Kings Food Markets
Opened: late 1990s
Opened: late 1990s
Previous Tenants: ACME > Foodtown > Edwards previously on site, demolished
Location: 115 Hawkins Pl, Boonton, NJ
Photographed: July 2020 and July 2021
Well well well, would you look at this? It's a Kings that I actually kind of like! This store was long a favorite of mine and seems to be very well-run. It's about a mile and a half from today's ACME (and former IGA), and one of the reasons -- if not the only reason -- that ACME purchased Kings for such a high price was to strengthen their position in towns like Boonton, which has only an ACME and a Kings (plus an un-supercentered Walmart).
The store today is around 27,000 square feet and was expanded from an original 22,000 square foot building. This was, I believe, the final Kings to receive the Where Inspiration Strikes remodel in 2016. The signature Inspiration Station pictured there has been eliminated, as we saw most of the most deluxe features similarly removed in Gillette and other stores.
The bakery is in the front right corner of the grand aisle, with deli lining the right side and produce on the left side. Meat and seafood are at the back and then dairy continues along the back wall, with frozen on the left side wall and the front wall in the expansion. I find this store's layout to be very appealing and easy to navigate, more than other stores (which put produce at the far end of the store, or in an awkward grocery aisle, or just with weirdly low ceilings)...
The store is pleasantly well-stocked, and despite some open spaces it doesn't feel empty like Gillette.
You can see the Inspiration Station at the far right of this picture, which seems to be completely done for. Meat and seafood are at the back of the grand aisle...
Now what do we see here as we move along the back wall?
Notice that this store has gotten some upgrades we haven't seen elsewhere! (Note that the majority of these photos come from my summer 2020 visit right before the bankruptcy declaration, and we'll see some post-acquisition photos at the end). Chalkboard signage from the final iteration of this decor package brings some much-needed life to the walls, although the store is still fairly bland. The blue accents from the newer design scheme do add a little color, although I am not sold on the particular color choice.
Looking very good, but not earth-shatteringly awesome. Compare this decor and facility to Village Super Market's Bruckner ShopRite, which opened in 2018 or just two years after this facility's renovation was done.
Beautifully upgraded HABA department, though. I really like the inverted blue-on-white signage here, but I'm not sure it works so well with white-on-blue in food.
Nicely maintained and stocked grocery aisles, though. The store is taken care of well. Notice the division between the original store and the expansion.
Dairy here on the left side of the back wall as we get into the expansion. Notice the updated blue category markers, but the aisle markers had not been updated at the time of my visit.
Frozen foods are in the last aisle (notice that there's no aisle marker here) and continue along the front wall in the expansion.
Back in the main supermarket building, registers and customer service are on the front end.
I returned again in July 2021 to see what had happened following the ACME acquisition. Not a whole lot, but we see updated price tags...
...updated aisle markers...
...(although, since they match the category markers already installed a year prior, I assume these were not installed by ACME but before the acquisition) and four self-checkouts...
Once again, this store is looking really good but what it could use is a new decor package! I'd love to see some new stuff coming into these Kings stores but we shall see. Tomorrow, we have our last town in the Parsippany group with three stores and one on each blog!
Though I think that Kings has very nice looking stores, I truly question how much longer that chain can remain in operation. Back in the 1980s and '90s, I recall Kings being quite popular, as they were pretty much the only upscale supermarket chain in the area. But that's no longer the case due to competition from Wegmans, The Fresh Market, and especially Whole Foods. And Kings doesn't really have the cachet those other chains have.
ReplyDeleteAs to the history of Del's Village, it certainly has seen a lot of changes over the years. Here's I was able to find:
*LoopNet.com states that Del's Village was built in 1970, but that's clearly incorrect, as historic aerial images show that the shopping center was open in 1957. On Newspapers.com, the earliest reference to Del's Village I could find was a June 17, 1955 article in the Paterson Evening News, which mentioned that there was a bus stop at the center.
*Presumably, Acme was the shopping center's first supermarket. Historic aerial images show that the Acme/Foodtown/Edwards building was adjacent to the other buildings in the shopping center.
*It appears that the Acme closed in or slightly before April 1975. An article in the April 16, 1975 edition of the Daily Record mentioned that the town's senior citizen bus schedule was modified as a result of the closing of the Del's Village Acme.
*The Boonton Foodtown opened on November 12, 1975.
*Edwards purchased all 29 Mayfair Foodtown locations in New Jersey and decided to rename them. The renaming of 26 of these locations--including the Boonton store--occurred on or around March 24, 1996.
*The Edwards closed on September 5, 1998 and was subsequently demolished so that a new Kings could be built behind the other stores in Del's Village.
*The Boonton Kings opened on August 25, 1999.
*The expansion portion of the Kings was completed before January 29, 2016, as a "Grand Reopening" celebration was held on that date.
--A&P Fan
Thanks for the detailed history!
DeleteGiven the way other acquisitions have been done, it seems sort of surprising that it would even be allowed in a situation like this, making basically the two grocery stores in town owned by the same company (since you say the Walmart isn't a grocery).
ReplyDeleteComparable would be in this area when the parent companies of Stop & Shop and Hannaford merged, they were required to sell one of two stores. In that area, they were in separate towns (Rhinebeck and Red Hook) but about the same distance apart as these are (maybe a bit more), but neither town had another supermarket option (Red Hook's IGA had closed a few years earlier, and S&S was a replacement for the former Grand Union in Rhinebeck).
I know, I'm not sure why the acquisition was allowed in situations like this, or Midland Park, or Montclair. But anyhow, it was -- haven't seen it elsewhere.
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