Original Tenant: Filstop Supermarket
Address: 1006 US-46, Clifton, NJ
In late 2019, Jersey City Filipino supermarket Filstop opened a second, 16,000 square foot location in Clifton. Hailed as a major Filipino superstore (representing an ethnic group that makes up New Jersey's second-largest Asian immigrant group), the store closed along with the original location just five months after it opened. As we'll see, money seemed to be a bit short in outfitting this location, with quite a bit of it coming secondhand from a closed Pathmark.
You can see a bit of the decor, which is nice (especially the mural) but obviously very low-cost and a bit mismatched. It seems like the owners understood this was a risky investment when they were doing it, so why did they go ahead with it?
The main sales floor of the store, which is hard to see from the doors, has been almost completely cleared out. But we do see another money-saving technique in store outfitting... secondhand Pathmark decor!
Address: 1006 US-46, Clifton, NJ
Opened: 2019
Closed: 2020
Later Tenants: vacant
Photographed: July 2020
Plus, the store was practically invisible, tucked away in the back corner of the strip mall containing a former ACME.
The store had a large food court along the right side wall, with the grill station still mostly intact a few months after the store closed. As we'll see, though, the majority of the fixtures are gone.
Hard to tell which Pathmark exactly these aisle markers are from. Anyway, that's our look at Filstop, come back tomorrow to see yet another former supermarket just next door!
Let me help you fill in some of the blanks here.
ReplyDeleteThe Dollar Tree and this building here were once one store. It was a Channel Home Center first, then became Rickel when their merger happened. When Rickel shut the store after it went out of business, and Staples decided they didn’t want it, they subdivided.
What eventually became Filstop was initially a Drug Fair, which opened sometime in either 1999 or 2000. That store stayed open until Drug Fair’s sudden bankruptcy and liquidation and was one of the ones that got immediately sacrificed. Walgreens didn’t take it.
The store, after several years of only opening for Spirit Halloween, eventually got a Compare Foods in there which didn’t make it very long. Spirit again used the store at least one or two more times after that.
Ah, very interesting. Thank you for the history!
DeleteI live about 5 minutes from this mall and remember when that store was a drug fair every so often a Halloween store will open up but it mainly sits empty not really sure what it’s used for now.
ReplyDeleteInteresting fact, the store to the left in the first photo that has the windows covered believe it was originally used as a doctors office maybe? It’s now used for storage
Thanks for the details here!
Delete