TOUR: ShopRite - Piscataway, NJ

ShopRite of Piscataway
Owner: Richard Saker / Saker Supermarkets

Opened: unknown

Previous Tenants: unknown

Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.

Location: 1306 Centennial Ave, Piscataway, NJ

Photographed: July 2020

Our final store in our Edison and Piscataway group is the 63,000 square foot Saker ShopRite of Piscataway. It's just diagonally across the street from the last two stores we saw, Asian Food Markets and ALDI.

This is the largest supermarket in this immediate area, with a 66,000 square foot Stop & Shop (former Edwards) about three quarters of a mile to the north. Unfortunately, we won't be getting a chance to see that store but you can see a nearly identical one over in Edison here.

The ShopRite, located in the corner of a smaller strip mall, is easily the most attractive supermarket and complex here in Piscataway. The buildings are a much more attractive brick, with tree-lined rows of parking instead of just a big open lot like Centennial Square where we saw the last two stores.

Because of the strip mall's lower-key design, the signage is much more understated than in many other stores. The lack of any similarities to other Saker ShopRites makes me wonder whether this strip mall's anchor was perhaps built as something else, but I don't think so.

We enter on the corner of the front wall, to the grand aisle with produce in the second aisle. Prepared foods, bakery, and deli line the outside of the grand aisle. There's also a walkway to an expansion with the pharmacy off of the right side wall.

I'd assume this store opened with the same decor as Edison, but was at some point later upgraded to the current decor package, albeit a smaller-scale version of it.

I've always enjoyed the prepared foods at Saker ShopRites. As we see here, the prepared foods departments are branded World Class Kitchens.

Multiple hot food bars and a sushi counter line the outside wall, with self-serve salad in the middle.

Produce is just to the left, on the other side of the bread shelving you can see to the left. Bakery is under the lower ceiling ahead to the right, with deli at the back. Let's take a detour into the somewhat oddly-placed pharmacy expansion to the right...

Like Edison, the pharmacy room also has HABA and other nonfoods.

Like greeting cards, candles, office supplies, and baby products...

I believe the prescription counter is on the outside wall of the expansion. The pharmacy department also has its own entrance and register.

Now back into the main supermarket for the rest of the grand aisle...

Looking back up towards the front of the prepared foods department.

Jumping over to produce for a minute. We can tell the store is on the older side because there's no open feeling, each department is very closed off from the rest of the store, and the feeling is very compartmentalized.

This back section of the grand aisle features bakery on the right and deli on the left, towards the rest of the supermarket.

The bakery is great, even for a relatively small store.

I can't tell how old these fixtures are, given that they are older in design and appearance but look identical to what is being put in the newest Saker stores. I'm going to guess that they are newer than the rest of the store.

An appy sign survives! Perhaps this is the decor that was previously in this store. It doesn't match anything else in this store or anything I've seen in any other Saker, so it's hard to tell. For those who are unaware, Appy is short for Appetizing, and refers to deli and prepared foods.

Seafood juts out next to deli, with a strange indentation just next to it for frozen fish and meat, then meat continuing along the rest of the back wall.

As we see, there are several unusual corners and alcoves on the back wall, but the grocery aisles are all normal. There are several different ceiling heights, with packaged meats running along the back wall.

I really love all these ceiling designs.

And dairy is up next in the back corner...

Again, it's very difficult to place the age of any of these fixtures because they're so similar to what Saker is putting in its new-build stores. And I don't know how old this store is, or whether it replaced a different anchor tenant. Maybe a Piscataway resident can help me out here!

A somewhat dim frozen aisle takes up the second-to-last aisle. The last aisle has frozen on one side and dairy on the outside wall.

I believe this lower ceiling area was an expansion. Notice also that the flooring doesn't match anything else we've seen elsewhere in the store.

And now for a look across the front end, with more awesome ceiling designs, before we wrap up this tour, and our Edison - Piscataway group! Come back tomorrow to check out where we're headed next.