TOUR: ACME Markets - Elmwood Park, NJ

ACME Markets

Opened: 2015-2019

Previous Tenants: Pathmark

Later Tenants: LIDL

Location: 58 Broadway, Elmwood Park, NJ

Photographed: August 2019 and December 2020

We're just over the river from Paterson, the largest city in the Bergen - Passaic region, here in Elmwood Park, formerly East Paterson; Woodland Park was formerly West Paterson. Notice that both have kept their EP and WP initials. ACME bought this early-00s built Pathmark in the 2015-16 A&P bankruptcy, but closed it permanently in fall 2019. Discount grocer LIDL will be moving into the left half of the Pathmark/ACME. What really did in the store, though, is the coming ShopRite opening two blocks west in a former Kmart.

The facility, at 45,000 square feet, is much smaller than many modern supermarkets including the coming ShopRite, which will be almost double the size of this ACME. That said, because it's a relatively newly built store, it's still in great shape.

I intended to visit the store before its closing, but I didn't realize the closing liquidation would start so soon after the store's closing had been announced. This was my first time in a supermarket's closing liquidation, and even though it was still pretty early in the liquidation, the store was pretty cleaned-out. You can see the store back in happier times in Acme Style's 2017 post here.

Inside, the interior is gloriously Pathmarky. Path to Savings decor, flooring, and fixtures remain throughout. You enter to a grand aisle with bakery in the front right corner, deli lining the right side wall, and seafood at the back of the first aisle. Produce faces these service counters. Meat and dairy line the back wall, with dairy on the outside of the last aisle; frozen faces and lines the second-to-last aisle. Bread is in the front corner opposite the entrance.

Small international alcove in the front corner. This corner would typically be used for pharmacy, but this store doesn't have a pharmacy.

Bakery and deli lining the right-side wall of the store.

Deli beginning to clean out but still functional. They even still had rotisserie chickens!

Produce was mostly empty, with the remaining stock consolidated in the front of the store. Seafood was cut way back but still operating...

Up next on the back wall is meat.

This meat case had been emptied out entirely, with the remaining stock being consolidated near the service counter.

Natural foods lining the first aisle don't seem to be flying off the shelves...

We can see that the store closing liquidation was still in its early stages at the time of my visit really in the grocery aisles. Perishables went quicker, and may have even been transferred to other stores.

The store is certainly brighter and cleaner than any Pathmark I ever went to!

Seasonal was pretty cleaned out, while candy and snacks were still fully stocked.

HABA at the far end of the store.

Frozen foods in very new cases, pretty much cleaned out in the second-to-last aisle.

Dairy was surprisingly full, with the remaining frozen looking pretty empty. The floor is in excellent condition here! We can see, however, that the ACME sign added to the dairy sign to the right has slipped slightly.

From this angle you can hardly tell the store is in liquidation!

Packaged bread in the front corner of the store.

A look across the front-end, which makes the store look much larger than it is.

Customer service is at the entrance side of the front-end...

I drove by in December of 2020 to see the status. Surprisingly, the store was still looking exactly like a Pathmark.

On any other store I'd say I'll come back when the replacement opens, but I have no interest in visiting another LIDL. Up next we have three more Fair Lawn stores, starting tomorrow on The Independent Edition tomorrow, then we'll be moving from Bergen County back over to Passaic County into Paterson, the largest city in and the county seat of Passaic. The Silk City will provide us with a look at four supermarkets and one former supermarket.