The Market Report

Stop & Shop Opened: 2001 Owner: Ahold Delhaize Previous Tenants: Edwards (late 1990s-2001) Cooperative: none Location: 245 Littleton Rd, Morris Plains, NJ Photographed: October 10, 2026 Welcome to the latest Stop & Shop renovation! This store opened in the late 1990s as an Edwards, becoming a Stop & Shop in the early 00s when the chain rebranded. It got a full renovation in the mid-00s or so before getting some other fix-ups over time, and this store has always struck me as being kept up really well. Now, it's getting another overhaul. You can see some "before" pictures here on my original post. The 67,000 square foot store seems to do fine and be kept in really good shape despite (or perhaps because of) its very close proximity to multiple other very busy supermarkets. Here in the grand aisle, the produce department looks like it's been reset and the walls have been painted, but the real renovation work hasn't yet made it to the deli and prepare...

LIDL Opened: September 30, 2026 Owner: Schwarz Group Previous Tenants: various non-grocery tenants Cooperative:  none Location: 1545 Forest Ave, Staten Island, NY Photographed: October 9, 2026 Welcome to Staten Island, where we're checking out another new NYC LIDL ! This store is just shy of 20,000 square feet, making it in line with LIDL's current new stores but smaller than the stores LIDL was opening in its earlier days. For comparison, Staten Island's other LIDL (which I haven't posted) opened in 2018 at a much larger size of 36,000 square feet. You can also see that the decor is seriously scaled down here, so much as to be almost invisible (whose idea was it to put dark green lettering on a dark blue wall?). Part of that is the low ceiling, but it also feels like LIDL is trying to push its stores lower-end -- and therefore closer to ALDI than the original idea, which was kind of a hybrid between a full service supermarket and a discount store. Produce and baker...

Hartsdale Marketplace Opened: October 2, 2026 Owner: Johny Taveras and Cesar Taveras Previous Tenants:  Rite Aid Cooperative: Key Food Stores Location:  196 E Hartsdale Ave, Hartsdale, NY Photographed: October 16, 2026 The small town of Hartsdale, New York -- just outside White Plains -- had a variety of chain supermarkets outside of the quaint downtown but none actually in town. Now, that's changed with the addition of Hartsdale Marketplace, an independent that's set up shop in a former Rite Aid of just about 6500 square feet (there may be a basement). The owners of the Key Food in Jersey City have opened up another highly space-efficient, full-service supermarket in a very small space. You'll see just how they fit so much in their small sales floor as we tour. Produce is up front, with deli and bakery in the front-left corner. Beer lines the rest of the left side wall, with meat and a service butcher counter on the back wall, dairy in a grocery aisle, and frozen on t...

The Market by Key Food Opened: October 1, 2026 Owner: unknown Previous Tenants: White Hills IGA > Adams Hometown Market (open by late 1990s) Cooperative: Key Food Stores Location: 200 Leavenworth Rd, Shelton, CT Photographed: October 16, 2026 Key Food continues its ongoing expansion with another new store in Connecticut, this time in Shelton, a small town about 10 miles west of New Haven but deep enough into almost-rural territory that it feels somewhat remote out on this end of town. A Key Food owner has taken over a longtime IGA (most recently an Adams Hometown Market IGA, owned by food distributor Bozzuto's) and thoroughly remodeled the roughly 16,000 square foot store. It's now reopened as The Market by Key Food. Although the Adams was plenty attractive inside , the extensive renovation results in this Key Food store looking much more modern. It feels pretty large, too, though of course it's still a rather small store. Produce is first on the right side of the s...