TOUR: Supremo Food Market - Plainfield, NJ

Supremo Foodmarket
Owner: Eddie Trujillo

Opened: ca. 2000

Previous Tenants: Bamberger's > Macy's

Cooperative: none

Location: 249 E Front St, Plainfield, NJ

Photographed: September 2018 & July 2020

Contributor: Steve (2018 photos)

A fine specimen of midcentury American department stores! This two-floor, 80,000 square foot building was originally home to a Bamberger's department store, then in 1986 the store became a Macy's which lasted all of six years before closing in 1992. For any department store enthusiasts out there, occasional Acme Style contributor and retail historian Michael Lisicky has published a book on the history of Bamberger's. But we're here to tour the Supremo Food Market which today occupies the approximately 40,000 square feet on the ground floor of the building.

And what a building it is! It's certainly seen better days, but it's still an instantly-recognizable former  department store. The first photo shows the back of the store which faces its parking lot, and although the department store would have once faced the street, today the supermarket is only accessible from the back.

The building is also home to Plainfield Plaza, a bizarre flea market, or at least that's what they call it. Supremo also owns a restaurant on the first floor, and somewhere in there are Supremo's corporate offices, too, I would assume on the second floor.

This is the side facing Roosevelt Avenue, the cross street (and also how you access the parking lot).

The entrance visible here, which would've been the entrance to Bamberger's, now brings customers only to the flea market on the second floor.

And the restaurant on the left side of the main floor is part of Supremo but not accessible from inside the supermarket. A strangely laid-out place overall for sure.

So before we tour the supermarket, let's check out this flea market on the second floor. I'm a big fan of flea markets, so maybe this will be fun...

...except for the fact that most of the vendors are out of business, and those that are here aren't so much flea market vendors. More like other stores that are just located inside this odd concourse. The flea market pictures come from our contributor Steve.

Yeah, the Plainfield Plaza has seen better days.

Not a whole lot to eat nowadays in the Food Court, nor a lot of places to sit and eat it. But anyway, Steve entered the flea market trying to get into the supermarket, and finally was able to find the stairwell in the back of the store that takes you down into the grocery store's sales floor. Or in his words, he "descended into supermarket heaven." This was his first time in a Supremo and, well, he liked it.

So this is what you see if you entered the supermarket from its main entrance in the back. There's a small storefront to the right, which was previously a pharmacy but is now an outside business, and then we turn left to enter the grand aisle. These photos are a mix of my own and our contributor's.

Here's my picture of the entrance area, with the staircase to the second floor up near the front door. This was taken from the front of the first grocery aisle, and we can go around to the grand aisle to the right...

Here's Steve's photo of the produce department at the front of the grand aisle. Quite the difference from the weird flea market upstairs! All the photos from here on are my own.

Like most Supremos, this one is beautifully renovated and very well-maintained. Here in the grand aisle, we have produce in the front part, then floral in an island towards the back, dairy/cold cuts on the left side wall, packaged meat on the right side wall, and a large butcher and seafood counter at the back. The rest of dairy lines the back wall of the store, with frozen in the last aisle and deli in the back right corner of the store.

Great produce here, too. Check out all those greens!

Some very interesting elements in the ceiling, too. I'd love to know what the renovation process was like to convert this from a Macy's to a Supremo.

Looking back up towards the entrance, which is actually the back of the store.

And looking towards the back of the grand aisle for the very large butcher. Remember that the wall we see to the back here is actually the front wall of the building, facing out to Front Street.

Clearly this is the place to be if you want a lot of meat! (Well, I suppose you could buy regular quantities of meat here too.) But as we see throughout, the store is meticulously maintained, which I guess is what one would expect when the corporate offices for the chain are upstairs...

Moving into the grocery aisles, we see the main display here in the first aisle. The grand aisle is to the right in the above photo.

I'm always impressed, but not exactly surprised, how nice most of these Supremos are.

At 40,000 square feet, this Supremo is Plainfield's largest supermarket. It's also easily the nicest in town.

Let's go down one of the beautiful grocery aisles to the rest of the dairy department on the back wall -- which is of course the front wall of the building.

You can also catch a glimpse of the deli at the far end of this wall.

Again, there's no in-store bakery here, but there are some baked goods which are grouped together with deli here. Note that the restaurant is on the other side of the deli counter and we can see the walls of that area and the windows out on Front Street. The only other place I've seen that arrangement is the Ideal Food Basket in Baldwin, which like this store was designed by DY Design.

So here's something else about Supremo... they last opened a new store at the beginning of 2016 (and that was CitiGrocer in Elizabeth). I'm waiting for their next new store -- where will they go next? And come on guys, I've now been to 11 of the 12 Supremos, I'm gonna need some more stores to visit!

Like Irvington, the frozen foods decor looks a little newer than the rest of the store, and I'm wondering if it was installed at some point later than the rest of the decor. I feel like it doesn't quite match the rest of the decor package with a different background and font, but I also can't picture the frozen decor that would match.

Soda alcove in the front corner.

And a look across the front end from the two sides of the store.

I really enjoyed this Supremo but I'm sorry to say it's going to be a long time before we see another Supremo. Not to worry though, we'll fill that time with plenty of interesting stores! And of course, we do have a second post today over on The Independent Edition just across the street. Tomorrow, we're going to head just outside of downtown Plainfield for two more stores -- one closed store over on Grocery Archaeology, and a tour at the store that's still in business right near it here on The Market Report!