 Nazareth Rd, Easton, PA Photographed:  January 8, 2021 It's time for another Grocery Outlet! We saw one back in Philadelphia , and this promising hard-discount format is quickly growing in the Philadelphia/New Jersey area. The most recent opening in the area was in Hazlet, NJ, just next to the former ALDI we saw when we were down there. (I suppose I shouldn't say the format is promising as it's already been proven successful in this area and elsewhere, instead, it seems to be a successful addition to this area's competitive grocery market.) I visited my first Grocery Outlet ever back in 2015 in Allentown and was rather impressed. Unlike other discount stores that rely primarily on private label products, Grocery Outlet has a mix of storebrand and name brand items, and this 25,000 square foot store is a pleasant example of one of their newer ...