459 NJ-31, Hampton, NJ

Original Tenant: A&P
Address: 459 NJ-31, Hampton, NJ

Opened: Late 1990s

Closed: 2015

Later Tenants: vacant

Photographed: March 2020

There are so many former A&Ps out west here in northwestern NJ that have remained completely empty since the chain went under in 2015-16. We saw Hackettstown and Belvidere recently, and we'll see one more in the Hunterdon/Warren area. This area is so sparsely populated that these stores were not appealing to potential buyers and there's so little retail in this area that non-grocery tenants weren't jumping on them either.

This moderately large (45,000 square foot) store is made to feel enormous from the high facade, the gigantic parking lot, and the fact that nearly the entire strip mall is empty, as we'll see. A&P didn't have a store here before the 90s, but this store opened around the same time that the ACME closed. A&P fought to prevent the ancient Village ShopRite just west of town from moving to route 31, just a mile north of this store. That's likely why it wasn't purchased and remains vacant.

The property has deteriorated seriously since A&P closed, but it's clear this was quite beautiful when it was built.

Welcome to A&P Fresh! This store was built with Foodmarket decor, then remodeled to Fresh 3.0.

We're going to move through the store from left to right. Floral was in the front left corner, with produce in the rest of the grand aisle as we see here. It looks like the 3.0 decor matched nicely with the Foodmarket fixtures and flooring. Those signs posted to the left are wonderful...

It's really funny because almost nobody would actually see these. Moving on to produce, passing by the entrance/exit on this side...

Notice that many but not all of the fixtures remain here.

It does look like this was a beautiful store when it was in business, and here's a look at the outside when it was operating. The new ShopRite in town is one of the more beautiful 2000s Village stores, too.

I doubt this was ever a very high-volume store, but I also assume it wasn't an extremely low-volume store because it survived multiple rounds of closures, even after the ShopRite opened.

Store closed!

But the window decals remain, of course.

Self-checkouts would've been at this side, I assume, with pharmacy/customer service just to the right.

And the other unusual thing is that the restrooms actually face the outside of the store, so that they are fully visible from the outside windows. Not the actual restrooms, thankfully!

This, to me, is very strange. Why was it set up this way?

Looking down the hallway, I believe back towards the supermarket.

Here's a look at the entrance/exit on the right side of the store. There's a mirror image version of this on the left side of the store.

And looking in from the right side entrance/exit.

Store closed indeed. And here's a look at the rest of the mostly empty strip mall...

Not much to see here, which is a shame since the mall is not unattractive and still fairly new. Don't forget to check out the various stores linked above and tomorrow, we move on to Califon on The Independent Edition!