Look Inside: Ashley Marketplace - South Orange, NJ

By now we've talked a lot about Village Super Market, a ShopRite operator. The name comes from their original location which was in South Orange, or the Township of South Orange Village, officially. You can see a drawing of the original location from their Facebook page here. The store opened in 1937 and by the mid- to late-1950s had joined the Wakefern cooperative. Village's second location opened around the same time in East Orange, with later locations in Orange, West Orange, and Maplewood, which borders South Orange. The South Orange location closed in 1996, and remained vacant for many years until New York City-based Eden Gourmet Marketplace opened in 2007:

Eden Gourmet Marketplace, 1 South Orange Ave, South Orange, NJ.
Google Maps street view from 2012.

The struggling Eden chain of stores recently has closed most of their stores in Manhattan and sold this location and their store in Hoboken around 2014 to an independent operator. The Hoboken store became Aspen Marketplace while South Orange became Ashley Marketplace. I believe this independent operator is Adam Chang, but I am not sure about that.

A similar view from the fall of 2017 shows that not much has changed since the Eden days. And why should it? The store looks great, inside and out.

There is also a rear entrance that leads to what is now a parking garage, but may have at one point been a private lot for just the supermarket.

There are checkouts in the front and the back, with the produce department in the back and deli/bakery in the front. Now for a quick look inside...

 An overview of the elaborate produce department. Eden, as with their NYC locations, used intricate decor, including these baskets hanging from the ceiling.

One of the grocery aisles. This store does not use a storebrand and does not appear to be part of a cooperative. But I swear I've seen these price tags before...

Dairy/frozen department. There are some parts of the store that could be better maintained, such as the floor in this section which is in pretty awful condition and simply covered by mats.

An overview of the fresh departments in the front of the store.

Bakery, hot foods, and juice bar. The front wall of the store is to the right here.

Last but not least, the incredible cheese department!

This is just one of the cheese cases, but this is the service cheese counter. Like the rest of the store, don't expect any bargains here, but the selection and quality is far superior even to other "gourmet" stores like Kings, which I've never liked. This is a true gourmet market!