TOUR: Kings Food Markets - Gillette, NJ

Kings Food Markets
Opened: 2013 - December 2020

Previous Tenants: Pathmark

Location: 977 Valley Rd, Gillette, NJ

Photographed: November 2020 & January 2021

It's time for another Kings! This one was located in the Gillette section of Long Hill Township, opening in 2013 in a former 45,000 square foot Pathmark, and replacing an older 39,000 square foot store in Berkeley Heights. Around the time that Kings moved in here, the ShopRite just west on Valley Road began a major remodel, which we'll be taking a look at tomorrow. But today is about the Kings.

This is the only Kings, I believe, with cart storage inside.

The Gillette store was not purchased by ACME Markets in January 2021, so it closed in mid-December 2020. The Warren store, which is listed on this closing sign, was also not purchased by ACME and closed roughly a month after this store. As we tour the store, we'll see that the inventory reduction in advance of the closure had already begun, and that the store was probably too big to begin with -- since it's way larger than almost all the other Kings. Many of the features, listed in a Progressive Grocer video from the store's opening, had been eliminated over the years.

Here we are looking down the grand aisle from the entrance. Very nice floor, for sure! Floral is to our left on the front wall, and I believe this is the former coffee shop as shown in the PGTV video.

And the service deli and prepared foods departments line the right side wall of the grand aisle. Cheese is in an island in the middle, with produce behind that.

You'll see that this store really doesn't have a lot of department signage, like Maplewood. This is one of the few instances of text on the walls.

Pizza and sushi on the right side wall behind the deli, although pizza seemed to be done for by the time I got to this store. Bakery is up next behind these two departments on the back wall. Note the hood on the ceiling which would've originally been over a hibachi grill which was eliminated.

It looks like they did bake in-store here, but clearly not much. All the cakes in the case to the right were packaged (which, of course, doesn't mean they weren't made in store but it's much less likely if they're already in a box). Again, comparing to the PGTV video, we see that the store-baked breads displayed in the counter have been replaced with packaged breads in shelving. It's really sad, also, to see how much the rest of the bakery had been cut back (permanently, not for the store's closure). Compare the sparse display of packaged cakes above to the packed, beautiful bakery case in the PGTV video.

Cheese island at the front of the grand aisle, with cut produce on the back side. This layout is just like Verona.

We can see the sales floor starting to thin out here, although it's also true that this store was overly spacious to spread out basically the same offerings over a much larger sales floor space. The thinning out became quite obvious in produce...

Lots of space, likely as seasonal or sale displays were removed or possibly sent to other stores.

From produce, we cross a giant concourse (with some questionable flooring choices) to service seafood...

Yeah, don't love the flooring so much in this area. But hey, it's not boring.

There's no evidence that there was ever anything in this huge open space (that might've been removed in the process of the store's closure), suggesting that the space was simply too large for Kings to begin with.

Speaking of vast underutilized spaces, here's the department of nothing in particular in front of produce and next to the cheese counter...

It seems to me this is the former location of the floral department, which moved into the former coffee shop when it was eliminated. So it may have been this weirdly empty space for quite a while now.

Heading back to the back wall, we find the rest of the meat department.

But at the time of my late-November 2020 visit, the store's grocery aisles were still fully stocked.

And despite the store's size, it only has six aisles -- mostly because of the huge grand aisle which takes up maybe half of the store's width.

The last two aisles have a division in the middle, so that you can walk from the middle of aisle 5 to the middle of aisle 6. Frozen foods line the outside of aisle 5 and the inside of aisle 6, with dairy on the outside of aisle 6.

Very attractive Dairy Market sign here at the back of aisle 6.

The aforementioned aisle division with a nicely lit Kings logo.

Kitchenwares, and then coffee/tea, are located in the front corner here. Very attractive wooden shelving!

Customer service is on this end of the front end, with the cafe at the far end. I'm wondering whether these lights here are burnt out or simply turned off.

And the Inspiration Cafe is in the front corner here, next to the exit.

That rounds out our tour of the Kings when it was still in business! I returned about two months after this initial tour after the store had closed, to see the state of the store post-closure.

Signage removed on the storefront almost immediately.

Store closed signage again directs customers to Warren, which closed the day after I photographed this store.

So let's take a look inside the store! We can peek in through the front entrance to see the grand aisle somewhat cleared out. Some of the fixtures, by the way, were purchased by ACME and sent to their various stores.

The lighting was still on in the foyer, giving us a nice view of the area...

Indeed it is.

Center store still looked fairly full of fixtures, and the registers were mostly intact but perhaps moved a little. Inspiration Cafe looking less inspiring these days...

Now let's head around the back of the store to check it out.

Fair enough.

Loading docks fully intact but all closed up now.

I had to get out of my car for this one...

If you look very carefully, you can see that KINGS is on a decal placed over PATHMARK, which is still very visible underneath if you zoom in. We can clearly see RK at the end of the sign here.

And heading back around front to see that the Kings name is still on the monument sign. The store itself isn't really visible from the road, which makes it seem as though there is still a Kings in this mall.

That wraps up with our look at this store and the store it replaced over on Grocery Archaeology! Our next stop is the ShopRite just to the west on Valley Road, which we'll be touring right here on The Market Report tomorrow. Stay tuned!