The ShopRite of Airmont, NY (also sometimes listed as Tallman, NY) is owned and operated by the Inserra family. It just had a grand-reopening after a fairly extensive aesthetic and physical renovation and it looks pretty great! Before we head in, let's take a look at this handy store directory so you can get an idea of the layout:
You enter into produce/floral. Meat and dairy are along the back wall, with a large Kosher selection around that area (there's a very large Jewish population in this region of New York). Seafood and deli are in the last aisle, with bakery and prepared foods along the front end next to a small seating area.
This store's biggest limitation is its very low ceilings. It makes the space appear more cramped than it is, and there is little space for decor on the walls. I do, however, love the flooring.
Looking back towards the "entrance garden" as they call their floral department. Customer service is in an island along the front-end.
Notice how the ceiling gets higher over the grocery aisles. The produce aisle must have been an expansion at some point.
Looking along the back aisle from the back of the produce aisle.
Here you can see the left-side wall of the alcove in the back, looking towards the back wall of the store. I couldn't determine any logic to what foods were on the grocery shelves in that area.
Looking back out into the main sales area. Look carefully at the refrigerated cases. What's interesting about them is they are older open cases onto which custom doors have been added. That's a great idea and something a lot of stores should do!
Dairy is located along the back wall of the alcove.
The dairy section continues along the back wall of the store past the alcove. I think this sign is pretty cool!
Seafood, with very sharp all-new cases, is in the back corner.
The bakery is to the left in the above picture.
Deli/bakery in the front corner.
Looking along the front end back towards produce.
Here you can see the customer service island along the front-end.
The ShopRite of Airmont is a very nice store, but not really that special. It's a standard ShopRite. No big surprises, good or bad, to be found here.
ShopRite
250 NY-59, Airmont, NY 10901
Open Daily 7AM-12AM
http://www.shoprite.com
(845) 368-0713
My Rating: ★★★☆☆
This store originally was a Finast. Inserra purchased it after Finast went out. It was always a busy store for Inserra and was enlarged in the mid 1980’s and again in recent times. Interesting how Inserra has been so successful there in an area with a large Jewish population, but all of Waldbaums stores in Rockland County ended up closing long before they sold out. A half a mile down the road there was a rare non-Long Island King Kullen which opened and closed quickly (though Inserra failed a few miles away on Rt. 59 in Nanuet opening a huge state of art store and closing it only a few years later.
ReplyDeleteTrivia: Finast had an identical sister store to Tallman (the original store) in Poughkeepsie (literally exactly the same building/floor plans including a ‘reverse alcove’ meat case which jutted out to the back aisle by 6 feet!) on Rt. 44.
Royal Ahold converted Finast Poughkeepsie to their Edwards Food Warehouse brand and then a few years later tore down a Caldor on the other end of the shopping place and built a late 90’s Stop and Shop and the Edwards store became a Big Lots.
As always, thank you for all the history! Inserra seems to do very well in Jewish areas, as I've noticed very substantial kosher selections at their stores in these areas. I think ShopRite's kosher program in general is very strong.
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