Stop & Shop
Opened: ca. 2000
Previous Tenants: Mayfair Foodtown > Edwards
Location: 219 Elm St, Westfield, NJ
Photographed: June 2020
Easily the nicest Stop & Shop exterior I've ever seen! Although as we'll see, up close it is in worse repair than it looks. This approximately 20,000 square foot store also has to be one of the smallest Stop & Shop locations out there (it's part of our Old And Small New Jersey Stop & Shop Locations series; see Jersey City here). Built as a Mayfair Foodtown and later taken over by Edwards, this store was custom-designed to fit in with the small-town atmosphere of downtown Westfield.
This is the side facing Elm Street. The storefront faces the parking lot, and this side is almost invisible from the street with all the vegetation.
Sign facing Elm Street.
And this is the only sign on the storefront facing the parking lot. You enter in the middle of the storefront and turn left to enter deli in the front left corner of the store. Meat lines the rest of the first aisle, with produce on the back wall. Frozen takes up the second-to-last aisle, with dairy lining the last aisle (right-side wall of the store). A tiny bakery and customer service counter take up the front right corner.
Deli on the front wall of the store, with a small prepared food counter on the side wall. This is the only service department in store.
Looking up the first aisle, we can see that the store really is showing its age. I can't imagine Stop & Shop is going to hold onto this store for much longer.
There is one additional aisle along the back wall of the store, with bread on this side (facing the grocery aisles) and produce on the other side.
Can't say I remember ever having been in a supermarket with produce on the back wall.
Looking up a very cramped aisle 4 towards the front end of the store.
Interesting floor patterns here in the last aisle, which has dairy in the back 3/4 and bakery and customer service in the front. Amazingly, it does seem that there is an in-store bakery, though it was mostly empty at the time of my visit.
And the Edwards lane markers are still up along the front end!
A look across the front end. This store is just a block and a half west from yesterday's Trader Joe's, and those are the two supermarkets here in Westfield. Up next we're heading south to Clark, where we'll see our next store here on The Market Report tomorrow!
Ars those checkout lane markers definitely from Edwards? I'm pretty sure the store in Point Pleasant, which was a conversion from Grand Union, also had them.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm pretty sure the Point Pleasant Beach store is smaller than this one!
You are correct on both counts... I was remembering what I read at the link below, but I see that that was also corrected, for the aisle markers, and as for Point Pleasant Beach, that's about 1,000 square feet smaller (at just over 19,000 square feet to this store's 20,000).
DeleteIt's sad to see the inside in the state that it's in, as I really like the custom exterior and all the nice mature greenery. I've seen produce departments in a back corner many a time, but like you, never along the back wall in full -- although I must say the effect actually works pretty well with that bread/wet wall aisle serving as a divider, making the department feel nice and enclosed. Strange, too, to see the (rather dim...) lights completely blocking portions of the aisle markers like that!
ReplyDeleteFor sure. And I lied, the produce-on-the-back-wall thing also appears at the Compare Foods (which is now a SuperFresh) in Passaic... https://www.marketreportblog.com/2021/03/tour-compare-foods-supermarket-passaic.html
DeleteYes, the lighting and aisle markers could've been designed better. But I assume things like that they're probably not too excited about fixing since the store very clearly isn't long for this world.
I'm sure I've seen those in other Stop & Shop locations as well (thinking at least one somewhere in MA that wasn't even an Edwards area).
ReplyDeleteI'd suspect they were a Stop & Shop design, as they match the aisle signs and the green/red color scheme likely goes with the older traffic light logos as well?
Yep, exactly. There was at least one other design, though I assume it's from the decor package prior to this one, as seen at Grafton Street in Worcester, which remarkably still has that ancient decor package. There's also a gray variation on this checkout lane marker, which I assumed would be put in the Stop & Shop stores while the green ones were in Edwards (though it seems that's not true)... see Brookline.
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