TOUR: Patel Brothers - Edison, NJ

Patel Brothers
Owner: Swetal & Rakesh Patel

Opened: unknown

Previous Tenants: A&P

Cooperative: none

Location: 1681 Oak Tree Rd, Edison, NJ

Photographed: June 2020

Today we're jumping right into our second Oak Tree Road store tour with this Patel Brothers! (If you missed yesterday's Apna Bazar across the street, check it out here.) There's a very interesting history behind this store, beginning with its construction in the 1960s as a Centennial styled A&P. Closing by the 1980s, it later became a liquor store, which closed around 2014. By 2016, Patel Brothers had set up shop here -- just half a mile west of a one-year-old new-build location also on Oak Tree Road, which we'll see shortly. Patel Brothers seems to be far and away the favorite store along this stretch, and easily the highest-volume. It's possible that the chain, which is the United States' largest Indian grocery chain, found even the newly built store wasn't enough to handle the volume they expected to do in this location, making it feasible to open a second, 18,000 square foot location just up the street a year later.

Regardless, it's obvious both stores perform very well. Here in the Edison location (the other one is just over the border to the east in Iselin), we find produce in the first aisle, with refrigerated items on the back wall. Frozen foods line the last aisle with health and beauty in the front corner.

A look across produce from the entrance.

A prepared foods counter takes up the front corner of the store.

I think it's fair to assume all the fixtures we see here were newly installed in the store, and nothing is left over from previous tenants (or brought in secondhand). It doesn't seem that Patel Brothers cuts corners like that. From my brief experiences at these two locations, it's clear that Patel Brothers is the best of the stores in this area.

As we can see here in the pictures, there's a different style of shelving used for most of the aisles here, with the shelves forming little compartments instead of the usual open shelves. They look more like bookcases, actually. But they're also kept very nicely stocked, which brings me to the second thing I liked about Patel Brothers -- the stores were very well-staffed and it was clear employees were taking care of the store.

The shelving makes for a very different appearance within the store, prompting me to have a little fun with the camera...

Dates and dried coconut as far as the eye can see!

And the displays of beans rival even Food Bazaar and Universal (although these are dried beans instead of canned...)

The products in the shelving look so great compared to the standard grocery shelving, though I imagine to keep it looking this good it has to be meticulously stocked. I also like the category markers along the tops of the shelves.

A look back towards the produce aisle on the back wall. Patel Brothers might have a smaller kitchenware selection than Apna Bazar, but it's certainly better organized.

Frozen foods in beautiful new cases line the last aisle. The front corner has the manager's office, customer service, and HABA stacked high. How high?

Yep, that's pretty high (the people we see are rather average in height, no perspective tricks here). And we see plenty of registers open on the front end. Lines were moving very fast too... unlike Apna Bazar.

We can also see Patel's Fresh Kitchen at the far end of the front-end, just inside the entrance. That's all for this Patel Brothers, but if you like what you see, we have a second one in two days! First, though, let's take a look at the ShopRite-turned-Pathmark just next door to this store, now home to an independent Indian supermarket, over on The Independent Edition!