Stop & Shop
Opened: 2001
Opened: 2001
Previous Tenants: Grand Union
Location: 34 W Railroad Ave, Tenafly, NJ
Photographed: December 2020
Our first stop here in the small town of Tenafly is the Stop & Shop! The facade on the front of the 23,000 square foot store has been redone, but we can still see the bones of the Grand Union facade here. Stop & Shop moved in in 2001, remodeling the space probably several times after (closer to Ridgewood, then, than Ringwood). Ridgewood and Tenafly are both very affluent communities with another grocery store very close by to the Stop & Shop, while Ringwood is not nearly as affluent nor does it have any competition. The grocery store under 350 feet from this one is the Tenafly Gourmet Farm, which we're also touring today on The Independent Edition! So despite the fact that this store is very small, it's been extensively upgraded.
We enter on the right side of the storefront to produce in the front corner and extending down the first aisle, with natural foods facing. Deli is at the back of the first aisle, with meat and seafood taking up the rest of the back wall. Frozen is in the second-to-last aisle and part of the last aisle, with dairy taking up the rest of the last aisle. Bakery is in the front corner.
Heading into produce in the front corner, we find that this store has the second-to-newest decor package. How can we tell? Well, mostly the lack of decor on the walls. I don't think this decor works particularly well in remodels as compared to new-builds, but I do really like the dark gray fixtures and flooring, which is actually tile but looks like concrete.
I'm not entirely sure, but I don't believe the produce department has any signage at all. The renovation happened, by the way, while the store was closed in 2016. The new facade hides Grand Union's arched roof, and it seems that the store previously had the decor variant seen in Ringwood minus the wood paneling.
We get a good look at the department signage here in the deli department. Quite attractive, although I think overall the look (along with the newer look) is too minimalistic, leaving older renovated stores feeling dingy and unfinished. In new-build stores, such as Mahopac, the facility is beautiful enough to carry the half-hearted decor, but in older stores which got little more than a coat of paint and a few new signs like this, the facilities remained very outdated.
Meat lining the back wall. For reasons beyond my comprehension, the service butcher counter was completely empty.
Grocery aisles looking good with new lighting, new flooring, new aisle markers, and I think new shelving, although Stop & Shop's shelving has looked the same for many years so it's hard to tell.
Woohoo, this store has a functional service seafood counter! So many Stop & Shops don't. It's possible that's because Tenafly Gourmet Farms a block over also has a large seafood counter.
Some frozen foods on one side of aisle 10 with the rest lining aisle 11.
Looking really good with freshly painted walls and cases, new aisle markers, and new flooring! By the way, it looks like the arch roof only goes about halfway to the back of the store, with the back half being two floors.
Dairy also looking good in older cases that have been painted. One problem I will point out with all of Stop & Shop's latest decor packages is that everything is the same color. Look at this, everything is the same drab gray. The problem has plagued every decor package going back about 20 years (see Union, which is all yellow). In fact, some of the mid-2000s remodels were actually later repainted white because there was too much beige.
Bakery is in the front left corner, with a tiny customer service counter right next to it. Checkouts line the rest of the front end.
And what's that we see beyond the registers? Yes, sharp eyes will pick up on the Grand Union arched windows still visible on the front end!
It's time to head out of this Stop & Shop, but if you haven't yet, make sure to tour the Tenafly Gourmet Farms a block away! That is also all for Tenafly for us, but we'll be heading west to Rochelle Park tomorrow for another store here on The Market Report.
This reminds me of how the Hannaford in Delmar, NY got an exterior facelift, yet still has its Grand Union arched windows.
ReplyDeleteAh, that store actually looks quite nice with the mix of newer Hannaford facade and older Grand Union windows and trim!
DeleteJust FYI - neither link to the Gourmet Farms works - they just go to a page does not exist link.
ReplyDeleteIgnore that previous reply ;)
ReplyDeleteYes, very similar idea even though that store is a different (though of course now semi-connected) chain.
The arched windows aren't so surprising, but not so sure I've heard of Grand Union and arched ROOF before (unlike say Safeway or ShopRite)...
Yep!
DeleteAs for the arched roof... I'm slowly discovering a few former Grand Unions with that type of a design. The one that seems to be nearly identical is the now-demolished Clifton location that Acme Style covered here... https://acmestyleblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/blog-post_4661.html?
I have also recently found out that the building at 360 Chestnut Street in Union, NJ was a Grand Union. That store was certainly a different store model, with a tapered barrel roof that slopes down in the front and back and featuring a metal tower sign in the front corner of the store, kind of like if the 1950s ACME tower sign was actually built into the roof of the store. I think it's also possible that store was not built as a Grand Union, since I'm not familiar with any other stores of that style.
Those are the two arched-roof Grand Unions I'm thinking of right now, although there may be more out there (and there may have been more that are long gone, it's hard to tell).
That acme style post you referred to (Clifton), the first comment there is that that particular store was a Penn Fruit (which I have heard of having the arched roof), so perhaps if it was only in a few locations they were also ones taken over from that (or other) chains.
ReplyDeleteAh, you are correct. I'm not so familiar with the Penn Fruit stores... my assumption was that they were all built with the glass front, but were some built with a solid front? Or would that have been an alteration later done by Grand Union?
DeleteAnd now I'm thinking it's likely that Union store was a Safeway (my first guess until I found an image of the store's sign advertising Grand Union), then acquired by GU instead of Finast... does that sound possible to you? This is all way before my time, so I can only make guesses and speculation.
Before me as well, just happened to see that comment, and have read about a couple of the chains that used those designs. So not much help, unfortunately (though it makes sense that one store might re-do a façade that another had designed).
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. I'd bet that's what happened, although I haven't heard that this or Clifton were Penn Fruits anywhere else. The metal sign at Clifton is distinctly similar to Penn Fruit's, though.
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