The Market Report

The Market Report is heading down to sunny Florida for the first time! We'll be taking a look at nine supermarkets, plus two non-grocery stores in and around the city of Tampa, FL. There are, of course, fewer cooperatives in Florida than in the NYC metro area meaning that the independent grocery stores are less organized than in this area (less likely to use a storebrand, less likely to use a standardized circular). It also signals a significant divide between the ethnic markets and the chain stores, where one does not really intrude on the other's territory. For instance, Bravo Supermarkets, a White Plains, NY-based cooperative run by Krasdale Foods, acts in the NYC metro area as a traditional supermarket with significant ethnic offerings in ethnic neighborhoods. At least in the Tampa area, Bravo's stores are larger (as they are less densely located), but much less of a general supermarket. And while in the NYC Metro area, you can be assured that the vast majority of...

Original Grocery Tenant: A&P Address: 66 Morris St, Morristown, NJ Opened: 1960s Closed: late 1970s Later Tenants:  subdivided; now demolished Photographed: October 8, 2017 Morristown, NJ has at least two former A&Ps. There are definitely two former Centennial model stores. One of the two is now a Whole Foods Market and is located at 125 Washington St, Morristown, NJ . The Washington St location was just outside of downtown to the west, but there was another that did not make it as long as Washington at 66 Morris St, Morristown, NJ, just east of downtown. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the facade renovation. It's a little cartoony for me. The right half of the building has been converted into a health food store, originally Grassroots Market (which retains a second, and original, location in Denville), and later Green Life Market. As we see in the following 2016 Google Maps street view, Grassroots' sign was not, um, easy to read, especially since the bui...

In the historical Portuguese center of New Jersey -- Newark's Ironbound section -- there are five, count 'em, five , supermarkets owned by the Seabra family. There are two branches: Seabra Foods (formerly "A&J Seabra Foods") 123 Ferry St, Newark, NJ, 219 Chestnut St, Newark, NJ, 83 Wilson Ave, Newark, NJ, and Seabra's Market (formerly "A Seabra Foods") 260 Lafayette St, Newark, NJ (plus better pictures on Yelp ), and 64 Pacific St, Newark, NJ. This location is at 123 Ferry St, Newark, NJ. It's the smallest of all of them, as well as the newest. One of the Seabra restaurants is also directly across the street. The two share a private parking lot behind the supermarket. This location was previously a business called Portugalia Sales, which advertised Gifts and Electronics on its storefront in this 2009 Google Maps street view.

Aside from yesterday's post, we've been pretty solidly in New Jersey. Now let's hop down to Virginia for a quick look at the Shoppers Food Warehouse at 1505 Stafford Marketplace, Stafford, VA. The store looks huge, although I did not go in. This location opened on October 5, 2003 as a replacement for an older location in Stafford, which you can read more about here . Shoppers is owned by SuperValu, which is increasingly retreating to its wholesale business after the failure or sale of many of its retail operations.

We're really all over the place geographically lately. (By the way, insider intel...in about a week, we're starting a completely new geographic region I've never covered here before!) For this post, we're jumping back to North Carolina, just a few miles from Carrboro , to the small upscale city of Chapel Hill. This 22,000-square-foot building started life as a 1950s or 60s A&P and by 1997 had been subdivided, although that likely occurred before 1997. Today, the former supermarket has been split into a bookstore and a small gourmet market/café. On the inside, there are a few A&P traits, but the exterior of the building still is largely original. The facade has been altered slightly, but retains its original structure. Closeup of The Root Cellar, the market. And the bookstore in the left side of the building. The Root Cellar has added a canopy for seating in front. Presumably, there would have been parking all along the front of the store when A...

The Market Report was on the scene almost two years ago to photograph the then-under construction supermarket at the Pointe Grande Plaza at 838 E Grand St, Elizabeth, NJ, and again when its first tenant, Supermarkets Plus IGA opened in May 2017. The store was officially out of business by late July 2018 and was quickly replaced by Extra Supermarkets, a five-store chain. Extra did not do any renovations, really -- what is there to do to a new-build store not even a year and a half old? -- but is currently in the process of stocking the shelves and will probably open within the next week. Graphics and window signs have been replaced and the storefront is awaiting a lit Extra sign. If you zoom in, you can even see where the Supermarkets Plus sign was. The bakery, immediately inside to the left, remains empty, but the deli is beginning to be stocked. Meat and produce are partially stocked as well. The grocery shelves are ready to go, and contain Parade private label products. T...

Back in June, we saw a tour of the Food Depot supermarket in Newark. The store operates with a sister store in Kearny. Unfortunately, the success of Food Depot doesn't seem to have made it out of the Newark/Kearny area. Dover previously had two Bravo Supermarkets, one here and one at 36-42 W Blackwell St . The West Blackwell location remains in operation, but this one at 120 E Blackwell St didn't make it. Up until somewhere around 2010, this store was operating as a store called Pre-Unic Supermarket (I have no idea what that name means). A 2013 Google Maps street view shows us Pre-Unic, closed up. (It's in business in the 2007 view, but there's a big VMS in front of the store, obscuring the view.) By 2016, the store was fitted with a new Fresh Meats & Produce Supermarket sign, along with Food Depot signs for parking on the right side of the building. My 2017 visit shows that the building has remained vacant but has been painted. I wonder if another tenan...

This small market in Roselle is just up the street from the huge ShopRite of Elizabeth and operates a space previously occupied by a bakery outlet for Wonder Bread and Hostess cakes. This store, located at 445 First Ave in Roselle, is in a neighborhood where light industrial buildings border residential neighborhoods (to the left above). Looks like it's a pretty complete grocery store. I haven't been inside but I do hope to sometime.

A few old bags that were hanging around in my house, as old shopping bags tend to do. A pre-2002 ShopRite bag from the Can Can sale... A Walmart bag emphasizing what a good corporate citizen Walmart is (ahem...) And a Kings bag featuring their rather lengthy slogan, "From Every Day to Fabulous Gourmet - Expect the Unexpected at Kings!"

A (pretty old) photo of the original Corrado's, a small chain of unremarkable gourmet-leaning markets in Passaic County, NJ. There's nothing wrong with Corrado's, and I'll acknowledge that I've never been to this one, but based on the Fairfield location, the store seems to focus on a rather random selection upscale-type but not particularly interesting foods, lots and lots of a pretty small variety of fresh produce at decent prices, and what does look to be a pretty fantastic cheese selection. My opinion? Skip it and find a farmer's market.

Back in May, I got an email from the same person who sent in photos of the Aquí Market in Califon, NJ asking if I would be interested in photos of the Foodtown in Denville. Of course! So all the photos in this post are courtesy of Gerry K. This is a store I'd been to, but before I started taking pictures. Foodtown , or Dickerson's Market, has been in Denville since 1893, operating first a small general store before building the existing supermarket in the 1950s. Although the store has been renovated slightly over the years, it's still an amazing step back in time -- but not, by any means, outdated. That makes perfect sense, right? Either way, this is still a great store and worth a stop if you're in the area. The most recent change has been painting the facade of the strip. It used to be blue/turquoise and was not, um, particularly attractive. The new paint job makes the building look pretty good, and blend in with the suburban-bordering-on-rural area. I ...