Update: Kings Food Markets!

Florham Park

What's our usual collection of updates without at least one ACME and at least one Kings? I returned to the Kings in Florham Park, which we toured not too long ago, to coincidentally capture the beautiful sunset over the store. That stunning picture was a pleasant surprise, but not what I came to the store for. What is, in fact, very noticeable is that inside the lighting has been replaced. Not quite as beautiful as the sunset, but still brightens up the store a great deal.

If you check back to the original post (pre-ACME), you can see the squares used to have those older fixtures with the reflective grate over the light itself. These newer ones have also appeared in multiple other stores including the Kenilworth ACME. Not sure if you can see them in my pictures, but I've noticed them in-store. If you look back at any of my pre-acquisition Kings store tours, you can really clearly see just how dingy a lot of the stores were. They're looking much better now. Speaking of that...

Midland Park

Midland Park comes back to The Market Report! In our original tour, the store was looking good but, like Florham Park, rather dim. Here on the outside, other than the absurd number of carts lined up across the entire front of the store, there aren't really any changes other than the exterior repaint of the whole strip mall I mentioned on the previous post.

Here's a shot of the side of the store, which faces out to Godwin Ave. Both the signage and those food pictures in the windows could stand to be replaced, as both are looking a little elderly.

And we have evidence of ongoing work! A full remodel? Sadly, no. But a noticeable difference nonetheless...

The usual Albertsons acquisition reset has occurred here, but more recently, we see all-new lighting around the whole store. Looking good!

Five self-checkouts, in an island formation, have been installed on the front-end, just as we've seen at all the other stores. Unfortunately, no other changes around Midland Park, but it's looking way better than it did.

Livingston

Not too much to see here in Livingston, but the lighting has been replaced as we see in the other locations. Still looking a little dim, though. It looks like the track lighting was not replaced around the store as several of them are still burnt out, so possibly that is going to be removed soon anyway.

The store is certainly looking better, though. No other remodel updates.

Montclair

Check out what was parked behind Montclair! Food Trade News has confirmed, by the way, that Kings has now ended their Wakefern contract and is being supplied primarily by Albertsons/ACME along with other vendors. I specifically made the trip to Montclair, though, to check out their new AI-powered salad bar installed as a test with salad vendor Picadeli, which is now in six Albertsons stores on the east coast (two each Safeway, ACME, and Kings).

The high-tech salad bars have several features including digital monitoring of stock and temperature, digital labeling to match the product, and lids over the food itself. It's very cool -- and the selection is quite impressive, sold at the same price as Kings' old salad bar -- but I do wonder whether its likely very high cost is worth it.

The fixture is very streamlined and modern-looking. You pull the glass cover straight up to serve yourself...

Here you can see the digital labeling too.

Vegan and vegetarian options, and crunchy toppings...

There does not appear to be any other renovation ongoing at the Montclair Kings. Notice that the lighting has not even been replaced. That's all for these Kings stores, and don't forget to see what else is coming up here!