Today we're going to take a look at a former Pathmark in Belleville, NJ that closed before the final bankruptcy, in 2012. The Infusino & LoCurcio families, who co-own the ShopRite of Nutley, gutted the space and replaced it will a brand-new, state-of-the art ShopRite. However, they were working with a very strange space.
Here's a very quick representation of the store's layout, not at all to scale, but everything's in the right place.
On the outside and layout-wise, the store is very much still a Pathmark. (It also still has an operational basement parking garage!) However, the renovations that have been done are very nice.
This part of the storefront is actually over the exit, not the entrance. You walk behind the rows of plants to reach the entrance to the right.
When you enter the store, you're greeted with a spacious produce section. The bakery department is in the front right corner.
As visible here, prepared foods continue along the right-side wall.
All of the departments are named after local landmarks or neighborhoods.
Plenge Farms, for instance, was an actual farm right in Belleville.
Overview of produce department.
The bakery department in the front corner. The wall to the right is the front wall of the store.
Hot foods, sandwiches, and packaged deli follow along the side wall, with a surprisingly small service deli after that. I'm not sure what Pathmark's layout would have been, but it was probably very similar.
Nice space-saving three-tiered olive bar! The hot food bar is also three tiered, with the bottom two serving prepared foods and the top displaying rotisserie chicken.
Seafood is approximately where the produce aisle ends and the grocery aisles begin. Following seafood in the back, the side wall of the store becomes ethnic foods. Branch Brook is a reference to bordering Newark's beautiful and expansive
Branch Brook Park, which is home to the largest collection of cherry blossom trees in the country.
They sure are, and so am I! Although I really like and appreciate the sentiment, I question the decision to place this in the international foods aisle. It seems like they're trying to say something, when I'm sure they're not.
Standard grocery aisles. The butcher and packaged meat continue along the back wall.
I'm not a huge fan of the floor pattern here, as it ends up looking kind of random. On the other hand, the flooring back in the grand aisle is fantastic.
One of the frozen foods aisles, towards the far side of the store, looking to the back wall.
Beautiful new (or at least from when the store opened) cases here in dairy, along the back wall.
Slightly older cases, it appears, here in dairy in the last aisle. Water lines the front of the store next to pharmacy.
This is the back of the "other stores," if you go back and look at the layout drawing I did. The section sticking out to the left is the pharmacy.
Once again, abstract floor patterns that just end up looking kinda random.
Here you can look across the front-end of the store, over to deli. Checkouts are around the corner just past the pharmacy.
Pharmacy is just out of frame to the right above.
Looking back up towards the front of the store. Management offices are on the second floor here, explaining the low ceiling. Produce lines the other side of the wall to the left here, and the exit is straight ahead.
The layout here is a little crazy, but it doesn't actually impede easy shopping, since it still more or less follows the flow of the average shopper. Plus, everyone is very friendly -- both shoppers and employees, so that helps!
ShopRite
726 Washington Ave, Belleville, NJ
Open Daily 7:30AM-10PM
(973) 302-8600
My Rating: ★★★★☆
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