Update: Foodtown - Caldwell, NJ

Super Foodtown of Caldwell
Owner: Jack Shakoor / Jack's Supermarkets

Opened: 1980s(?)

Previous Tenants: Hy's Foodtown

Cooperative: Allegiance Retail Services

Location: 370 Bloomfield Ave, Caldwell, NJ

Photographed: June 2021

Not Hudson County, but we're returning to this wonderful little store in the Essex County town of Caldwell, NJ! I feel like a TV show announcer... on the last episode of Jack's Super Foodtown of Caldwell, we saw the early signs of a remodel with some new flooring and fixtures. I'm pleased to say that the remodel is near completion, at least inside, and the exterior will be done next.

The exterior could certainly stand to be upgraded a bit, as we can see here. It doesn't quite fit in with the nice downtown of Caldwell.

And luckily, we can get a side-by-side comparison of the remodel before and after, with the rendering below hanging inside the store's rear entrance...

It'll definitely look great when it's all finished! And speaking of the rear entrance...

This faces the municipal lot in the back of the store. This is the entrance most people use, but we're going to tour the store from the front entrance on Bloomfield Avenue because that's how my pictures go.

Quite the difference with the new decor on the walls! As we'll see, much of the decor is mounted on a panel at the front of the cases, meaning it's out from the walls maybe a foot and a half, which makes sense because if it were mounted on the walls it would be invisible since the ceiling is so low here.

Refrigerated beer and wine is on the front wall of the produce aisle, with wine on the shelves lining the opposite side.

And the newly remodeled deli and bakery are at the back of the produce aisle. Bakery is at the far right in the back.

Customer service used to be approximately where the Carvel freezer is, with a pass-through to the front end next to it. Now, there's only one way to enter the front end (with the registers, HABA, customer service, and oddly, potato chips), in the front of the store.

Some really fantastic smaller-scale signage around the store, as we see here. It's a way of adapting the decor package to the smaller space and lower ceiling. I assume this decor package comes to us courtesy of DY Design, which does most of the Foodtowns.

Deli on the back wall of the store looking fantastic as well! I really like the circular signs on either side of the main department sign. Meats continue along the back wall of the store...

...(see how the decor is attached to the front of the cases instead of the wall?) and frozen foods, except ice cream, take up the first grocery aisle.

Nice new aisle markers, too. And as always, the store is spotless.

Sneak peek of the dairy decor here, too. I think aisle 5 is the last full-length aisle, with the last three being shorter.

The service butcher, with another really awesome sign, is at the back of aisle 5.

The store is shallower in the last three aisles, and a final meat case is on the side of the main store (so, in other words, if I turned 90 degrees to my left in the above picture, we'd find this...)

For whatever reason, in the last aisle (which contains ice cream and milk), the decor is mounted to the wall instead of the front of the case, rendering it almost unreadable.

Delicious Juice in a bit of a dark corner on the front wall.

And the rest of dairy lines the front wall of the store in some pretty old cases. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess.

And over to the front-end, which actually runs along the right side wall of the store...

Produce and wine are to the left of the HABA here, with the former pass-through to deli/bakery in the back clearly visible straight ahead where the Coke coolers are now. And strangely enough, chips are past the registers on the right side wall of the store. Anyhow, that's all for now, and we'll return when the outside is done! Also make sure to check out today's update at the SuperFresh Food World in Belleville here.