The Market Report

Food Universe Marketplace Opened: 2023 Owner: Teofilo de Jesus Previous Tenants: Grand Union > Rite Aid Cooperative: Key Food Stores Location:  435 Lexington Ave, Clifton, NJ Photographed: September 12, 2026 Welcome back to the Clifton Food Universe! (Scroll down to the bottom of this post to see my previous update.) On that post back in June, I was wondering about the renovations here that left the layout kind of odd and the flooring all broken up. I am very pleased to report that remodeling has continued and the store is looking much better these days. In other words, this remodel ended up being much more extensive than I thought it would be. That's clear here in produce, with new display tables and refrigeration, but also a nice new floor that continues throughout the store. A juice bar, bakery, hot food bar, newly-expanded deli, and seafood line the left side wall with meat on the back wall, and dairy/frozen on the right side. Packaged baked goods are in the front-right...

SuperFresh Opened: August 20, 2026 Owner: Sam & Randy Abed Previous Tenants:  Fair-Mart Supermarkets (1960s) > Rite Aid Cooperative: Key Food Stores Location: 185 Kings Hwy, Brooklyn, NY Photographed: September 4, 2026 It's been a while, so let's see another supermarket in a former drugstore. (Drugstore closures don't seem to be as frequent lately, meaning that less space is available to open a new supermarket in.) One that's been in progress for a while, since at least last year or so, is this store of around 13,000 square feet. As you might be able to tell from the look of the outside, prior to Rite Aid, this was in fact a supermarket. The only one I could confirm was Fair-Mart, which was here in the 1960s, but it's likely there were other operators over the years. This store joins two other recent Key Food openings, which you can see all of in the links at the end of this post. And speaking of Key Food, you might notice that the interior looks quite a...

Original Grocery Tenant: Buffum's Supermarket Address: 112 Rockingham St, Bellows Falls, VT Opened: between 1956 and 1962 Closed: after 1995 Later Tenants:  Rite Aid > Walgreens Photographed: August 10, 2021 Bellows Falls, Vermont is a quaint small town along the Connecticut River, where the water cuts through a gorge on the border between Vermont and New Hampshire. For decades, the town was served by an A&P supermarket (later Grand Union) as well as this independent, Buffum's Supermarket. This space is around 15,000 square feet, apparently constructed by Buffum's between 1956 and 1962, though it looks like it might've replaced an older building on the same property. From the closure of Buffum's until 2010, Bellows Falls didn't have a full-size supermarket, it seems, though there was a small corner grocer called Lisai's Red & White. In 2010, Lisai's moved into the former A&P building, and that'll be tomorrow's post! But befor...

Foodtown Opened: July 2026 Owner: Abed and/or Elayyan families Previous Tenants: Rite Aid Cooperative: Allegiance Retail Location: 6900 9th Ave, Brooklyn, NY Photographed: July 15, 2026 A new Foodtown! Even though the Allegiance Retail cooperative doesn't seem to be in the greatest shape lately (you can read more of my musings here , if you're so inclined), they've still had a couple of notable store openings lately. That includes those two in Philadelphia but also a couple of Foodtown locations in New York. Most recently, Brooklyn Harvest Markets has opened a Foodtown in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. This 9,000 square foot supermarket was previously a Rite Aid and underwent an extensive renovation to transform it into a Foodtown affiliated with Brooklyn Harvest Markets (which also has a location in Bay Ridge, formerly The Food Emporium ). As that group has expanded, under the ownership of the Abed and Elayyan families, execution in their stores has really varied. Some are ru...