Foodtown of New Brunswick
Owner: Robin Estevez
Looking towards the back wall of the store.
Owner: Robin Estevez
Opened: 2012 under current ownership-March 2021
Previous Tenants: Food Fair > Pantry Pride
Later Tenants: Food Universe Marketplace
Cooperative: Allegiance Retail Services
Location: 20 Elizabeth St, Livingston, NJ
Photographed: July 2020
It's time for our latest look at a Food Fair with its arch intact! Previously we've seen Newark and Bloomfield up in Essex County, as well as a tiny bit in Elizabeth. This store later became a Pantry Pride, then a Foodtown owned by the Davidsons probably in the late 70s or early 80s. It was taken over by the Estevezes in 2012, and you can see one of their other locations here. Around 2017 or 2018, the store was switched briefly to Mega Meat City then back to Foodtown in late 2019 or early 2020. In early March of 2021, it was sold to some of the Foodtown managers and it's now a Food Universe Marketplace with the Key Food cooperative. A light remodel was completed inside, and the outside was fixed up but the arch remains! I hope to return to the store soon for pictures of Food Universe, but for now this will have to do...
As we can see, this store is in excellent condition. The arch was nicely repainted and the entire storefront is very well maintained.
The store is just over 20,000 square feet, but one of the larger supermarkets in New Brunswick.
We enter in the front left corner to a large meat department in the corner. Produce lines the right side of the grand aisle, with deli at the back. Dairy lines the back wall, with frozen on the right side wall. Let's head in!
The service counter lines the left side in the front of the grand aisle.
Looking along the front wall of the store, with packaged meats on this side. The registers take up the other half of the front side.
I believe the section with bread on the left side of the grand aisle was previously a service counter, although I don't know what it would've been. Seafood? You can also zoom in to see the "Mega Deli," left over from Mega Meat City.
The deli and hot food counter is at the back of the grand aisle.
Closer look at the produce department.
Dairy cases looking like older cases that have been updated.
Aisle markers look pretty new, I'm thinking that they were installed when the store switched back to Foodtown from Mega Meat City.
Very impressive international aisle, with clearly marked countries of origin.
Nonfoods in the second to last aisle.
Frozen foods on the outside of the last aisle. The cases and flooring here look to be on the older side, but both are nicely kept up.
I only count four registers here on the front end, which seems like very little to me. I think that's it, though.
Looking back at the registers from the entrance. That's all for our tour here at Foodtown, but come back tomorrow to check out a chain supermarket just over the border into Somerset to the west!
I believe that Davidson also owned the Foodtown on George St that later became C-town. I remember hearing that when that store closed that they wanted to make the whole store be a giant liquor store. Somehow they weren't allowed to take the only grocery store in that part of town (which had a bunch of housing projects at that time) and turn it into a liquor store. So it was sold and became C-town.
ReplyDeleteYes, they owned the George Street Foodtown also, and it became CTown in the 90s. That store is now a Bravo, which we will be touring in a few days. There are more details on that post, but the Davidsons sought to change the store to a liquor store. New Brunswick denied them the liquor license, though, for the new store, and instead subsidized the CTown opening. The Davidsons then sued the CTown owner and the city, arguing that the CTown would be a threat to their Elizabeth Street Foodtown. They lost, though, and CTown opened in the early 90s then converting to Bravo around 2012.
DeleteThe Davidsons sold this store to the Ginsberg family in 1990. Not sure if it was owned by anyone else in between the Ginsbergs and the Estevezes.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, thanks!
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