Kings Food Markets
Opened: 1980
Previous Tenants: Stop & Shop (1969-1980)
Location: 778 Morris Tpk, Short Hills, Millburn, NJ
Photographed: December 2019
Okay, we have three stores here in Millburn and one in Livingston before we move on to Hudson County! We've actually been to this store before, in a 2018 snapshot, but we're back for a tour. I'd like to make two corrections to that original post. First, the original Kings was not in Millburn! It was in Summit, just over the border into Union County. We'll see the original Kings and the store that replaced it when we circle through that part of Union County. Second, the picture I link on Google Maps is not the interior of this store. It's a generic picture that Kings used for all of its stores (but, at the time, had only been posted to this store's page). This store, in fact, still sports the Where Inspiration Strikes 2012-era decor. These pictures were taken, by the way, before the ACME acquisition.
After its latest remodel, the store is 45,000 square feet -- far larger than most other Kings out there, and certainly larger than the stores Stop & Shop was building in 1969, when this opened. It also features the diagonal loading docks more commonly seen in ShopRite stores. These and the first few aisles are part of an expansion done by Kings of about 15,000 square feet. I believe the only larger Kings is Gillette, which is a former Pathmark. This store, in fact, seems so much like a former Pathmark that I wonder if Supermarkets General began building the store in the late 60s, as they did with so many other locations, only to pull out before the store opened and sell to Stop & Shop.
Similar to what we saw up in Midland Park, the first aisle is the grand aisle, with deli on the right side wall and bakery and cheese on the left. Meat and seafood are at the back of the first aisle and continuing along the back wall. A kitchen for cooking classes is about halfway across the back wall, with dairy in the left half of the back wall. Dairy also lines one side of the third-to-last aisle, with frozen in the other half and both sides of the second-to-last aisle. Produce and liquor take up the last aisle, which is almost definitely an expansion.
Bakery at the front of the island making up the left side of the grand aisle. Grocery aisles are behind the bakery.
Packaged deli lines the right side of the middle of the aisle, with bakery along the left side. Nice floor! The curves on the ceiling are likely left over from a previous decor package.
Cheese at the back of the island.
Olive/salad bars follow, with one lone produce display (no, why would we put produce with the other perishables?) and the meat department behind it.
As you can see, the decor is very simple. Now that Kings' parent company has declared bankruptcy, we know that this was in fact a fairly simple, low-cost refresh to update the aging stores and was done on a very low budget. The flooring outside of the grand aisle is neutral and looks to be a much older, resurfaced floor.
I do like the way the floor's curves mirror the ceiling patterns. Wouldn't it make sense for this section to be the produce department, almost exactly like the layout of the West Caldwell ShopRite, instead of meat?
Sushi and seafood are next along the back wall.
The cooking studio offers classes or special events. I believe this is the only Kings with a Cooking Studio, probably due to its large size.
Very clean grocery aisles, and it's kind of hard to date the floor or shelving because both are so nondescript.
Some dairy is along the back wall, with the rest lining one side of the third-to-last aisle.
These fixtures, like all the rest throughout the store, look very new and were likely installed in the 2012-era renovation.
Second-to-last aisle with frozen foods as well.
And as I mentioned, the last aisle is produce -- a very odd layout compared to what most supermarkets have. This section feels like an expansion but apparently is not; it's on the Medimart side of the building, so this would date back to the Stop & Shop days. Right?
This department is beautiful! I wish the rest of the store looked like this, instead of those bland beige grocery aisles.
Liquor in the front corner. (Livingston, about five miles north, also sells liquor.) I seem to have forgotten a picture of the front-end, so our tour is going to have to end there. This store competes with the Springfield ShopRite, a Village Super Market store in a former Marina Safeway, across the street and across the border on the Union County side of things. Tomorrow we're going just a little to the east to see the older Kings that this location replaced!
Some Publix stores have produce on the far side of the interior, and while I personally find that strange, I suppose it's not totally unheard of for Kings to have a similar layout. What's more of the odd choice to me is that standalone produce stand so far from the rest of produce. Is that supposed to be like that little stand of bakery cookies you always find by the milk coolers, so far away from the bakery? But because you encounter the auxiliary produce stand first, I'd be worried of some customers thinking that meager selection is all the produce you have... maybe not the most rational concern, but still, I'd certainly agree with you that that corner at the back of the grand aisle would have been much better suited as produce instead of meats.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, I guess I can imagine some of the Publix stores I've seen pictures of with the produce on the opposite side of the store from the entrance. The strangest thing is that the design is so very different from the rest of the store when it was renovated at the same time.
DeleteNearly all of the Publix stores I have ever been in have had the produce dept on the far side corner behind the HABA dept. I always thought it was odd.
ReplyDelete"Where Inspiration Strikes" dates back to 2012? Wow, time is flying. Kings has recently ditched the tagline and the whisk logo. Not sure if it happened before or after the ACME acquisition. Check out kingsfoodmarkets.com to see the whole new look. I want to hate it, but I like it.
I was recently in the Kings in Hoboken to see if any changes have been made since ACME's acquisition. Couldn't find a single thing. They haven't even tried to sneak in some Signature Select products!
Yeah, "Where Inspiration Strikes" came into Bedminster in 2012 and the remodels I think lasted until around 2015 or so. Hoboken's River Street location and Bernardsville were never renovated, although Bernardsville actually started a kind of light remodel right before the bankruptcy... I'd be very interested to see where they were going with it. The Kings in Verona has some kind of in-between decor package from right before the ACME takeover.
DeleteThe blue logo came in around late 2019 or early 2020, but it's barely anywhere. Verona has a little bit of matching signage, but the other stores have nothing.
I haven't seen any other changes in the Kings stores really either. I've heard that changes may begin to occur this summer (June-August is what I've heard rumors of). It's worth noting that ACME has recently changed its frozen distributor from Burris to C&S, and Albertsons has even more recently switched the center-store purchasing to a centralized system, which is expected to include the Kings stores. That change is expected to be finished by the fall, according to Food Trade News.
For the time being, while they're still there, I've noticed the stock of Kings-branded products has been inconsistent at my Kings. Some days one product (orange juice is a bad offender) will just be completely missing from the shelf. Not sure operationally why that's been happening. But for now, Kings is still being supplied by Wakefern which is exceedingly strange.