The Market Report

Trader Joe's Opened: unknown Previous Tenants:  unknown Location:  404 NJ-17 N, Paramus, NJ Photographed: November 2019 Trader Joe's is known for upscale retailing with a sense of humor. Unfortunately, so is their competitor Stew Leonard's , which is four times the size of this 20,000 square foot store, much better at nearly everything than Trader Joe's, and just 0.4 miles away. I find Trader Joe's completely uninteresting because all of their stores are exactly the same. However, we will be touring one of their New Jersey locations in a while. Head over to The Independent Edition tomorrow to check out an under-construction produce market, our last store in Paramus!

ShopRite of Emerson Owner: Inserra Supermarkets Opened:  1981 Previous Tenants:  Valley Fair department store Cooperative:  Wakefern Food Corp. Location:  425 Old Hook Rd, Emerson, NJ Photographed:  December 2020 Our next store tour is this ShopRite here in Emerson! It opened in 1981 in a former Valley Fair department store as a replacement for the Westwood location . It was remodeled around 2010 (outside at least, I'm assuming the interior remodel was completed around the same time). Take a look at what the exterior used to look like here .  Despite its updates, the 53,000 square foot store feels sorely outdated because of its facility. Many of the fixtures seem to not have been updated since the store opened in 1981, the ceilings are very low, and the layout is just plain weird. An entrance at the right side of the store takes us into the pharmacy, with a Snack Center to the right on the front wall. Soda and water line the first aisle, with deli tucked a...

Original Tenant: Honey Dew Markets Address: 184 Rivervale Rd, River Vale, NJ Opened:  1950s Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  December 2020 You'd hardly know it, but we're looking at a former 10,000 square foot barrel-roof supermarket here in downtown River Vale, which also had an A&P . This building has now been expanded by about 5,000 square feet and the only hint that it was ever a supermarket is the brick tower, which we can see to the left above. The store was occupied by Honey Dew Markets, a local chain of about five stores . I have a vague recollection that the chain then sold to Inserra Supermarkets, a ShopRite operator, and that would make sense if this became a ShopRite that later moved just to the south to Emerson, where the Inserras currently operate a ShopRite in a former Valley Fair department store. But the best part? We have a picture of this store as a Honey Dew! Check it out here . That's from a feature that The Star-...

Original Tenant: Finast Address: 216 Old Tappan Rd, Old Tappan, NJ Opened:  1980s Closed:  1998 Later Tenants:  Vitale Foodtown (??-1998) > A&P (1998-2015) > Estevez Foodtown (2015-2019) Photographed:  December 2020 Today's store is one I was very excited to get to. It's about three miles to the southeast of yesterday's former A&P , although you couldn't actually drive like that because there's a lake between the stores. This was a Vitale Foodtown until 1998, when it became an A&P. When A&P went under, it was taken over by Estevez Foodtown, which in turn closed in 2019 , leaving a 34,000 square foot vacancy in this strangely laid out mall. The store's interior has barely been touched since then. The store's interior was remodeled by Estevez, although the bones of the A&P decor remained just like Hastings-On-Hudson . Let's take a closer look for the labelscar... Okay, so we can definitely make out the A&P Fresh labelscar an...