The Market Report

ShopRite of Knorr St Owner: David Zallie Opened:  ca. 1980 Previous Tenants:  Food Fair (ca. 1960s-late 1970s) Cooperative:  Wakefern Food Corp. Location:  6725 Frankford Ave, Mayfair, Philadelphia, PA Photographed:  December 2021 Just next door from yesterday's Save-A-Lot is this ShopRite, an early 80s store in a former Food Fair. Given the store's outdated exterior (and only recently was it switched over to the new logo, which officially was introduced in 2002), the interior is surprisingly up-to-date but you can tell that the building is older. Despite the fact that the store has been exensively expanded, it's still only around 38,000 square feet. In 2020, a conflict between the two branches of the Zallie family, both of which owned ShopRite stores, led to a settlement involving David Zallie acquiring all of the Zallie family stores. If I'm not mistaken, this was one of the stores that he owned before the settlement. Just about 3/10 of a mile west on Fran...

Save-A-Lot Owner: Leevers Supermarkets Opened:  2021 under current ownership, 2013 previously Previous Tenants:  assorted non-grocery tenants Location:  6801 Frankford Ave, Mayfair, Philadelphia, PA Photographed:  December 2021 Today's snapshot is a quick look at the Save-A-Lot on Frankford Ave in the Mayfair section. The 18,000 square foot store opened around 2013 in what doesn't appear to have been a supermarket ever before, and it's a pretty tough location because it's directly next door to a ShopRite that we'll see tomorrow. We see it in the above photo in December 2021, just a few months after it was acquired by Colorado-based Leevers Supermarkets. During Save-A-Lot's transition from retailer to wholesaler, the Philadelphia area stores were all sold either to Save Philly Stores or to Leevers Supermarkets, an odd choice given that the rest of their stores are in Colorado (I assume there's a family member out here or something). While we see that they up...

Seabra's Market Owner: Jose Seabra Opened:  2018 Cooperative:  Key Food Stores Location:  1350 Galloping Hill Rd, Union, NJ Photographed:  July 29, 2022 We are returning to the Seabra's Market at Five Points in Union , which is a former A&P, later Foodtown and Food King before being purchased by A Seabra Foods, which in turn rebranded to Seabra's Market in 2018. The store has been shuffled around a little, and there are a few indications that Seabra's might be finding the 30,500 square foot store a bit large for them. Their other large store is the Lafayette Street location in the Ironbound, which with its various extensions and expansions comes in right around 30,000 square feet too. But that store is in the Ironbound, with a dense urban surrounding and a very large Portuguese population. The other big change to report on here at Union is that the Union and Elizabeth locations of Seabra's Market are now affiliated with Key Food, no longer Associated Supermark...

ACME Markets Opened: 2016 Previous Tenants:  A&P (1990s-2015) Location:  550 Myrtle Ave, Boonton, NJ Photographed:  July 2022 Today's update is a quick stop at the Boonton ACME. We toured the store with 2020 pictures in 2021 (clarification: pictures from the year 2020, not a store tour with a total of 2,020 pictures; that would be excessive, even for me). Not much has changed since the store's opening in 2016 or that tour, but the produce department was reset at some point with new fixtures. It looks... fine. I was hoping they'd replace the flooring here at some point. Check out the difference in produce between Kenilworth (old floor) and Warren (new floor). I still think this decor is also... fine, but rather bland. Compared with what's going on at other Albertsons divisions, this is not particularly impressive. And we see some new refrigerators in the deli department. Again, not all that exciting, but pretty much just the same fixture updates we've seen at...

