TOUR: ACME Markets - Middlesex, NJ

ACME Markets

Opened: 1955

Previous Tenants: none

Location: 125 Bound Brook Rd, Middlesex, NJ

Photographed: July 2020

The Market Report arrives at what may just be the world's most classic ACME in Middlesex, NJ! Acme Style covered the store three times, and their coverage has been more extensive than what I could get during my one-time visit, so make sure to check it out here.

The store opened in November of 1955, making it almost exactly 60 years older than yesterday's Warren ACME. It started out smaller, but was expanded in the 1970s to its current 25,000 square feet. That's also when the current facade was installed, although it's been modified and modernized slightly over the years. That said, there are plenty of relics around the property...

Such as this awesome trailer, which probably dates back to the 1980s. This was a transitional logo between the prior logo and the next logo, and it doesn't seem to have ever been used on storefronts.

And what else can we see in this image? A very old cart corral...

You can barely read "HELP KEEP YOUR COSTS DOWN," and the rest of the sign is completely unreadable. Now let's head in.

Inside, the store is wonderfully retro but still nicely maintained. As Acme Style has reported, the store was fixed up a little bit back in 2013, and a few small upgrades have been done since, such as the installation of Quality Built checkout lane markers.

A lot to see here on the front end: the wooden cabinets to the left, the scale in the foreground, the various hanging signs, the air vents on the front wall. But despite its age and size, this store still seems to do a pretty good business.

Deli and, believe it or not, service seafood here in the back! The hanging Boar's Head sign is newer than the rest of the decor, and the aisle markers would've been brought in from a closed store. It's possible the Quality Built checkout lane markers were brought in from South Plainfield when it closed.

The lighting has also been updated fairly recently. Here we're looking across the back wall, and the awkward angle is mostly because I wanted to show the store and the decor on the walls.

Conventional wisdom says a big chain store like ACME should've closed this location long ago, but it seems that it still does a decent business, and ACME is more willing to keep these small locations more than anybody else.

We start to see the age here in the freezer aisle. Very old cases, which seem to be leaking, and it's hard to tell how much of the intense condensation is because of the age of the cases and how much was due to the 90+ degree weather the day of my visit.

I got a nice closeup of the decor here in the last aisle, where dairy lines the outside wall.

And amazingly, there's even a full in-store bakery here in the front corner!

Looking across the front-end from the bakery. We can see the store's age come through, but it's also looking better than when Acme Style visited with updated lighting and a refinished floor.

Express Checkout sign from the Quality Built package, again, maybe from South Plainfield which was just under five miles east.

A bit of a different perspective on the front end here, since the bakery department opens up to the registers on the side in a way we don't typically see. Also notice the Instacart coolers on the right here, meaning it's likely this store also makes some of its money from online orders. Well, we'll have to see how long this store can stick around, but for now, I'm glad to have visited it myself! Up next, we're going to head just to the northeast into the small town of Dunellen for two stores, the one that currently serves the town here on The Market Report, and the one that previously did years ago on Grocery Archaeology!