The Market Report

Original Tenant: ACME Markets Address: 25 W Main St, Rockaway, NJ Opened:  1955 Closed:  1980 Later Tenants:  Quick Chek/subdivided Photographed:  May 2019 We are here in downtown Rockaway for this extremely small 14,000 square foot ACME. It was built in 1955 and appears to have the metal tower sign built directly into the roof of the building, which was a variation sometimes seen. It was likely chopped off a bit and covered over with sheetrock (and then had a hole cut in the center...?) when the facade was renovated at some point. In 1980, this store was combined with another small location in Dover for a large, new store (since closed) in the Rockaway Townsquare mall. We'll actually be seeing both of those stores in the next week, but up first we have to head back down to 46 for an independent store in Rockaway on The Independent Edition !

ALDI Opened: unknown Previous Tenants:  none Location:  212 US-46 W, Rockaway, NJ Photographed:  May 2019 It's been quite a while since we last saw an ALDI -- in fact, if I'm reading through my posts correctly, it was all the way down in South Plainfield a month and a half ago. So why not take a look at another one? I'm unclear exactly how old this 20,000 square foot store is, although I know it's been renovated at least once (in other words, it didn't open with this decor package). It's been open since at least 2008 and the building doesn't appear to be that old, so it's possible it was an original tenant in the strip mall (although I would find it a little strange that it was built in a strip mall at all since ALDI seems to prefer freestanding stores when they get to build them from scratch). Notice the flooring left over from the previous decor package, but it seems that everything else was redone. By the way, I like this decor package very much, an...

We are wrapping up Morris County with our final group representing Greater Dover and Western Morris County! Now, we left off in Denville, and we're actually going to pick up in Denville again tomorrow but with a store way outside of town. There are more or less three highways running east-west through this part of the county: New Jersey state route 10 at the south, US-46 in the middle, and interstate 80 at the north. We're going to start by seeing a store on route 10 at the southeastern corner of the group, then heading north to Rockaway on 46 and west into downtown Dover just off of 46. From there, we're heading north again to the route 80 area for a few more Rockaway stores (Rockaway is weirdly shaped since there's a borough and a township, and the borough is the small central one and the township surrounds it) before moving on to Wharton, where 80 intersects north-south artery NJ-15 at which point we'll detour north to Jefferson and Oak Ridge. From there, we'...

Florham Park What's our usual collection of updates without at least one ACME and at least one Kings? I returned to the Kings in Florham Park, which we toured not too long ago, to coincidentally capture the beautiful sunset over the store. That stunning picture was a pleasant surprise, but not what I came to the store for. What is, in fact, very noticeable is that inside the lighting has been replaced. Not quite as beautiful as the sunset, but still brightens up the store a great deal. If you check back to the original post (pre-ACME), you can see the squares used to have those older fixtures with the reflective grate over the light itself. These newer ones have also appeared in multiple other stores including the Kenilworth ACME . Not sure if you can see them in my pictures, but I've noticed them in-store. If you look back at any of my pre-acquisition Kings store tours, you can really clearly see just how dingy a lot of the stores were. They're looking much better now. ...

ShopRite of Brookdale Owner: Neil Greenstein Opened:  1999 Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  Wakefern Food Corp. Location:  1409 Broad St, Bloomfield, NJ Photographed:  December 2021 A beautiful new supermarket is one of my favorite things, but just as good is a beautiful new supermarket renovation. The ShopRite of Brookdale in Bloomfield, NJ reopened itself early this month with a gorgeous new renovation, and naturally I had to come check it out. I was here back in June to see the remodel in progress , but now that it's completed, it's incredibly beautiful. We enter to Juice Press in the front left corner with the Fresh to Table department, featuring prepared foods to take home and heat up (and convenience items like marinated chicken or cut produce) in the front near the entrance. Behind that is produce with deli/prepared foods and seafood in an island to the right, and cheese and bakery at the back of the grand aisle. Meats line the back wall, with pharm...