The Market Report

See, the wonderful thing about blogging about supermarkets is you can jump from state to state by just clicking on a different picture. If only it were that easy in real life. Here in the most densely populated state in the country, which I call home, it can be hard to imagine rural food deserts. Urban food deserts are common, but their main problem is the combination of population density, lack of transportation, and lack of food stores. In rural areas, population density and access to transportation are not as important considerations. The problem lies in the distance between stores. When I stayed in Mill Run, PA (the town where Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater is; about an hour outside of Pittsburgh) this past July, the nearest grocery store was Miller's Grocery , a tiny country store with the bare minimum selection of groceries and produce, and a deli, but no fresh meat. Visitors could, however, have as much of the smell of mildew and old cigarette smoke as they wan...

What happens when you take over a store that has promotional signage around? Well, you can put words in people's mouths... Key Food Marketplace (now Superfresh), Fairview, NJ ...you can encourage people to shop elsewhere... Fine Fare Supermarket (now Bell Farms), Belleville, NJ ...but whatever you do, you can't do the job well. Key Food Fairview again.

A Tale of Two Supermarkets Maplewood/Newark, NJ Part I: Extra Supermarket, Maplewood, NJ This is a great tour for the first post of our official second year of operation! Heading back to northern New Jersey for our next store tour -- this blog is called NJ Supermarkets, anyway! We're here in Maplewood, which is a somewhat strange town. Maplewood's downtown is easily one of the most pleasant walking downtowns in northern New Jersey (well, okay, it wasn't the day I was there because most of the street and sidewalk was closed for sewer system maintenance, but other times...) and many neighborhoods are very affluent. There is a tiny Kings Food Market in downtown Maplewood, obviously catering to the more affluent clientele. However, Maplewood also borders Union (middle-class), Newark (a pretty nice neighborhood), and Irvington (a lower-income city with unfortunately one of the highest crime rates in the state). The neighborhood where Extra is located is right where ...

Exactly one year ago today, the NJ Supermarkets blog began! Glad that I've made it a full year. Hey, that's better than some supermarkets. I think the blog has developed quite a bit from the start to today -- hopefully for the better. I started this blog thinking, "I wonder if I can do this?" I guess I can! This is the blog's 128th post, which is pretty amazing considering it seems like just yesterday I was writing my Welcome post. Thanks for reading...we're up to almost 21,000 views now! We'll be doing a "grand reopening" soon when I get all the new features up and running, so stay tuned! In the meantime, the discussion forums are now open and I'll have a new Store Tour tomorrow, as usual. And be sure to check out our new Facebook page at facebook.com/njsblog  for news updates and previews of what's to come here on the blog! I have a lot of cool stuff lined up to post there that won't be here on the blog. Oh, and by the way,...

BONUS!! These Bogopa croissants, made by a manufacturer in Canada, somehow found their way into the bread aisle of the Superfresh Food World in Belleville, NJ. Bogopa is the storebrand of Food Bazaar Supermarkets. We're back to the regular schedule on Monday with a new northern NJ store tour!

Here's a look at another former Grand Union, also in the Adirondacks. The small town of Schroon Lake, NY, is a vacation center and has one supermarket -- Tops, operating in a building built as a Grand Union. It closed in 2001 and was re-opened as Tops before they sold this location as part of a bundle to C&S Wholesale Grocers, which operated the store as a Grand Union Family Market. It was bought back by Tops sometime around 2012.  Looks like this store was built with a slightly more deluxe facade than most Grand Unions, and it matches the personality of the small town well.

One more store in the Hudson Valley area of New York. This store we've seen on Flickr before, and it's the independent Phoenicia Supermarket in the small town of Phoenicia, New York. The next closest supermarket is the Boiceville IGA . Unlike the Boiceville IGA, as far as I'm concerned, the Phoenicia Supermarket has no small-town charm. The building is interesting from the outside, and I like the paint job, but don't stand and admire it too long because the entire building has NO LOITERING signs all around. Now, I understand that in the middle of Newark, but come on. This is a small store in a small town in the Catskills. It gives first-time customers a bad feeling (that isn't changed on the inside). The interior is very small and cramped. There's a selection of the basics and a small deli, but it's more like a convenience store than a supermarket with its two soda refrigerators of produce and no fresh meat. The store uses mostly Parade product...

This was one of the last newly-built Grand Unions before the chain went under, and its exterior is distinctly GU. You can't miss those arched windows. However, the center tower with the awnings on either side is more like a Pathmark facade if you ask me. The carts are also distinctly Grand Union: At least those green and beige ones certainly are. The handles have Tops plastic things on them, but you can't fool me! The store as a Grand Union, from Chuck AKA GUStores4Ever on Flickr. This became a Grand Union Family Market in the bankruptcy, run by C&S Wholesale Grocers. With his pictures, we can do a little bit of a before-and-after of this store. (All of the GU pictures on this post are from his Flickr page.) BEFORE AFTER Heading in, you turn right to enter the produce department in the front corner. BEFORE AFTER The before is unquestionably better. That's a shame. AFTER The first aisle contains natural and organic product...