The Market Report

Key Food's On the Move - Again We're seeing rapid growth and development in Key Food's new Superfresh banner. A while ago I reported that there were more Superfresh stores on the way. Key Food has bought the URL http://www.superfreshfood.com (the website http://www.superfreshstore.com directs to the two Staten Island stores) from A&P as part of the deal. Until recently it redirected to a version of the Key Food website with the Superfresh logo instead of Key Food: However, visiting the URL http://www.superfreshfood.com will direct you instead to http://www.keyfood.com/superfresh , a page about Superfresh specifically. At first glance the website looks great. A short introduction, a map showing where the locations are, and the list of locations. One problem, though - there is one location on the map that doesn't exist (yet?)! (Consequently, there is one fewer location listed underneath than is labeled on the map.) Image from keyfood.com/superfresh . ...

A Supermarket From Another Time Former Buy Rite Market, Union, NJ Images in this post are my own (only the first), Google Maps (GM), or Acme Style (AS). Welcome to MagieMart Food Store & Deli of Union, NJ. It doesn't look like much, and it's really not. It just looks like - and is - a fairly standard small neighborhood convenience store. It's not much to look at. But, let's head back in time to 2007: GM OK, so we can all agree that the renovation was an improvement. Based on the signs in the windows, it looks like a liquor store. It was potentially part of this chain , which also has a location across town in Union on Morris Ave. But before becoming Buy-Rite Liquor, this was the long-standing Buy Rite Supermarket. It closed sometime between 1981 and 2007, likely closer to the 1981 side. Where this gets really interesting is if you compare the photo above to any photo of a 1940s Acme. Consider the following picture of the Palmerton, PA Acme in the 1...

A Former Food Fair / Pantry Pride / Mayfair... or at least half of one! This store was built around 1968 (that date could be wrong, but it's in the right neighborhood) as a Food Fair, predating the nearby ShopRite / Pathmark / Food Bazaar by about eight years. (The nearby ShopRite didn't open until 1994.) It was converted to Pantry Pride soon after, closing by 1979. Mayfair Foodtown reopened the store almost immediately. I don't think this Mayfair store made it to the Ahold buyout in 2001, so I'm guessing it closed around 1995. Cost Cutters, a chain owned by Drug Fair that went under in 2009, opened after virtually no interior or exterior renovations. This store made it as a Cost Cutters until that chain closed in 2009, at which point a complete renovation of the entire shopping center - including adding a strip of smaller stores along the side of the parking lot - was begun. The signature Food Fair arch was removed (it lasted until 2009!) and the entire fa...