A while ago we saw the fascinating
Twin City Supermarket in Elizabeth, NJ. As I mentioned, the group also owns other stores:
- Twin City Supermarket in Plainfield, NJ
- Twin City Supermarket in Newark, NJ
- Pueblo Supermarket in Newark, NJ
- Aquí Market at Journal Square, Jersey City, NJ
- Aquí Market at Twin City Plaza, Jersey City, NJ
- Aquí Market in Bridgewater, NJ
- Aquí Market in Califon, NJ
And this store, Superfood Fresh Market in Middlesex, NJ. This store has an interesting history. The store was opened as a WT Grant in the 1950s, joining an A&P at the other end of the mall. A&P closed in 2001 and was converted to a Food Basics, which closed in 2006. That space is now divided between Dollar Tree and the Route 28 Farmers Market, a small greengrocer.
WT Grant closed in the 1980s and was replaced with a Drug Fair. Drug Fair, in turn, closed in 2009 and was replaced by Walgreens, which found it hard to fill the entire 30,000-square-foot space. So they blocked off a portion of the store and used it for storage.
Photo is from JoshAustin610's Flickr.
Walgreens closed in 2015 and was replaced shortly thereafter by the third location of
Superfood Marketplace, a joint venture between Ana Lemes and Miguel Martinez, independent supermarket owners, and the Twin City owners. This Middlesex Superfood joined locations in
Elizabeth and
Allentown. However, it appears that soon after opening, this store was spun off as a Twin City affiliate and is now called Superfood Fresh Supermarket.
The storefront is very nice. The walkway along the front goes behind the windows, and there is no door to get into the walkway on either side; it's just an enclosed walkway. The doors take you into the store, where you enter the produce aisle, with dairy along the back wall, and meat/seafood/deli in the last aisle, just like Twin City in Elizabeth.
Someone has diligently applied Superfood Fresh Supermarket stickers over the Superfood Marketplace logo on every single cart, on both sides.
This store is obviously nicer than Twin City in Elizabeth, and smaller, but it still feels spacious.
You can see the entrance to the right above. This corner is the beginning of the produce department, which extends down the first aisle.
All of those banners used to have the Superfood Marketplace logo, and they now have the Superfood Fresh logo. I wonder why they didn't just go ahead and call it Twin City.
Simple but attractive decor and fixtures. The produce in this store was great.
Because the store was not previously a supermarket, all the fixtures are brand-new.
I think I probably would have done something better with the aisle markers, but it works.
Superfood Fresh is serviced by the Twin City warehouse in Elizabeth and by extension General Trading of Carlstadt, NJ. Their storebrand is Parade.
The flooring is really nice. It's that new tile that's made to look like wood.
A look down the back aisle towards the produce department.
Looking along the back aisle in the other direction towards seafood. The freezer aisle is the second-to-last and is a double-wide aisle.
There's lower shelving down the middle of the aisle.
Packaged meat lines the other side of these cases, with service meat, seafood, and deli on the far wall. There's a small corner in the front with baked goods, but there's no in-store bakery.
Meat, looking towards the back wall.
Service meat and seafood.
Meat and deli looking towards the baked goods area in the front corner.
There was, however, a great selection of rolls from a local bakery.
Looking along the front-end from the bakery.
Here we're looking along the front-end from the entrance.
You can see that the circular for this Superfood has more in common with the Twin City circular than the Superfood circular!
Top left, Superfood Fresh in Middlesex (this store); top right, Twin City in Elizabeth; bottom, Superfood Marketplace in Elizabeth.
This Superfood is a very nice store, and it's a good use of a former drugstore, especially since the Pathmark in town is out of business with no replacement yet.
Superfood Fresh Market
738 Union Ave, Middlesex, NJ 08846
Open Daily 7AM-10PM
http://www.superfoodfresh.com
(732) 667-7812
My Rating: ★★★★☆
I have never seen so much of that wooden tile than on the stores you post here! In fact, I've never seen it in person at all. It looks really spiffy, though.
ReplyDeleteYou're right that a lot of the stores around here use these fake-wood floors! But actually, most of the stores use wood-look laminate floors, like this:
Deletehttp://www.howtocleanstuff.net/wp-content/uploads/laminateflooring.jpg
This store actually used ceramic(-type) tiles that look like wood, like this:
https://www.flooranddecor.com/wood-look-plank-tile
That was something new for me, and it does look great in person.
Ah, okay! I see the difference. Whatever the material, the wood look is a lot more eye-catching than regular old white square tiles!
DeleteSure is. Even the major supermarkets around here (ACME, ShopRite) are putting it in when they remodel or open stores.
DeleteJust two minor notes - from what I've seen Grant's went into bankruptcy and closed as a chain in 1976 and Drug Fair was actually bought out by Walgreens rather than closing and then being replaced by Walgreens.
ReplyDeleteAh, okay. Thanks for the corrections!
Delete