The Market Report

Tropical Supermarket Opened: October 11, 2024 Owner:  Ricardo Hernandez Previous Tenants:  Bravo Supermarkets (1983-2022) Cooperative:  Key Food Stores Location:  1245 W 7th St, South Plainfield, NJ Photographed:  October 19, 2024 Phew, this is a lot of posts today and this weekend. Ten posts between the two days! The full list is at the end of this post, by the way. And this is a late-breaking addition to the coverage, given that I only went to this store yesterday. It was definitely worth the visit, though. This is a brand-new small chain supermarket of just 15,000 square feet, joining a handful of other Tropical locations in North and Central Jersey. It opened earlier this month, replacing a Bravo that closed in 2022. Even back in 2020, when I visited that Bravo, it was clear the store was struggling and aging poorly. There's also another small grocer right across the street, Meat City Market . After an extensive renovation, Tropical has opened. The basic l...

Original Grocery Tenant: Bravo Supermarkets (?) Address: 1245 W 7th St, South Plainfield, NJ Opened:  1983 Closed:  2022 Later Tenants:  Tropical Supermarket (coming soon) Photographed:  March 3, 2023 Welcome back to South Plainfield! You may not remember our first visit here, so feel free to refresh your memory . Back in 2020, I saw an outdated, clearly struggling store and wondered how it was able to survive in that condition, not to mention with a smaller but better-run competitor all but across the street. Turns out it wasn't, and the store closed in 2022. Shortly thereafter, the landlord announced they had signed a lease with seven-store Key Food-affiliated chain Tropical Supermarkets. I visited in early March to find the store stripped of all of its Bravo branding, but no signage on the building itself. There was a sign at the end of the parking lot... ...but the massive sign for the strip mall had a giant blank panel at the top where the Bravo logo used to ...

Tropical Supermarket Owner: Ricardo Hernandez Opened:  ca. 2010 Previous Tenants:  CVS (1990s-2008) Cooperative:  Key Food Stores Location: 446 North Ave, Dunellen, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 The borough of Dunellen, with a population just over 7,000, is a pretty small town, but it does have a supermarket in its downtown. This Tropical Supermarket opened between 2008 and 2012 in a 9600 square foot former CVS, which relocated to route 22 in Green Brook in 2008. The ShopRite in town closed probably in the 80s, and part of it was taken over by a short-lived greengrocer shop, but otherwise Tropical is the only game in town. Of course, the ACME in Middlesex is just about half a mile away. We've seen quite a few of these Tropical locations around the state, and I must say they've been consistently impressive. This one was no different -- a small but well-appointed store with a good selection of almost everything, good fresh products, and good prices. Produce lines this...

Tropical Supermarket Owner: Ricardo Hernandez Opened:  unknown Previous Tenants:  ACME Markets Cooperative:  Key Food Stores Location:  720 Hamilton St, Somerset, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 A little more than half of this 1950s-era ACME is now home to a Tropical Supermarket, whose North Brunswick and South River locations we saw most recently. The store clocks in at just over 10,000 square feet, and it seems to me that this was the first Tropical location (though I don't know that for sure). The building has been remodeled on the outside, but still has that signature 1950s ACME look to it. Unlike the other Tropical locations, this was not previously a Bravo or a Fine Fare. Instead, this appears to have been branded Tropical for its entire life, although as we'll see the interior has been redone more recently. Before we head in, though, there's a lot to see on the outside... The store's delivery van is actually labeled with the Paterson, NJ Key Food location ...