The Market Report

March has been an all-Hudson County month! In the past month, we've covered fifteen stores in one way or another, not including today's tour. Today's tour, La Placita Food Market, is very different from most of the others we've seen so far. And it's also our first in Union City, the last of the three cities I visited! La Placita is a small Krasdale-affiliated chain with locations in Peekskill (sorry about the formatting, I don't know what happened there) and now Mount Vernon , among others. This location in Union City, NJ was previously Kikos 2 Supermarket (with the original Kikos within a few blocks of the Fairview Food Bazaar , and still in business). Kikos was scheduled to be replaced by Popular Supermarket, presumably the same one that owns/owned the C-Town in Passaic . I have no idea if that ever happened, but it's possible given the Supermarkets for Savings signs still around the buildings. Of course, that's a Krasdale slogan, so it could...

Quick glance at a corner carniceria (butcher shop) across from Super on Palisade... Creative name. "Carniceria Latina" means Latin Butcher Shop in Spanish. However, this place seems to be a neighborhood institution, and it even has a website . I did not go in, but this looks like a real butcher shop -- not a grocery store with a meat counter.

On Friday we saw Extra WNY , and today we'll be looking at a store just about two blocks south across the street. Like Extra, which isn't affiliated with the Extra chain, this Super Supermarket isn't affiliated with the Super Supermarkets chain. In this case, though, they do share a distributor with the chain (General Trading). Super was previously an Associated Supermarket, which at the time was Associated's only location in New Jersey. (There is now one in Pennsauken, NJ, which opened recently. According to Google street views, the switch to Super happened some time between 2012 and 2015. A look at the store in 2007 from Google Maps. Today the blue awning has been replaced with a sharp red one... The lower portion of the building has also been painted white. Personally I would have done the whole building white or left the whole building as it was, but I shouldn't complain too much. I understand that this is a small (probably single-store) operation. A...

Heading just a block east of Fiesta yesterday is this Extra Supermarket, not affiliated with the Extra Supermarkets chain. While that Extra is part of Retail Grocers and is supplied by General Trading Co. of Carlstadt, this Extra is supplied by Krasdale Foods . It's a member of AIM (the Association of Independent Merchants). Extra is on the ground floor of what appears to be a large apartment building, and has a private parking lot in back -- rare for this area. Palisade Ave, the road this store is on (pictured here), is certainly no Bergenline. It's a somewhat sleepy residential street, so it's unusual that a fairly major supermarket would be located on it. I'd love to know what this sign would have said; I doubt Extra installed it. Unfortunately we can only go back about ten years on Google Maps' street view. Anyone know what this was previously? The quiet street did allow me to get some photos of the storefront. The store is actually pretty large,...