Original Tenant: A&P
Address: 990 Shrewsbury Rd
Opened: 1990s
Closed: 2015
Later Tenants: ACME Markets (2015-2019)
Photographed: January 2021
It's time for our final Northern & Central Monmouth store! The Tinton Falls ACME opened right across the street from the existing Shrewsbury ACME in 2015, with Shrewsbury closing the following year -- then Tinton Falls closing in 2019. Today, Tinton Falls remains vacant while Shrewsbury has been subdivided. You can see Acme Style's coverage here of both stores.
Tinton Falls, a 90s-era A&P, was much larger than the 34,000 square foot Shrewsbury location at 61,000 square feet. But both of these are smaller than the 78,000 square foot ShopRite of Shrewsbury built just behind the former ACME.
The Tinton Falls ACME remains vacant, as we can see in this January 2021 visit. This store was never remodeled by ACME, meaning that much of A&P remains on the inside.
And, for that matter, on the outside. There's definitely a labelscar that we can see where both A&P and ACME's pharmacy signs were to the left of the entrance, which we saw just above. And another A&P relic...
"Welcome to" remains on the doors from the early A&P Foodmarket days, with the A&P logos scraped off by ACME. It looks like they were never replaced.
Most of the grand aisle has been cleared out, with just the flooring remaining.
Looking up into the inside of the facade over the entrance. Now let's head over to the exit door...
The space is very much still available, but we see a few signs of life inside in a second.
Looking in through the exit doors.
Now looking in through the next window to the left of the exit...
Looks like some things had been shipped in or are being prepared to ship out. Could these big crates be the ACME lettering from the storefront? They seem a bit small for that.
One of ACME's registers (or the side of the customer service desk?) and we can also see a few rows of something. I'm not entirely sure what it all is -- since I'm thinking there are no cases or shelves left here -- and it doesn't help that the lights are all off in this part of the store. These seem to be either something coming in for a future tenant or an exterior remodel of the strip mall, perhaps, or the last of ACME's stuff that's being packed up for shipment and not just thrown out. Since the space is still listed as being available, I doubt it's something for a new tenant coming in.
Sadly I can't read what's written on the lower boxes to the left. Ceiling tiles? Anyway, we're lucky to have gotten a look inside post-closure anyway, as soon enough the space will probably be subdivided or converted to a non-grocery tenant, since it's unlikely another store will set up shop across from the brand-new ShopRite. But that's all for Northern and Central Monmouth, and up next we're actually heading back north to travel along the coast for our final group along the eastern coast of New Jersey. Come back tomorrow for the rundown on what we'll be seeing!
ReplyDeleteThe tale of two ACMES… so strange that they kept the Shrewsbury store open after acquiring the Tinton Falls A&P. Seemed like a no brainer to close the older location and invest all their effort into the new store. The exact opposite happened. Shrewsbury remained opened and continued to decline while Tinton Falls was plagued with management issues from day one. Online reviews were generally terrible. I had visited the store several times and was always surprised at how poorly the shelves were stocked and the lack of cashiers, which was a big issue at many of the acquired stores. I suppose that no matter how great the management could have been, this store never would have survived the arrival of ShopRite.
Might have been easier to sustain enough business for a 34k sqft store than a 61k sqft store
DeleteI think you both make good points here, but I do think the reality is that neither ACME would've survived the opening of the Shrewsbury ShopRite.
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