ShopRite of Old Bridge
Owner: Robert Sumas / Village Super Market
Opened: 2012 under current ownership
Previous Tenants: Shakoor ShopRite
Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.
Location: 2239 US-9, Old Bridge, NJ
Photographed: July 2020
We have finally arrived at the wonderful classic Old Bridge ShopRite, a 70s-era store that replaced an older store just up route 9 at Ernston Road. Up until 2012, the store was owned by Charles Shakoor, whose brother Jack Shakoor owns four Foodtowns (Caldwell, Wayne, Bloomfield, and North Arlington). Charles Shakoor died in May 2020, but the store had been sold eight years earlier to Springfield, NJ-based Village Super Market, which today owns about 30 ShopRites, five Fairway Markets, and three Gourmet Garages.
Village created plans to move the store just to the north in a development on route 9 which has been held up, so for now, this dinosaur still remains in operation. It has a certain charm for sure, but it's long past time for a replacement of the 38,000 square foot location. Acme Style has coverage from a few years ago, which you can see here. The ancient neon -- which is likely original to the store -- had been removed by the time of my visit, but not much of anything had been put up in its place. Despite the store's size and condition, it seems pretty high-volume, warranting its replacement.
A look at the store's layout courtesy of a fire exit plan. We enter to customer service/pharmacy on the front wall, with produce in the first aisle. Seafood is at the back of the first aisle, with meat lining the back wall and a tiny deli-bakery in the back corner opposite the entrance. As we can see, the store has been expanded into a neighboring storefront leaving a bizarre island in the middle of the sales floor.
Combined customer service and pharmacy counter in the front here. Notice that the pharmacy signage actually matches the latest Village decor package, but that's the only "decor" element in the store. The yellow stripe remains from the neon decor.
Some of the produce cases have been updated, as we see here. You can see just how small the department is here compared to newer ShopRites.
Seafood at the back of the first aisle here.
And a look across the back wall. I think it's likely Village painted some of these cases when they took over.
On the other hand, it's hard to place exactly the age of these shelves.
Like many 90s-era A&Ps, there's no lighting on the ceiling in the grocery aisles; instead, the lighting is affixed to the tops of each shelf. It certainly makes for a dim experience -- which isn't helped by the lights visible on the ceiling here that are either no longer working or simply turned off.
From what it seems to me, Village has streamlined the store a bit since taking it over. The arrangement of grocery aisles is nearly identical to most other Village stores.
The shelving looks similar to other Village stores, but the top lighting throws me off -- I haven't really seen that in other Village locations. So I'm pretty sure it's left over from the Shakoor days.
Obligatory aisle 12 shot also shows the classic freezer case arrangements.
I assume that Village had expected to replace the store nearly immediately, since so little work has been put into it. The store hasn't even received new aisle markers, and in many older Villages, the aisle markers are the first things to be updated. See East Orange, which is also scheduled to be replaced in the very near future.
Small deli department in the back corner of the store, with an even tinier bakery department in the corner behind it. The bakery shelving is definitely Village...
Aisle 14 is the last aisle in the main supermarket, with wonderfully outdated yellow dairy cases.
There are two awkward walkways into the expansion on the side of the store...
Luckily, Village has not allowed this sign to be removed yet.
More dairy is in this area. Hard to place exactly when this expansion happened, but it does seem to have been quite a while ago judging by the age of the fixtures.
There's a few more grocery aisles in the front here...
I believe, although I'm honestly not sure, that these aisles run side-to-side, or perpendicular to the other grocery aisles.
Note that the lighting on the right here is not actually that bad, but my phone decided to really exaggerate the difference in colors. Still needs to be replaced, though.
A look across the front-end back in the main supermarket. Notice that the generic aisle markers have been fitted with Village Super Market logos, to create an approximate equivalent to what other Village stores have (in which the number is in the middle of the circle). That's all for today, but up next we're going to head just a little more north on US-9 to our next stop, with one post here on The Market Report and one on Grocery Archaeology tomorrow!
Why not just move into the former Lowes?
ReplyDeleteThat's a terrible spot. Getting in and out looks like a nightmare.
DeleteLike that ever makes a difference for ShopRite? People will find there way in no matter where you put one (they have taken over other unsuccessful stores before with the same issue).
DeleteThe lack of changes makes sense if they were/are expecting to move to a new spot (why spend effort on something you aren't going to use for long, or at least weren't planning to do so) and the older décor already there may be explained by it having been a solo store for most of it's life (thinking that a solo operator may have less money/capacity to borrow than a larger group would).
I think it's possible but I think there is a difference between "hard to get into/out of" and "hard to see from the main drag". I think ShopRite does well with the latter (see Flanders) but the easy to see, hard to access locations do not seem to be too appealing to ShopRite (see the old Middletown location I covered a while back).
DeleteThis store will close March 16. The new store opens on March 17. https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/money/business/2024/03/05/shoprite-old-bridge-opening-date/72838740007/
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link! I'm excited to check out the new store, we'll see when I'll actually be able to get there though...
DeleteAndrew, thanks very much for sharing that link.
DeleteHere are some additional links to articles which you, Zachary, and others may be interested in:
https://www.nj.com/business/2024/03/this-brand-new-nj-shoprite-is-worth-the-12-year-wait.html
https://njbiz.com/take-a-look-shoprite-opens-new-store-in-old-bridge-slideshow/
It appears that Village debuted a new decor package, which--in my opinion--looks absolutely amazing.
Regarding the now former Old Bridge ShopRite, it opened on February 24, 1976 (as I mentioned in a comment I wrote elsewhere on Zachary's blog). I honestly thought it opened a bit earlier, especially considering the fact that the lettering of the word "S H O P R I T E" on the building's exterior matched that of the chain's Netcong store, which opened over a decade prior.
Being that older store was originally a "single owner" (that is, Shakoor had just that store, where many owners have several to several dozen), I wonder if it's possible that someone else was renovating a store and he made a deal to buy the signage from them (if they were replacing with a newer version)?
DeleteMay not be also, just seems like something that could make sense for someone with smaller pockets to do to save a buck or two (or someone in the same mindset as Ralph Ketner - he who opted to rename Food Town to Food Lion so as to only have to buy 2 new letters for each store and save, even back then, somewhere around $500,000 doing so!).
Billy, that is a very good insight you had regarding this store's signage possibly having originated on an older ShopRite. Besides Netcong (which opened on September 15, 1965), the fact that the ShopRite of West Milford (which opened on June 26, 1968) had this "S H O P R I T E" signage for many decades also suggests that Charles Shakoor may have purchased the signage from another store looking to replace its ShopRite sign.
DeletePrior to reading your post, I never knew about Ralph Ketner, nor did I know that the original name of Food Lion was Food Town. He was certainly a very colorful and clever individual. Thanks for sharing that anecdote about him.
You're welcome - there is a book (Called Lion's Share) all about the company and family (his father had stores, then his older brother opened some that eventually got sold to Winn Dixie, before several family and others became upset with that company and decided to leave and open their own store).
DeleteAbout 25 years back, Waldenbooks turned one of their stores locally in a mall that was decaying even then into an outlet that got not so good selling or older books. They'd price all the books lower than normal cover, then take a % off that each menoth they didn't sell, so by the 4th month they were at 90% off that already lower price, meaning most wound up costing less than $1 - found quite a few books like this there about various fairly known companies, and they have been great references for things like this :)