Original Tenant: Stop & Shop
Address: 225 Ridgedale Ave, Cedar Knolls, Hanover, NJ
Opened: 1973
Opened: 1973
Closed: 1980
Later Tenants: Foodtown (1980-2014)
Photographed: June 2020
Later Tenants: Foodtown (1980-2014)
Photographed: June 2020
What's today the Cedar Knolls Plaza was originally a small enclosed mall, the Morris County Mall, featuring a Bradlees at the north end and a Stop & Shop at the south end. The Bradlees today is a Walmart, which is not a Supercenter, and the Stop & Shop became a Michas Brothers Foodtown in 1980. In 2002, the supermarket was switched to Manyfoods, also owned by the Michas brothers, and remained under the name Foodtown; the same year, William Louttit purchased Manyfoods from the Michas family. The following year, Manyfoods was liquidated, closing its River Vale and Wanaque stores (and in fact, I believe the latter briefly became a CTown) while Cedar Knolls was purchased by the LaRacca brothers, who owned several other nearby Foodtowns. The 30,000 square foot supermarket finally closed in 2014 following the opening of the ShopRite just up the street. (There was also an ACME at Speedwell and Hanover.) Here's a picture of the store still in operation. Let's go back to Louttit for a second... anybody recognize that name? It appears that he was the executive vice president and COO of Grand Union in its final years, which could explain a lot of the Grand Union/Foodtown similarities we've discussed here (see Wayne).
The store has mostly been cleared out inside, but a few things do remain such as the ceiling/lighting and the tile backsplash. I don't believe there are any pictures on the internet of the store's interior while it was open, though.
And unfortunately, not only is there not much to see here nowadays, but there's not much else in the mall other than the Walmart. If I had to bet, I would say they're waiting for all the tenants to leave before demolishing the remaining mall and building a Walmart Supercenter on the property. There was a second, older Foodtown in Cedar Knolls too, and part of that had become a small grocery store which we'll be taking a look at tomorrow on The Independent Edition!
My mother used to love this store. I have fond memories of this mall as a kid- beyond Bradlees was a small two-screen movie theater (where I first saw The Little Mermaid) and there was a small mall-within-a-mall section with tiny stores like a sewing machine repair shop and a hobby center. There was also a large candy store and arcade across from a McDonald's we frequented. The place suffered a bit after the dark parking lot made the news as the site for some pretty horrific crimes, and that probably led to its redevelopment as a Walmart with TJMaxx taking over much of the indoor mall portion of the structure.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the memories!
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