TOUR: ShopRite - Somerville, NJ

ShopRite of Somerville
Owner: Richard Saker / Saker Supermarkets

Opened: 2011

Previous Tenants: none, Pathmark previously on this property

Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.

Location: 1 S Davenport Ave, Somerville, NJ

Photographed: July 2020

It's become the norm for downtown grocery locations to be in mixed-use developments, frequently in smaller spaces and more urban in style. Well, Saker Supermarkets didn't get the memo, redeveloping a giant property which previously held a Pathmark and a few other buildings with a 70,000+ square foot store with all the bells and whistles of the large suburban stores. And Somerville isn't a big city, but it's a substantial town with a bustling business district along Main Street, which runs along the left side of the store from the above view. In an unusual but welcome twist of the norm, the downtown redevelopment here in Somerville actually perceptibly drew traffic away from the highway strip malls on 206! Check out the former Stop & Shop, which this store almost directly put out of business, here.

As usual, no expense was spared on the construction of this superstore, which opened in 2011. As we'll see heading in, this is a store model from a clear transition period between the earlier store model such as Middletown or Bound Brook, and the newer store model such as Hazlet. And note that this store is in Somerville, not Somerset!

Okay, so my first few pictures are not so wonderful. But we get the idea nonetheless. Floral and customer service are immediately inside the entrance, with produce lining the first aisle and bakery in the second (same as the others we've seen). Deli/prepared foods, seafood, and meat along the back wall, with dairy/frozen on the right side of the store. In an interesting twist, pharmacy is in an island in the grocery aisles and the Nutrition Center is in the front left corner, near the entrance...

The nutrition center being out of the way here is clearly a leftover from the older store model, and the newer layout with these aisles prominent in the middle of the sales floor is far smoother. As attractive and impressive as the department is, it's a bit cramped and that's exacerbated by the low ceiling.

Still a nice setup, though. Great floor!

Returning to the main sales floor...

Always a gorgeous shot in the grand aisles of a Saker store!

Bakery island here in the second aisle. Notice the hanging structures I mentioned in Bound Brook are present here despite this store never having the neon decor mentioned in Bound Brook. Also, if you zoom in, you can see where the nutrition center is in the front corner.

Ah, my favorite department, the Wok Empire at the back of the bakery island. Sushi is also here. Moving on to my second-favorite department in the back...

Cheese! I love the cheese selection at the Saker stores. Always something fun to find.

World Class Kitchens and Delicatessen along the back wall.

As great as this section looks, see the Hazlet post to get a good idea of how much the deli/prepared foods selection has grown in the Saker stores since this store opened.

Seafood and meat on the rest of the back wall.

Pharmacy lines the other side of the bakery island with the health and beauty items on the rest of that aisle. I'm not sure we've ever seen this setup before.

Back over in the meat department.

This is going to sound like a strange thing, but I must say that in these newer Saker stores, the layout of the back wall of the store is extremely effective. Separating the meat department from the grocery aisles with abundant space (a luxury not available to all stores, of course) really improves the traffic flow. That's important, since these stores are so high-volume.

Grocery aisles looking good. Notice that the darker ceiling more closely resembles the older, remodeled stores than the newer stores like Hazlet.

Paper goods in aisle 23.

Milk along the back wall.

And frozen takes up aisle 24 and one side of aisle 25. Dairy takes up the outside of aisle 25, the last aisle, with the rest continuing onto the front wall where other stores have pharmacies.

And moving on to the cavernous front-end before we head out...

I mentioned this briefly at the beginning of the post, but this ShopRite -- being an extremely high-volume store -- draws from Somerville's downtown as well as the surrounding area, and in an unusual situation, this downtown store actually put a store out of business a few years later that's located just outside town about half a mile away in Raritan, which we are taking a look at here. And tomorrow, we're heading about three miles west of town for our next store here on The Market Report!