TOUR: Foodtown - Port Monmouth, NJ

Foodtown of Port Monmouth
Owner: Lou Scaduto Jr. / Circus Fresh Foods

Opened: 1998

Previous Tenants: A&P (1960s-1998)

Cooperative: Allegiance Retail Services

Location: 426 NJ-36, Port Monmouth, NJ

Photographed: December 2020

It's time for our first official Shore store! As I've said, and as we can see in the map above, sadly we will not be going too far down the shore -- no farther than Brick -- but we're starting here at the northeastern part of Monmouth County for two Foodtowns today. This first location, Port Monmouth, is the farther west, with Atlantic Highlands just to the east. The sun was not being too kind to me to photograph the exterior of this expanded A&P centennial...

A 1960s-era, 19,000 square foot barrel roof store has been more than doubled in size, likely by A&P, for the existing Foodtown which opened in 1998. It moved up route 36 from an older store in a former ACME just to the west. Now it's time to play a game of "how much of the store's layout does Zachary remember..."

We enter to the Circus Fresh Food Experience on the right side of the store to a gorgeous grand aisle. You wind your way through produce and a huge prepared foods/deli department in the grand aisle, with bakery, seafood, and meat along the back wall. The grocery aisles are up next, but the grand aisle actually cuts off the beginning of the first few aisles, as you can see to the left here. The last few aisles run perpendicular to the rest. Unfortunately, the store is really showing signs of its age at the far end, with some leaky ceilings (following a snowstorm) forcing a few aisles to be closed off.

Here in the grand aisle, however, the store looks amazing! Especially since A&P's barrel roof has been exposed with sweeping wooden beams supporting the ceiling across the department.

Here we get a better view of how the produce department runs diagonally through the middle of the grocery aisles. Prepared foods (shown two pictures above) are on the opposite diagonal, with the kitchen on the outside wall, and deli lining the right side of the grand aisle. Clearly the deli-prepared foods area is a big draw in this store.

And at the back of the grand aisle is a very large bakery. I didn't have particularly high expectations for this store but I was thoroughly impressed with the perishables. The decor is on the older side, but probably not original to the store's opening in 1998.

Up next along the back wall is a seafood department which feels distinctly like the Shaw's decor of the mid-2000s. Very possible that the same design firm did both chains. (I'm failing to find an actual example of the decor I'm referring to, but it's the same decor package as this. That store is now a Star Market, which is a different Albertsons banner, and we'll be touring it someday when we get up to Boston.)

And the butcher shop is up next...

Now let's head over to the grocery aisles, including the aforementioned diagonal section in the first few aisles.

The produce department and entrance are on the other side of this wall to the right, with customer service between.

(By the way, don't fault the owners for the empty shelves to the right here. That was the seasonal section and I visited just a few days before Christmas. Sold out of all the decorations and everything!)

Excellent branding and signage in the health and beauty department. Moving into the next grocery aisles, we see a few interesting things...

First off, we can see the leaky ceiling in dire need of repair here. But second, I'm fairly certain this shelving is left over from A&P. The green warehouse style shelving is exactly what would've been put in an A&P Sav-A-Center. (For comparison, see City Supermarket in Fairview, previously an A&P and then a Food Basics. Their shelving has been painted beige, but it used to be green like this.)

The grand aisle and 11 grocery aisles reside in the former Centennial space, with the remaining few aisles and the liquor department in the expansion. Here we can see the transition in aisles running front-to-back to side-to-side. Dairy lines the back of the expansion area.

The decor runs out a bit here due to the lower ceiling, but I love the coordinated category markers that extend throughout the store.

Nonfoods are in this section of the store as well. The liquor department, by the way, which I didn't get a picture of, is on the front wall.

Frozen foods certainly showing their age more than the rest of the store. The limited lighting on the ceiling wouldn't be so bad if all the cases' lights worked, but as we can see they do not. And if you zoom in, you can see the end of the aisle closed off for leaky ceiling. This part of the store has such a different feeling from the grand aisle, likely with much more left over from A&P.

Additional frozen foods here. Let's head back into the main supermarket...

A look at the very busy front-end. Are those lane markers left over from A&P? I don't recognize them but they don't feel like they match the rest of the decor. Maybe they're from the 1998-era decor package that has since been eliminated. Anyway, that's only one of our two Foodtowns for the day -- check out Atlantic Highlands here, and head over to Grocery Archaeology tomorrow for a former supermarket up next!

P.S. From now on when I have two (or more) posts a day, I'm going to post the first at midnight and any subsequent posts at 12:01, 12:02, and so on. I certainly hope all my readers are getting a good night's sleep and not reading the blog at 12:01am, but if you're wondering about the mechanics of it, there you go.