TOUR: Kings Food Markets - Mendham, NJ

Kings Food Markets
Opened: mid-1990s

Previous Tenants: Foodtown

Location: 86 E Main St, Mendham, NJ

Photographed: July 2020

About four miles to the south in Bernardsville, we saw store-closure signage at the Kings directing people to the Mendham location. Well, here we are! This store was one of the 19 purchased by ACME in Kings' 2020 bankruptcy, and ACME officially took over in January of 2021. My photos come from right before Kings declared bankruptcy, in July of 2020. This is, as we'll see, a very nice Kings -- although it has the same decor as most and the same layout as quite a few, it's been kept up very nicely. The 28,000 square foot building is much deeper than it is wide, and was built as a Foodtown before becoming Kings in the early to mid 90s.

One of the reasons I suspect ACME was interested in this location, and probably why it does pretty well, is that there's no other grocery store in the very affluent town of Mendham, and the nearest competition is an ACME about three miles north in Randolph. (There are also ShopRites four miles away in Bernardsville, six miles away in Chester, and seven miles away in Hanover.)

An overview of the rather countryside-styled strip mall. Mendham itself is a pretty small town with a population of about 5700.

So this store is kind of like a mirror image of Bernardsville (or Bedminster, for that matter). We have floral and produce on the right side of the first aisle, with cheese in an island to the left. Meat and seafood line the back wall, with dairy and frozen on the left side of the store, which has 8 grocery aisles total. The Market Square, which here consists of deli and bakery, is in the front left corner.

I don't know for sure, but it's possible that the layout here was informed by the Foodtown that preceded this store. Also of note is the sheer quantity of Kings logos around the store -- and it'll be interesting to see what happens as the chain transitions to its newer logo.

Here we have produce lining the right side of the back of the first aisle. Meats and the service butcher counter take up the back wall...

Unremarkable grocery aisles, but it's possible some of the shelving here is also left from Foodtown. Pretty hard to tell.

A strangely dim seafood department in the back corner of the store. Aisles 5-8 are shorter to accommodate the Market Square in the front corner.

Aisle 7 is frozen, and dairy starts at the back of 8 and continues along the outside wall of the store.

Looking towards the back of the store...

...and towards the front.

Here's an overview of the Market Square. Bakery is on the front wall, with deli on the side wall to our right above. The flooring is beautiful! Here we get a sense that this store has been extremely well-maintained even when we saw conditions slipping at other Kings locations.

Deli on the outside wall of the last aisle.

It will never not drive me crazy, though, that the font for "Market Square" doesn't match the department sign script. Check out the S comparison between Sushi and Square.

A look at the shorter aisles 5 and 6. As you can see, though, the endcaps are very attractively merchandised to maximize the space lost by shortening the aisles.

A look at bakery on the front wall. I don't know what it is, but something about this store just looks much better than the other Kings stores we've seen. One more thing before we leave the Market Square...

Here's a good look at the product packaging transition on the single Kings branded item I'll be upset about losing if Albertsons ever gets around to eliminating the Kings brand in favor of Signature/O Organics. The older packaging, center, has been switched over to the newer packaging visible on the two sides. I must say, though, since ACME took over, these have been down to just $1 each and that's pretty darn good. Did I buy a whole bunch of them right before ACME took over Kings just in case they eliminated Kings brand products on day 1? Can't say I didn't.

And wrapping up with a look at the front end. (I'm not sure what the potato chips are covering up, but I think it's probably either a cafe or a catering office, either one of which would be temporarily closed for the coronavirus when I visited.) Up next, we're circling east about 9 miles to Chatham, where we'll be touring our next store here tomorrow!