Whole Foods Market
Opened: 2008
Previous Tenants: unknown
Location: 2245 Springfield Ave, Vauxhall, Union, NJ
Photographed: August 2016 and November 2020
Today's store tour is a store I tend to consider to be the largest Whole Foods in the north-central NJ area. At 60,000 square feet, it's actually smaller than West Orange, but somehow feels larger. While West Orange coexists with a nearby smaller store in Montclair, the store here at Vauxhall replaced a smaller store about half a mile to the northwest in Millburn. That store today is a Trader Joe's and a Petsmart. For that reason, Whole Foods refers to this location as Millburn, despite the fact that it's actually in Vauxhall, a somewhat ambiguous area that is actually part of Union Township. (Another large part of Whole Foods' calling this the Millburn instead of the Union store, I'm sure, is the fact that Millburn's median household income is more than double that of Union's.)
2016
I caught the store during its 2016 remodel, and we'll see elements of the new and the old decor as we move through the store. I did return to photograph the store post-renovation, and with less blurry pictures, at the end of November 2020. But before we can head in, let's see what was getting on my nerves this day...
Main entrance to the store with no ramp down from the sidewalk. A minor inconvenience for pushing a shopping cart into the store, but what about shoppers who use wheelchairs or other similar devices? Anyway, let's go in. The pictures are marked with their year to show the before-and-after!
2020
2016
Produce is our first department, lining both sides of the first aisle. Seafood, butcher, and dairy line the back wall, with the last aisle containing bakery, coffee shop, cheese, deli, and all the prepared foods.
I'm not sure there was decor on the wall sections here, but I really like the structure. It's now used as an opportunity to welcome shoppers to Millburn. Grocery aisles are in the center of the store (which is almost a perfect square), with health and beauty in the back.
2020
2016
Decor removed over the greens boxes on the left side wall.
2020
2016
Floral department next to the entrance. Again, we can see where some decor was removed on the front wall. I like the way the store texture is repeated from the storefront here.
And looking across the front end from the produce/floral side.
It looks like something had been removed from this front corner, although I don't know what. The awning structure is left over from previous decor.
Moving towards the back of the produce department, we see prepared produce on the left side wall, with what I believe are bulk foods in the middle and seafood on the back. It seems that the renovation has reset this area to remove the bulk selection.
Most of the cut fruit is out on ice, and is stocked from behind where the prep room is. This has all been replaced with refrigerator cases instead of the ice bins.
2020
2016
Bulk foods shelving towards the back.
Oddly enough, the lighting on the seafood decor seems to have been dimmed, if not removed. The sign now is hardly readable.
2020
2016
Service butcher lines the back wall, with packaged meat lining the facing aisle. We can see the background for the new department sign was installed, but the lettering itself was not.
2020
2016
Health and beauty takes up the back half of the first few grocery aisles.
2020
2016
More decor in transition in the first grocery aisle. The first aisle has been opened up for soda and water, with a vaguely Food Bazaarian feel from the high black shelving on the back of the produce cases and pallets of sale items in the middle.
2020
2016
We can see here how the grocery aisles are split down the middle. Today, the grocery aisles are looking better than ever.
2020
Center dividing aisle.
2016
Frozen foods in the front half of the grocery aisles at the far end of the store. Looking basically the same four years later...
2020
2016
Dairy lining the right half of the back wall. I'm not sure whether this section didn't have any decor or it had been removed, but it honestly looks very good with just the white wall. Some more decor installed in 2020...
2020
2016
2020
Coffee & juice bar in an island in the back of the last aisle. Packaged bread lined the outside walls, with cheese in an island in the grocery aisles facing. Bread has since been moved to the grocery aisles, with packaged coffee and tea now taking that corner.
2016
Grocery aisles extend behind the cheese counter to the left here. Bakery and deli counters line the right-side wall (the outside wall of the store).
2020
2016
2020
2016
No signage had been installed yet. Prepared foods bars take up the middle of this aisle.
2020
2016
With a dessert bar even, something I've never seen before!
2020
Moving into the front end, we see some very cool hanging wood structures. Avid readers know I'm a sucker for anything hanging over the front end.
2016
2020
That wraps up our tour of this Whole Foods! We're going to take a quick detour to the northeastern corner of the county, with one more store in Vauxhall and two in Maplewood, before we head through Union Township. Check out our next stop on Grocery Archaeology tomorrow!
I've been in a few Whole Foods that have dessert bars. The selection here has dwindled alot over the years. I'm surprised they have't yanked it out yet like they have at some other stores.
ReplyDeleteThe big mystery about this place for me is the management of the front-end. They have 3 express registers at the prepared foods side of the store (as seen in the last photo). On weekdays, no matter how busy the front-end is, they shut these registers down promptly at 6:00pm leaving no other express registers. Lines at the few other open registers grow quickly and if you have only a few items, you wind up getting stuck behind much bigger orders. I haven't been here in a while so hopefully they have since installed self-checkouts like they've been doing at their other stores.
Interesting. I can't say I've been to this store a lot, and in fact I think I've only been here twice, so I can't say for sure whether any of that has changed. But yes, I sometimes find the lines at Whole Foods pretty long (although I live closer to West Orange, and that one usually does pretty well).
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