SuperFresh
Owner: Howard Lee / Food World Supermarkets
Opened: 2020
Previous Tenants: ShopRite > Pathmark
Cooperative: Key Food Stores
Location: 95 New Brunswick Ave, Hopelawn, Woodbridge, NJ
Photographed: June & July 2020, February 2021
We're here at the southeastern corner of Woodbridge Township, in the Hopelawn section, to tour the SuperFresh that opened here in July 2020. As dedicated readers will remember, I attended the store's grand opening, which we saw in a Special Report back in August 2020.
The building is 46,000 sqaure feet (plus a 5000 square foot liquor store, seen to the left here). It was built in the mid- to late-1960s as a Supermarkets General-owned ShopRite, and converted to Pathmark in 1968. Following Pathmark's closure, it was announced that about 30,000 square feet of the store was to be taken over by "D Town Market Fresh" -- almost definitely the same owners as B Town in Elizabeth, especially since they were announced at the same time. These names, as you might have suspected, are gathered around the more famous CTown Supermarkets, and the owner I suspect owned all of the stores also owns the CTown in Perth Amboy which we'll be touring in a few days.
B Town in Elizabeth opened first, and closed very shortly thereafter. Around the same time B Town closed, this store was put up for sale, being taken over by Food World soon after. We've previously seen Food World stores in Valley Stream and Jamaica, along with SuperFresh stores owned by Food World in Bloomfield (since sold), Belleville, Roselle, and Linden. They're all well-run stores, and the SuperFresh stores are beautiful. As we'll see, this store is no different. Food World had also announced another new location for Long Branch, NJ coming soon, which was going to be in a new mixed-use development, although that development was canceled so I'm not sure that the store is still in progress. Food World had also entered negotiations to purchase the property at 242 Lincoln Blvd in Middlesex (formerly Pathmark/Price Saver) but it seems that fell through also. This location has the same decor package as Linden, but is about half the size.
Here's some pictures from my late June 2020 visit, showing the store in progress.
Pathmark cart corrals remained, but the sign at the street had been updated with a banner...
A mid-July visit showed the store progressing a little further...
I was a bit surprised to see the Food World vans here, since I assumed they'd bring in SuperFresh-branded vans. They did indeed, so this van must have been in the store only to help set up.
I didn't take too many pictures when I returned while passing through in February of 2021, but I definitely wanted to grab this picture of the delivery van. I found the store growing into its space nicely, with a healthy crowd on a Friday afternoon. In fact, it was hard to find a spot in the lot; I had to park on this end far from the entrance.
By this point, the signage had been put up advertising the store's exact opening date. The Pathmark cart corrals, actually, remain but with a fresh coat of paint and a nice SuperFresh decal...
Now let's head in to tour this amazing store! The produce department takes up the left side of the store, with floral and pharmacy in the front left corner. Seafood takes up the back left corner, with meats and butcher along the back wall. Frozen foods take up the second-to-last aisle and half of the third-to-last, with dairy on both sides of the last aisle. Deli/bakery are in the front right corner, with general merchandise on the front wall beyond the registers.
And inside, it is absolutely gorgeous. The produce department takes up maybe 1/5 of the store's overall sales floor, and it's one of the nicest produce departments in the area. It's centered around a giant apple tree (fake, of course), and in the back is a whole pickup truck parked on the sales floor. Two model trains run around the front part, and we can see the track above here.
Pharmacy, floral, and spices in the front corner. Check out the "flowers" sign -- spelled out in flowers! The experience throughout the store is very theatrical. We can even see along the top of the produce cases to the left in the below picture, there is a model street front with little stores and houses!
Absolutely everything is beautiful. Flooring, ceiling, lighting, fixtures, decor. Everything. Plus the pickup truck, which I realized I missed photographing the first time around, so here's a shot from February 2021...
Seafood is at the back of the produce aisle.
Huge, although not as large as Linden's. (To be fair, this store is about half the size of Linden.) The decor package is the same as Linden here, although some individual department signs look slightly different.
Meats line the rest of the back wall, with service butcher about halfway across the wall. While this store is about 15,000 square feet smaller than Pathmark, I overheard multiple customers talking about how they thought it was so much larger.
Where we can feel the store's smaller size is the grocery aisles. They're not uncomfortably narrow, but there's certainly far less space around than Linden. Like Linden, however, the aisles are split in half with a center walkway.
I really like the way the lighting matches the grocery aisle arrangements. Also, unlike Linden, there is no seasonal aisle.
The grocery selection was impressive, how much they've packed into this relatively small space. Large selections of general grocery, international, and organic/natural. Unlike Linden, I believe, this store does not have a dedicated organic aisle, with that selection mixed in instead.
And speaking of international items, here's a look at one of the international aisles (one of several, of course)...
The international selection is heavily but not exclusively Latino. Other regions including Asia, Poland, and Italy are represented.
It does seem that the aisles would be better off without the displays in the middle, since they are a bit narrow to begin with.
Service butcher on the back wall. Beautiful!
Cold cuts and milk on the back wall to the right of the butcher counter. While the decor is undoubtedly brand new, these cases actually look a little older. It's possible they were left over from Pathmark and simply repainted for SuperFresh. I don't know how far D Town got before pulling out of the project, but it's also possible they began a renovation and then sold to SuperFresh in the middle.
Frozen foods take up one and a half aisles towards the far end of the store. I like the fact that these aisles seem a little wider.
Again, a little hard to pinpoint how old these fixtures are.
Interesting that the milk is not set up to be stocked from behind, something we do typically see in these larger stores. Moving into the dairy aisle along the side wall, these fixtures are almost definitely left over from Pathmark but painted...
And like the other aisles, the dairy aisle is split in half. Looking back towards the produce aisle here...
The last few aisles are a little shorter to accommodate a bakery/deli section in the front corner. Because this is much smaller than Linden, it seems Hopelawn does not bake in-store. There has since been a standalone bakery business that's opened up along the front wall beyond the registers.
Absolutely gorgeous deli/bakery. Everywhere you look is a new beautiful decor element.
Moving on to the front end, we see pristine displays on the endcaps.
Like Linden, this store has beautiful hanging wood decor elements over the checkouts.
The exit is on this side of the store, with the entrance at the far end.
That built-out section along the front wall was a general merchandise section at the time of my visit, but it's possible they have other plans for it. We saw something similar in Belleville, where a general merchandise and sale department was converted to a liquor store. Part of this is now the bakery.
That finally wraps up our extensive coverage of this store! (When Long Branch opens, I hope to make it out there too. That's about 25 miles to the southeast.) But for now, we're going to tour this store's main competitor -- about three quarters of a mile to the east over the border into Perth Amboy. Come back tomorrow to check it out!
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