Update: The Fresh Grocer - Colonia, NJ

The Fresh Grocer of Colonia

Owner: David Maniaci / Nicholas Markets

Opened: 2020

Previous Tenants: Stop & Shop > Circus Foodtown > Nicholas Foodtown

Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.

Location: 510 Inman Ave, Colonia, NJ

Photographed: December 2021

It's time to check out the awesome remodel at The Fresh Grocer of Colonia, which is finished! The store held its official grand reopening a few months ago, and we most recently saw it in progress in July 2021. You can also see the "before" pictures there. Today, we enter the totally redone store to the sushi and sandwich counters, which face the entrance. Deli/prepared foods take up the aisle to the right, with produce and seafood in the aisle to the left. A butcher on the back wall faces a cheese counter in the deli island, with frozen foods in the first grocery aisle. Meat and then dairy lines the back wall, with dairy also in the last aisle and bakery in the front right corner. These renovations make the store feel so much larger than it actually is, and certainly much larger than it used to be.

Beautiful, and all new fixtures here and around the store.

I love the design of the produce department here! Note that because of the lower ceiling, there's no decor on the walls here. Instead, Nicholas opted for various props on top of the cases, such as the fake plants and baskets. Great lighting, too! By the way, I've probably mentioned this on a past post, but when I say that Nicholas did such and such, that's referring to the store's owners, Nicholas Markets, which is named after founder M. Nicholas Maniaci. Today, the company is owned by David Maniaci, who when Nicholas was a Foodtown operator, ran the Allegiance cooperative.

Fully stocked and open seafood counter at the back of the produce aisle. And we move into a really beautiful meat department/back aisle as we exit the first aisle...

Opposite this is the new deli island, which is now front and center in the store. Clearly they're positioning the store much more upscale with the large prepared foods selection and cheese.

Notice the new coffee bar next to customer service on the front wall, too.

Looking towards the back of the store. Packaged deli and prepred foods items are in the cases on the right side of the aisle, with cheeses at the back facing the butcher...

Again, really beautiful -- and very high-end!

Heading into the grocery aisles, we see frozen foods in aisle 1. Love the new flooring throughout!

Looking very good here.

Interestingly enough, the shelving in the grocery aisles was not updated. I wonder why.

Here's the beginning of the dairy department on the back wall.

In the front of the store, we have the greatly expanded bakery department. I mentioned that this store didn't bake much in-store, which has very much changed. There's a lot more baked in-store, including some beautiful breads. The cake case looks like what you might expect to find in a genuine Italian bakery more than what you might expect in a supermarket, and while expensive ($1.39 each), the bagels also look amazing -- chewy and crusty, like a good, real New York style bagel should be!

I'm a real bread lover, can you tell?

Dairy where it used to be in older cases along the outside of the last aisle. It doesn't appear that anything much in the aisles was replaced other than the flooring, but the perimeter was obviously extensively redone.

Big changes on the front end too, and again with a lot more space. 7 registers has been cut down to 4 plus 4 self-checkout, which seemed to keep the lines going pretty well. It also allows for a lot more space around the remodeled customer service counter...

Well, I'm very pleased to report that this store is finally up to the standards we expect at the other Nicholas Markets stores. It's a beautiful and very complete small supermarket, and the remodel here was very successful. There's plenty more to see today, so check out all that we're looking at here!