Update: Foodtown - Caldwell, NJ

Super Foodtown of Caldwell

Owner: Jack Shakoor / Jack's Supermarkets

Opened: ca. 1999

Previous Tenants: Pfitzenmeyer's Market > Hy's Foodtown (1970s-ca. 1999)

Cooperative: Allegiance Retail Services

Location: 370 Bloomfield Ave, Caldwell, NJ

Photographed: July 2021

Can you believe that was underneath Jack's Foodtown's facade in Caldwell?! After posting my previous look at the ongoing remodel, a Twitter user tipped me off to the remants of the long-ago tenants beautifully preserved underneath the facade of the Foodtown. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's review this store's history a little. The row of storefronts originally had several tenants, which are listed here. The storefront all the way to the right was Pfitzenmeyer's Market, which we see revealed in the first picture. In 1953, Hy Shulman took over the store and combined several of the storefronts into Hy's Foodtown. Hy's Foodtown closed in 1998, at the time of the Twin County scandal (involving embezzlement and other illegal activity done within Twin County Grocers, the cooperative that ran Foodtown supermarkets and of which Shulman was vice chairman at the time). It doesn't seem that Shulman was actually involved in any of the illegal activity, but that's unclear. In any event, the store closed at the same time as chairman Martin Vitale's stores. Later in 1998, Jack Shakoor, who owned three IGAs -- Boonton (now closed), Kenvil (now closed), and North Arlington (now Foodtown) -- purchased the store and re-opened it as Jack's Super IGA; Shakoor then switched all of his stores over to Foodtown following Twin County's dissolution and the change of the cooperative to Foodtown Supermarkets Inc (which became today's Allegiance Retail Services in 2012). The Baristanet article linked above gives a pretty solid history of the store's earlier days.

Here we see the store being prepared in early July for more serious demolition...

And we can very clearly see that the new facade was installed directly over the older one.

Upon demolishing the front wall, we get a clear view of the storefronts that were under it.

Pfitzenmeyer's Market was in the farthest-right storefront, what now makes up Foodtown's front end.

This storefront is up next, which appears to be promotional signage for Pfitzenmeyer's. It's also possible this was a sign from some iteration of Hy's, since "frozen foods" is a more modern offering and term (sometimes they had been referred to as "frosted foods") than might have been used before 1953.

That said, this might date back to as early as the 1940s. Here's a little background on Tip-Top, which was made nearby in East Orange.

A much older looking sign is next door at what was the sport shop, advertising cigars, pipes, and candy...

I assume these signs won't be preserved during the remodel, but it would be really awesome if they were.

No more signage has been preserved at the far end of the store, which makes up part of the dairy and frozen department and the last few aisles of the store.

And to review one more time, here's the rendering of what the storefront will look like -- a big improvement for sure over the old siding! I do wonder if they'll just install a new facade over this older one again, maybe preserving the old signage for another 70 years...

There's a lot more to see today, so check out the full list of today's posts here!