7 Naughright Rd, Hackettstown, NJ

Original Tenant: A&P
Address: 7 Naughright Rd, Hackettstown, NJ

Opened: 1999

Closed: 2015

Later Tenants: subdivided, Retro Fitness

Photographed: May 2020 & June 2021

This 56,000 square foot A&P was actually the third in Hackettstown, where the chain had at least one operating store since 1958. The original store and 1980s-era replacement were both over at 57 US-46, a few miles west of here on 46, and this store opened as a replacement for the 1980s store in 1999.

As we see here, the far left portion of the store (about 18,000 square feet) has been taken over by Retro Fitness. However, the majority of the A&P remains -- with its signage! Except for the "FOOD MARKET" lettering, for whatever reason. That was removed, who knows why.

Crazy how good this sign, which is original to the store in 1999, still looked five years after the store's closure. The paint wasn't so lucky.

Let's take a look at what we can see inside the store.

Here's the foyer inside the entrance. We got lucky and the inside sliding doors were left open, so we can see a little bit inside...

And that shows us that the A&P decor is still on the walls! Or at least it was back in May of 2020.

An attempt at photographing "The Seafood Cove" on the back wall.

Store closed indeed.

Inside the exit foyer, we find the A&P Community Information Center fully intact. There's a lot more to see inside the front windows along the front-end, though...

So much is still intact! Check out the decor on the back wall, the clock on th right, the flooring, not to mention the registers and all the other stuff we see in the foreground here! They may have been moved around, and obviously there used to be more registers here, but still very cool to see some still intact.

Here we see the dividing wall between the old A&P and what is now Retro Fitness. I assume the landlord has left this side mostly intact to attract another grocery tenant, but for now, it remains empty.

A look across the front walkway of the store, and another look at the signage...

Believe it or not, the pylon sign remains fully intact out on route 46. You also can't really see the mall from the highway very well, so I wonder if anyone's seen this sign on the highway and stopped in expecting a supermarket.

Now I returned to the store in June of 2021 to see how its condition had progressed. Not much change, although we're missing the S...

The additional year did not, uh, make the store look better. But it's still incredibly cool to see it so entirely intact all these years after closing.

Notice that the previous "Store Closed" signage had been replaced with this hand-written CLOSED sign.

I was hoping to get some clearer interior pictures. As we'll see, that wasn't so much happening.

Funny how this picture is almost identical to the one I took a year before! The only difference is the reflection of the sky being cloudy instead of sunny here.

Unfortunately, we can't see anything much inside this time because the lights had been turned off. There's no good reason for the lights to be on still five years after closing, I guess, is there?

Looks like there might be a little more deterioration going on at this end, but that ceiling actually looks new. Doesn't it seem like there's less damage to it than we saw in the first round of pictures? Anyway, the space remains vacant but if another grocery tenant does move in, you can be sure I'll be back to visit! But for now, tomorrow, we move just to the south of Hackettstown for a look at two chain supermarkets on The Market Report.