ShopRite of Sparta
Owner: Dominick & David Romano / RoNetco Supermarkets
Owner: Dominick & David Romano / RoNetco Supermarkets
Opened: 2019
Previous Tenants: none
Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.
Location: 18 N Village Rd, Sparta, NJ
Photographed: July 2020
Our second stop in Sparta is the new-build RoNetco ShopRite, with construction finishing in 2019 on the 80,000 square foot-plus store. There's also a RoNetco liquor store attached to the supermarket, and combined the footprint takes up 100,000 square feet of a new development that also includes other small retail and some new-build residential. This store is just north of the Stop & Shop.
We enter more or less in the middle of this giant storefront, turning right to move into the grand aisle with a cafe on the front wall, produce on the right side, deli/prepared foods on the left side, and bakery/seafood at the back. Pharmacy is in an island at the front of the first aisle, with meat on the back wall and dairy/frozen on the left side.
Notice that this is almost exactly the same layout as Succasunna, a much older store. We'll see that the decor package here is a very deluxe version of what we saw at the other stores, too.
Upon entering, we are greeted by a gigantic hand-painted American flag taking up the wall inside this foyer. When we move into the grand aisle, we first enter to floral with the cafe behind it.
Turning left, we enter the produce department. The design of the grand aisle is simply incredible. As we'll see, the store becomes less exciting after the grand aisle but it's still nice.
I love the flooring, ceilings, and lighting! The windows are great too.
Deli and prepared foods are in islands on the left and back of the grand aisle. The grocery aisles are directly behind the deli counter straight ahead in the above picture.
Self-service salad bars towards the back of the grand aisle. Under the pagoda we find a beautiful sushi counter, Asian soups, and a stir-fry bar.
Pizza and subs also in their own station next to the deli. There's not a lot of decor for all these stations, but that's actually a good choice since they each have their own menus and there's a lot of busy decor elsewhere.
Looking back up towards the front of the grand aisle. Gluten free shelving lines the back of the Asian food island, and bakery is on the back wall. Bakery is probably my favorite department here, although seafood is also thoroughly impressive as we'll see...
The lighting and design is amazing here.
More great decor and lighting here in the seafood department. In fact, we actually go under the dock to get seafood!
The design of this area is spectacular. For a clear store-within-a-store feeling, we actually enter a doorway under the words Fish Market to a refrigerated room where the service counter is -- something we've seen before, but mostly in the more warehouse-like stores.
Notice that the seafood counter here is large enough that there's space for prepared seafood salads and other more deluxe items we don't typically see.
Health and beauty take up the first few aisles opposite the seafood department.
Pharmacy is also in the first aisle. To me, this is where the store starts to get more mundane although there are still impressive features that we'll see.
I'm not 100% sure what design firm was responsible for this store but this section's design is not overly exciting. This scene looks more like what we saw at Carteret, for instance, than a brand new built store.
Very good design here in the meat department, though. And on the other side of the meat cases on the left...
The enormous candy department!
Bulk nonfoods in the back next to the meat department, along with sale items.
The flooring transitions to polished concrete (or similar tile) here at the far end of the store.
Dairy cases in the back, with the rest of the selection in the last aisle. What I can't understand is why this section is so bland -- this decor looks just like what we saw in the other stores, and the fixtures look much older than they actually are.
That said, the decor is quite nice. But why use these specific dairy cases, which look like they're straight out of 1985?
The dairy cases line the outside of the last aisle (or two, 17-18 are kind of the same aisle with dairy on the two sides and a small row of shelving in the middle).
We move into the frozen alcove in the front corner, with two aisles of freezer cases running along the front wall.
Moving back to the front end...
And once we get out to the front end, we have some more good design...
We exit through the foyer again...
Tomorrow, we continue our northbound trek but detour just a bit east to Franklin along route 23. We'll have two stores here on The Market Report once again!
I have to get out here sometime to get the sense of this store's location. Just seems like it's kind of in the middle of nowhere when looking at the aerial views. Stop and Shop does have the advantage of being located right in town.
ReplyDeleteThat's true, although it is part of a new development that includes residential and more commercial spaces.
DeleteUnless that is one of those setups where they pull people from more surrounding areas (given that the number of stores as mentioned in the intro. post only being 14 for the county)?
ReplyDeleteThus, a more outlying spot may be more convenient if people are coming from outside of town?
I know that kind of happened here when ShopRite moved about a mile up the streets, many were unhappy as even though a bit larger it is harder to get to through other traffic.
You're totally right BillyGr! Definitely located to attract shoppers from several different areas. It's just not in an area I travel through when in the Sparta/Newton area so I can't wrap my head around its location.
