The Market Report

Original Tenant:  ACME Markets Address: 300 Gordons Corner Rd, Manalapan, NJ Opened:  1970s Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  Rex-Gene Food Warehouse > Western Beef Supermarket > subdivided Photographed:  February 2021 I knew this 24,000 square foot space was a 1970s-era ACME, tucked away in the back of the Yorktowne Center in Manalapan, but I found while researching for the West Long Branch post that it had later become a Rex-Gene Food Warehouse and then a Western Beef (very briefly) before being subdivided into multiple spaces including a gym, as we see here. Check out the West Long Branch for more background on Rex-Gene and Western Beef. Make sure to see today's other post at the other end of the mall, Buddy's Marketplace , over on The Independent Edition. Tomorrow we're heading back over to route 9 to check out two more stores just to the north -- again, one here and one on  The Independent Edition !

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...

A Real Ethnic Warehouse Store Universal Supermarket - Rahway, NJ When big-chain American supermarkets' "idea of international foods selection is carrying both Ortega and Old El Paso" , it's quite a shock to step into Universal Meat Supermarket (the "meat" seems to be a holdover from its previous life as a Western Beef). Universal is a real ethnic store. As much as I like stores CitiGrocer and Supremo , they somehow don't have a true authentic feeling, and are extremely Americanized. When you enter this store, or Kam Man Foods , if you're looking for Chinese groceries, the experience is very different. This store opened as a Food Fair, which later became Pantry Pride. It later became a Rex-Gene supermarket, followed by a Western Beef. Universal opened some time around 2005. (Most of this information came from here . Also click to see a daylight photo.) Universal clearly did minimal, if any, renovations after opening in the old Western Be...