ShopRite of Brookdale
Owner: Neil Greenstein
Opened: 1999
Previous Tenants: none
Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.
Location: 1409 Broad St, Bloomfield, NJ
Photographed: December 2021
A beautiful new supermarket is one of my favorite things, but just as good is a beautiful new supermarket renovation. The ShopRite of Brookdale in Bloomfield, NJ reopened itself early this month with a gorgeous new renovation, and naturally I had to come check it out. I was here
back in June to see the remodel in progress, but now that it's completed, it's incredibly beautiful.
We enter to Juice Press in the front left corner with the Fresh to Table department, featuring prepared foods to take home and heat up (and convenience items like marinated chicken or cut produce) in the front near the entrance. Behind that is produce with deli/prepared foods and seafood in an island to the right, and cheese and bakery at the back of the grand aisle. Meats line the back wall, with pharmacy and HABA in the first few aisles. Frozen and dairy are at the right side of the store. So the layout hasn't changed a whole lot, but the store looks totally different.
Quite the first impression! As you can tell, absolutely everything is brand-new here. Removing the drop ceiling made the store look so much more spacious, and the new polished-concrete flooring is quite nice. If we turn to the right when we enter, we have the floral department and customer service on the front wall, and stir fry bar and sushi on the island facing it.
In addition to the Asian food in the front, we have a to-order grill section along with hot food and salad bars up next. To answer my earlier question, the soup bar is self-serve and the glass protective panel was moved to the back of the fixture.
I love the signage here, and as we'll see, in every department!
The deli department is up next on the side wall.
And looking across to the other side of the produce department, this wall is the left-side wall of the store. New produce cases looking really good, too!
Interesting understated deli signage, if only in size. But it's very nice.
Up next we have the fully-remodeled seafood department and a look at the bakery to the back.
Cheese island at the back of the grand aisle, with bakery behind it.
Notice that this is set up as a service department, which may or may not be a feature that remains. I've seen some service cheese departments that peter out after the first few months, and I've seen others that go strong. It all depends what people are looking for here.
The famous donuts are back! And so are the donnolis, which are donuts filled with cannoli filling instead of regular cream or jelly.
Packaged seafood on the back of the deli-seafood island.
And opposite that, we have the rest of the bakery department extending into the meat department. Except for the slightly beat-up flooring, you would never know that this wasn't a new-build store and that it's actually a 22-year-old store that was renovated.
HABA in the first two aisles, with the pharmacy department in front...
Beautiful, again!
The grocery aisles look just like Brookdale's second location in
Newark.
Meat department on the back wall. This area has probably been expanded into backroom space, since there used to be a single meat alcove (I'm not sure if that's the right word. Inlet?) on the back wall but now the meat department extends the entire width of the main supermarket area.
Again, this looks like a new-build store, not a renovated one.
In dairy and frozen at the end of the store, we transition into a drop ceiling (which was newly installed and is not left over from pre-remodel).
Readington Farms (Wakefern's own dairy farm in Readington, NJ) prominently advertised!
Nice wide dairy aisle at the end of the store, with additional dairy cases in the front corner before we move on to the front end...
It's very hard to get pictures here without people in them, since the store is so busy.
We have a lot more to see today, including this store's nearest competition just a mile away. Check it all out
here!
Beautiful remodel!
ReplyDeleteSure is!
DeleteHands down one of the most attractive ShopRites I've ever seen. Really great design all around.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I always find interesting is the way ShopRite handles their floral departments compared to ACME. (I may have mentioned this before) They're often tucked away in an alcove out of the way of traffic, like this store. Strange since floral purchases are often impulsive. On the other hand, ACME often places floral right at the entrance with displays you practically have to crawl over to get past!
This seems to be a throwback to the old days when floral was immediately to the right or left of the Acme entrance. Old habits die hard?
DeleteCertainly could be.
DeleteOr, Acme Style, they're in stupid locations where floral never should be (I'm looking at the Elizabeth ShopRite pre-renovation, when floral was in the middle of the first aisle between meat and seafood...perfectly logical). But yes, ACME wins 9 out of 10 times with floral merchandising.
Despite my preference for drop ceilings, I do find it a bit puzzling as to why a drop ceiling is present in the dairy/frozen department. (In the other areas of the store which have drop ceilings, such a decision made more sense.) That said, the owner did an amazing job renovating this store. I especially like the placement of old ShopRite logos on the front wall.
ReplyDelete--A&P Fan
Yeah, I'm not sure why it's there but otherwise this store is a real standout as not just one of the nicest supermarkets in the area but one of the best-run supermarkets in northern NJ, which it has been for some time. I know someone who used to live in West Orange and would avoid all the other area ShopRites and go all the way up here because he and his wife liked this store so much better.
DeleteThe ceiling thing is quite similar to pre-2005 Price Chopper builds where the drop ceiling is around the perimeter of the sales floor and the open ceiling in the middle. Early 2000s stores have a feature of additionally having the open ceiling in the grand aisle similar to what is shown here.
ReplyDeleteStill not impressed with the tile-to-concrete conversion. They rarely ever look good with all the scars from the tile and old fixtures.
Retail Regents, you make a very good point about the tile-to-concrete conversion. I failed to realize it the first time I looked at these photos, but upon closer examination, the floor looks pretty bad.
DeleteIMO, a particularly bad transition to a concrete floor occurred at the former Sears in the King of Prussia (PA) Mall. In early 2014, Sears downsized its store from two floors to one. It was during this downsizing that the remaining portion of Sears received a major makeover (that included a "new" concrete floor). Based on photos I've seen online, many scars and marks were visible on the concrete floor.
And as it turned out, all of the money spent renovating and downsizing the King of Prussia Sears was for naught, as Sears left the mall entirely less than twelve months later.
--A&P Fan
All good points, thanks for your thoughts!
Delete