DeleteWas checking out reviews of the store online and noticed the store's somewhat limited operating hours. Monday-Saturday 8am- 9pm. Sunday they close at 7 pm. Wow. Those are more typical hours for Whole Foods or Trader Joes. Not for a an 80,000 square foot ShopRite!
Sussex County is a different world from the rest of northern New Jersey!
DeleteNot exactly, but there's certainly not a need for a late-night supermarket around here, at least not nearly as much as there would be around the Bergen/Essex/Union area.
And yes, I'm sure this store attracts shoppers from all around.
The official opening date of this ShopRite was October 23, 2019.
ReplyDeleteEven though I tend to prefer older supermarkets over newer ones, this store looks absolutely amazing! I agree that the most appealing departments are bakery and seafood. The huge candy department also looks phenomenal.
--A&P Fan
Yeah, the design is really spectacular here. Worth a trip!
DeleteSince I am not quite sure where else to post this, the RoNetco ShopRite of Sussex opened this past Wednesday, October 25. Unfortunately, there are not that many photos of the store on the internet outside of Facebook. Here is a link to an article that has a few photos of the new supermarket:
ReplyDeletehttps://njbiz.com/new-shoprite-is-1st-to-feature-hardware-store-within-a-store-slideshow/
As you can see, the outside resembles (in my opinion) a 1990s A&P. Surprisingly, these and other photos indicate that a drop ceiling covers just about the entire inside of the store. (I love this fact, but I know that you are not going to be happy about that.) As the article mentions, the ShopRite of Sussex has a True Value hardware department, which I think is a cool and unique feature. I was curious as to whether RoNetco would introduce a new decor package for the ShopRite of Sussex, but it turns out that the decor package used is the same as the package found at the Sparta store. (In my opinion, this was a good decision, since the Sparta decor package still looks great in spite of not being brand new.)
Back to the ShopRite of Sparta, I did get a chance to visit the store and was very impressed. The decor package--especially in the prepared foods section--is first-rate. When I was in the grocery section, I definitely felt like I was in an older store, but I do not consider that to be a bad thing. I probably felt that way because, as you indicated, the grocery portion at Sparta is reminiscent of the Succasunna ShopRite.
Yes, it does look like an A&P :)
DeleteAnd, since you used this post to mention something, I figured I will as well (since I don't think I saw anything on here).
ShopRite (Wakefern Subsidiary ShopRiteStores) has decided to close their 5 locations in the greater Albany, NY area.
They had moved back into the area after Big V had pulled out during the 1980's when they were having trouble overall.
These are stores in Albany, Colonie, Niskayuna, Slingerlands and North Greenbush (which was the last to open in 2017).
It came as somewhat of a surprise to most in the area (including the employees), though there may have been a couple that thought such might happen (such as someone I know who once worked for ShopRite in NJ, and could see how low the volume was in the store she went to compared to what she had experienced in the past).
The store in Hudson is remaining open, as is the PriceRite in Schenectady.
All stores were sold to a single buyer, but there is a non-disclosure agreement so no one knows who (though speculation has covered pretty much every supermarket brand within 500 miles, save maybe Weis ;).
BillyGr, thank you for informing me that ShopRite is closing five stores in the greater Albany area. Although the Capital Region is some distance from ShopRite's primary trade area, I was unaware of ShopRite's struggles there, and I am surprised to learn this news (speaking as somebody who is not familiar with that region). Even more surprising is that there are relatively few ShopRite supermarkets in the Lehigh Valley and in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Given the chain's sheer dominance throughout New Jersey, I expected them to have much more of a presence in those PA regions.
DeleteThanks to both of you for your comments!
DeleteI think it's increasingly looking like (and this subject has been discussed to death on forums like RetailWatchers) Wakefern is struggling outside of their core NJ market. They previously had a larger presence in the Lehigh Valley and NEPA, but over time have pulled out then slowly moved back in. Many of the stores in those regions were Big V stores.
BillyGr, I think it's funny you specifically excluded Weis from your list when that ultimately became my best guess before it was revealed to be Price Chopper! Again, I won't rehash the same things we've said elsewhere, but Weis took out a big loan and said they have five stores in the planning stages. That could have been the ShopRites, a deal that PC pushed them out of, or it could be something else entirely.
Not so much that I excluded it, when I posted that (at the end of October), it seemed like I had seen rumors for most any other chain. From the wanted, like Wegmans, to the mostly impossible like Publix, to the totally impossible like Stop & Shop (since they are part of the same parent company now as Hannaford), to sort of seemingly possible like Acme or Shaws (trying to connect their existing stores in southern NY as Acme with the Shaws in VT just across the NY line in some cases) or even Big Y from MA (being Pittsfield isn't that far from Albany).
