Met Foodmarkets
Owner: Hamlet Reynoso
Opened: 2002
Previous Tenants: unknown
Cooperative: Associated Supermarket Group
Location: 514 Ferry Street, Ironbound, Newark, NJ
Photographed: January 2019
Our next Newark store tour, and the only major supermarket in the Ironbound that's not a Seabra Foods or a Seabra's Market, is this Met Foodmarket on Ferry Street just over half a mile east of yesterday's Seabra. This 9600 square foot store was expanded from an original 7900 square feet, and the expansion makes up the first aisle, to the far left of the store.
You enter to the double-wide produce aisle with dairy in the expansion to the left. (You can see the entrance door straight ahead; we're looking towards the front wall.)
Dairy in the first aisle. The fixtures and decor are in that murky range where they're neither old nor new, so it's hard to place them other than an estimate that they probably date back to the store's opening in 2002. I don't know what used to be here, but it was likely a different supermarket.
Service butcher and deli at the back of the produce department. This is the only service counter in the store.
The first grocery aisle extends beyond where the butcher-deli wall is. You can see the store was built at some odd angles, with the wall to the left (and consequently, the grocery aisles) being at about a 45-degree angle to the front wall.
Frozen foods line the rest of what amounts to the back wall, as you can see it goes in a few different directions.
The grocery aisles are also at an angle, as I mentioned. Look at the shelving compared to the ceiling tiles, which run at exactly the angle of the front wall of the store.
Met Foods does not seem to be... how do I put this gently... the supermarket of choice in the Ironbound. Maybe I was just here at a bad time, but it was a little eerie how deserted the store was in such a busy neighborhood.
Angled aisles create some odd corners in the last aisle, which is nonfoods. I'm only noticing this now... but check out the aluminum foil on the left. One facing of America's Choice next to the Avenue A!
Now for a look at the two registers, completely devoid of any human beings, before we head out of this store. Up next we're heading towards southwestern Newark (West Side) to tour what might just be the city's least interesting supermarket!
Well, at least aluminum foil doesn't spoil (given that the photos are what, a bit over 3 years after the last of A&P).
ReplyDeleteMaybe that adds to what you said on the store seeming deserted...?
That's true. And I think it's kind of a chicken and egg situation... nobody shops at the store, so the products sit around for too long. So the products aren't fresh, so nobody shops at the store.
DeleteIt's still a pretty nice and clean store though, it just would be nice for it to have a little more life to it.