The Market Report

Universal Food Markets Opened:  December 2024 Owner:  Mukesh Patel Previous Tenants:  Super El Rey Supermarket Cooperative:  Key Food Stores Location:  80 3rd St, Elizabeth, NJ Photographed:  March 29, 2024 and May 8, 2025 Greetings from Elizabethport, the waterfront neighborhood of Elizabeth, New Jersey, just south of Newark. (In fact, the Newark Airport -- in the news lately because of its extreme delays and flight traffic controller shortage -- is about half in Newark and half in Elizabeth.) Elizabethport is separated from the rest of the city by interstate 95, and is bounded by industrial areas to the north and south but is itself a largely residential neighborhood. It has two small supermarkets, a Superfood Marketplace on First Street and a couple blocks north, this small Key Food-affiliated supermarket on Third Street. 2024 The roughly 7000 square foot store had been Super El Rey for a long time, and possibly other supermarkets before that, but I don...

Hackensack Market Owner:  Dilip Patel Opened:  by 2000, 2004 under current ownership Cooperative:  Key Food Stores Location:  120 Passaic St, Hackensack, NJ Photographed:  July 23, 2023 and June 4, 2022 Welcome to the Hackensack Market! This store appears to have opened in the 1990s -- although a store called the Hackensack Market had existed near the corner of Main and Passaic, a few blocks east, as far back as 1914 and I'm not sure if there was any relation. But this building at 120 Passaic St was an Oldsmobile dealer until roughly the late 1980s or early 1990s, with the supermarket opening around the end of the 90s. It also appears to have been sold in 2004, which is likely when Universal Food Markets bought the store. Although I'm not sure, the Dilip Patel who I see listed as an owner for this store might be the same person as the Philip Patel who owns the other Universal-affiliated store in town. I have two photosets of this store, one from the summer of 2...