DeleteI just hadn't seen Weis mentioned anywhere at that point.
Later on it did become more noted (by you, of course, and then others) on other forums (and of course I also replied to that there).
Just the hazards of seeing what is by then a month plus old post on here, I guess ;)
Also to note on your reply - that makes sense that many of the areas had been parts of Big V as well, given that their issues were what caused the closing of the Albany area stores the first time around in the 1980's, and later on they closed up a number of stores for what seemed to be silly reasons that wouldn't have been had they been in better shape as a company, such as closing some stores that still remained in the Quonset style buildings just because those buildings needed more maintenance, even though the stores themselves did fine with sales (such as in southern edge of Poughkeepsie where Wakefern opened in another old PC building when Big V had closed the store a block away on the other side of 9 just because it was that style store - and that one has been around for some time now, so the location works). Likely that some of those PA stores were either that type of issue, or just them trying to cut costs by getting rid of stores at the "fringes" of their area (like the ones in Albany were in the first batch).
Now, to figure out who will get Ellenville (since that sounds like a similar issue, that the building owner wants them out for some reason - maybe another chain willing ot pay more for the space?).
True! I definitely thought Big Y was a possibility, if an unlikely one, but they've never ventured into NY as far as I can tell. They're quite successful in CT from what I can see but never went into RI. They're definitely less strong around Boston than around Springfield and Worcester.
DeleteYou're right about the delay in comments -- partially to avoid things like that, I'm trying to read and respond more quickly when I can :)
Big V seemed to have quite a few different struggles and it seems that they were also fairly publicly known. I don't think at the moment we have a clear sense of the performance of any of the members individually -- except for Village, which of course is a public company. (https://progressivegrocer.com/village-super-markets-q1-net-income-rises-while-gross-profit-drops) I have my guesses, but it's extremely hard to know -- or hard to know about the performance of the cooperative as a whole -- without access to the private financial information.
As for Ellenville, the consensus by people in the area is that it's most likely it'll be taken over by a kosher supermarket, given the demographics of the area. We'll have to wait and see, though.
Big Y has not gone into NY, just close to the line in MA. Interestingly, though they know people shop there from NY (and other surrounding states), as their recent 12 days of Christmas contest was open to people with addresses in NY, along with RI, NH and VT plus the obvious CT and MA.
DeleteThey also didn't used to go too close to Boston, but seem to have added stores that way as others pulled out (or were forced to, again as a result of the Ahold/Delhaize merger, Hannaford having bought out a chain in the greater Worcester area that obviously overlaps with Stop & Shop to a great degree).
That's interesting about the NY shoppers!
DeleteAs for the Boston area stores, I'm not sure how successful they've been. Their store in Quincy closed pretty quickly after it opened -- but that one was a Shaw's that became a Hannaford that became a Big Y and it needed a lot of work. I photographed the store when it was a Big Y (when I lived in Boston) and it was kind of hilarious. There was minimal Big Y signage inside, with Hannaford decor on top of Shaw's flooring. I haven't been to any of the others, but the rebuilt Norwood one looks gorgeous.
While some may choose to travel from NY just because they like Big Y (or Stop & Shop), more often those in NY go to these stores in MA as it is just closer than getting to stores in NY.
DeleteBasically, in the NY counties that run to the border, there are two (maybe three or four) small markets close to the line.
Hillsdale (Columbia County) has an IGA and Hoosick Falls (NY) has an old GU that is now Tops.
New Lebanon had an independent that closed years ago, and just got a local bakery/meat market that opened and carries more food items as well, and Stephentown had a market connected to a gas station that was more than a convenience store, but probably smaller than some of the ones you've posted in NYC.
Basically, a span of about 55 miles N to S between the two "larger" stores (technically Hoosick Falls is more opposite Bennington VT, but not far north of the MA/VT line), while the MA stores are probably 10ish miles from the line (Big Y in Great Barrington or Pittsfield, Stop &Shop/Price Chopper in Lenox/Pittsfield on both sides of the line), maybe a bit more for Big Y in Lee (but right off the Mass Pike) or Stop & Shop in Williamstown.
Heading west, you have to get nearly to the Hudson for other retail (Greenport/Hudson, Valatie/Kinderhook, East Greenbush, Troy etc.).
Also explains why a store like the now closed ShopRite in North Greenbush is likely of such interest to Price Chopper, as they would hope to "catch" many that work towards Albany but live in the eastern parts of Rensselaer County in these un-stored areas.
Very interesting, thanks!
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