TOUR: SuperFresh - Edison, NJ

SuperFresh

Owner: Ki Hyung (Kevin) Kim

Opened: 2016-2017

Previous Tenants: Stop & Shop > A&P

Later Tenants: Lotte Plaza Market

Cooperative: Key Food Stores

Location: 1185 Amboy Ave, Edison, NJ

Photographed: August 2016

As Acme Style says, file this one under crash and burn. In fact, Acme Style even covered this store, while visiting former ACME locations in the area. When Key Food announced plans to aggressively expand the SuperFresh banner in suburban New Jersey, they were stuck with the unfortunate fact that several New Jersey stores were owned by Kevin Kim, whose failures have been well-documented on the blog (see here, here, here, here, and most recently here, for examples). This is yet another Kim store which lasted less than two years. Total difference from the Food World/Lee stores, which we saw recently in Hopelawn.

The store had very little change from A&P, and was even using A&P's carts, along with a variety of random secondhand carts.

Inside, much of the A&P Fresh 1.0 decor has been left on the walls. The 48,000 square foot store still felt spacious, though that was largely because it was empty of customers (and in some cases, just empty) even right after opening when I visited. If I'm not mistaken, the store opened in late July 2016 and closed in October 2017.

Some very nice new produce cases had been installed, along with a new floor (which by the way is a brand called The Easiest Floor Ever), and the walls were painted the same odd yellow we saw in Belleville and Plainsboro.

Lots of space-filling with huge quantities of the same product.

Limited floral department in the front corner.

A&P Fresh 1.0 decor still in place! Just covered over with black Superfresh decals.

There was some great-looking produce at the time of my visit, though! I found the selection to be extremely inconsistent across the store -- the one I remember is they had a million different kinds of eggs, but no buttermilk at all.

On a side note, I don't know why some of my summer-2016 photos look like I took them underwater with a 1920s film camera, and others look crystal-clear.

Heading towards the back of the store, we find deli with new decor and prepared foods...

This store never got up to full capacity. Notice the prepared foods case to the right is only partially full, and everything in it is prepackaged. To the left of the deli, the prepared foods counter never opened.

This corner is a big ol' zero. None of these stations ever opened.

Seafood, next along the back wall, did look great. As expected, though, it didn't last.

Butcher looking great with new decor on the back wall. Meanwhile, the rest of the meat department on the back wall retained its A&P decor.

This store had a lot more nonfoods than Key Food affiliates typically have, although that was likely a space filler.

A&P Kitchen Shop signage still intact!

A pretty solid international selection in a double-wide aisle with lower shelving in the middle. Unfortunately, solid international and produce departments weren't enough to save this store from its bad management.

A whole lot o' nothing in the last grocery aisle here.

Fresh 1.0 aisle markers still intact!

Not much milk, but still better than Plainsboro which had... none.

Frozen foods in the second-to-last and one side of the last aisle.

Dairy lined the other side of the last aisle, with more frozen and dairy in the front corner. A very sparse bakery department took up the rest of the front corner.

Up next along the front wall is a cafe, which likely took the spot of the self-checkouts...

And a front-end that's pretty much empty, with customer service at the far end.

And the A&P Fresh thank you sign has been updated with a Superfresh logo...

Now, this store was very badly run and probably didn't need to last even if it could have. But I want to end this post on a more cheerful note, with a look at Lotte Plaza Market, the Korean grocery store that took over the space. And does it look fantastic! We're touring that store today as well, which you can see here. And tomorrow, we're going south along route 1 for our next stop right here on The Market Report.