No. 1 Asian Supermarket Owner: unknown Opened:  2018 Cooperative:  none Location:  2842 St Vincent St, Mayfair, Philadelphia, PA Photographed:  July 2021 Not a great shot, but a picture nonetheless of the No. 1 Asian Supermarket just off of Roosevelt Blvd in Mayfair, Philadelphia. The 52,000 square foot building appears to be home to the supermarket and a food court. A while back, the space was home to National Wholesale Liquidators, then by 2012 the First Northeast International Market, which closed and was reopened by 2017 as the First Oriental Supermarket. And by late 2018, it had become the No. 1 Asian Supermarket. Out of curiosity, anybody know what this space was before National Wholesale Liquidators? (I remember going to their Linden, NJ location -- previously a Pathmark and later a Foodtown -- when I was little and loving their toy department.) These days, the No. 1 Asian Supermarket looks a little plain but large and nice inside. If you're interested in As...

Original Tenant: A&P Address: 7201 Roosevelt Blvd, Mayfair, Philadelphia, PA Opened:  unknown Closed:  by 1983 Later Tenants:  Today's Man > K&G Photographed:  July 2021 A beautiful summer evening sky is the perfect backdrop to today's former A&P at the northern part of the Mayfair neighborhood. It appears that the store was originally constructed as a 15,000 square foot arched roof store, then later expanded out both sides to its present 23,000 square feet. If I had to guess, I'd bet that this store was constructed right before the centennial era, then expanded right after the centennial era, since there's no indication this store ever had any centennial characteristics. It doesn't appear that this store made it to the 1983 conversion of all Philadelphia area A&Ps to SuperFresh, but unfortunately my reliable source JoshAustin610 has little more information to offer about the supermarket. Looks like it's been clothing retailers since. A...

Double Tree Market Owner: unknown Opened:  2016 Cooperative:  none Location:  3500 Cottman Ave, Mayfair, Philadelphia, PA Photographed:  July 2021 Just up the street from yesterday's former Penn Fruit is this small grocer, which looks to be in the range of roughly 1600 square feet. It's really more of a convenience store or a bodega than a supermarket, but there are so many small independent grocers like this one throughout Philadelphia. The balance of Philadelphia is very different from the balance of grocery stores in New York City, which I'm more familiar with -- NY has many more supermarkets, but they're much smaller . Philadelphia has fewer, but much larger , supermarkets. Okay, those are extreme examples, but you get the point. I'm sure this spot has been a grocery store for many decades, but prior to Double Tree's opening in 2016, it was the Party Time Deli & Grocery. Tomorrow, we're headed up to Roosevelt Blvd (US-1) for our first of two stores...

Original Tenant:  Penn Fruit Address: 4011 Cottman Ave, Mayfair, Philadelphia, PA Opened:  ca. 1950s Closed:  by 1979 Later Tenants:  Rite Aid > Drug Palace > Rite Aid Photographed:  July 2021 Today we're in the northeastern part of the Mayfair neighborhood for a look at a Penn Fruit (without the signature arched roof, since apparently this one was built before they adopted that building style). The 15,000 square foot building was actually constructed as a replacement for an older Penn Fruit store just across the parking lot at 7303 Frankford Ave , also later home to a Rite Aid before they moved into this Penn Fruit store, and now a post office. You can read all about the history of both locations over on JoshAustin610's page here . I mentioned in yesterday's post  that full supermarkets are fairly scarce in these neighborhoods in this part of Philadelphia, but there are many small grocers that are more like convenience stores or bodegas, with grocer...

ShopRite of Bridge & Harbison Owner: Peter Ammons Opened:  2018 Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  Wakefern Food Corp. Location:  5597 Tulip St, Wissinoming, Philadelphia, PA Photographed:  July 2021 Hello everybody, hope you had a great weekend! We are here in the southeastern part of Frankford, or what might be considered Wissinoming, just a block in from I-95 to tour what I believe is Philadelphia's newest ShopRite. (GIANT, LIDL, and ALDI are currently the big movers and shakers as far as building and opening new stores, while ShopRite/Fresh Grocer, ACME, and the others are fairly stagnant at the moment.) The Ammons family opened this roughly 80,000 square foot new-build ShopRite on a former industrial site in 2018. And I'm all for supporting small family businesses and mom and pop shops, but this neighborhood truly didn't have any supermarket at all prior to the ShopRite's opening. The other options include the famous Frankford Holiday Thriftway (clos...