TOUR: ACME Markets - Main St, Maple Shade, NJ

ACME Markets
Opened: 1953

Previous Tenants: none

Location: 41 W Main St, Maple Shade, NJ

Photographed: January 2021

Folks, it's our second-to-last stop north of Camden, and it's a good one. With the relatively recent closures of the Middlesex and Morris Plains ACMEs, there remain relatively few true "classic" ACMEs as Acme Style would've classified them. A clear frontrunner to me is the Main Street ACME in Maple Shade, which Acme Style covered back in 2010. And at that time, they were wondering how much longer this store which opened in 1953 could continue to stay in business. Well, 12 years after Acme Style's post, it's still going just as it did all those years. ACME also built a second store in Maple Shade in the 1970s, and that store recently lost its pharmacy but that was coupled with an extensive Quality Built renovation.

The store originally ended where the tower is, according to Acme Style (and the tower was once taller), and the part on this side of the tower was added around 1960. The layout has been rotated 90 degrees, with the front-end now running along this side of the store. Produce is in the back corner to our left above, with meat on the back wall, deli in the back corner opposite produce, and dairy on the right side wall.

In the back of the store, we can see it's been changed almost not at all since that 1950s/60s expansion. The only thing worth mentioning about the changes over time here is that the back wall appears to have been painted beige since Acme Style was here, when a gray and blue scheme appearing to match the Checkerboard Arch remodel was on the back wall.

Taking a moment here to mention branding: Albertsons Mid-Atlantic now has four banners (ACME, Safeway, Kings, Balducci's). And yet there are only trucks branded ACME and Safeway, which frequently are mixed up -- as we can see here. Wouldn't it make sense to have trucks promoting the storebrands and then smaller text like "Available at ACME - Safeway - Kings - Balducci's"? Or, if they don't mind having the brands appear next to each other, what about like the New England trucks that all have both the Shaw's and Star Market branding?

Entering through the rear, we move down a ramp behind the produce cases to enter the main sales floor. Not hard to tell where the store originally ended -- where these columns are. The produce area appears to have been reset recently, making it look much more spacious than Acme Style showed it.

The entrance/exit doors facing the parking lot are in the corner we see here. And on the back wall of the store, we have packaged deli and meat.

I'm showing these pictures slightly out-of-order because of the angles I shot at. Here's the second aisle, looking towards the right side of the store, with the meat department in the first aisle. Let's head over there and see the meat up close...

As Acme Style mentions, these cases were probably installed in the early 00s-era Industrial Circus remodel we see here. In the past year or so, this store did receive a quick Quality Built refresh, with really no changes other than the decor.

Tiny deli in the back corner. It looks like the service counter, which is invisible here behind the chips to the left, has been cut back significantly in size since Acme Style's visit, in favor of an expanded cheese case and fried chicken.

Here's dairy on the right-side wall of the store. I love the big windows in this and other ACMEs of this era, coupled with the surprisingly high ceilings, which makes the space feel very spacious and airy despite the fact that the store is only 17,000 square feet.

There's a pretty solid selection here too, at least surprisingly to me given the store's size. Maintenance is good here, as not just the decor is looking good but there are no burnt out lights and the floor is spotless.

The grocery shelving is noticeably older than the rest of the fixtures in the store, but it's in good repair.

This store has not received the updated black (larger) carts, but those haven't been going into too many stores. I'm not sure how they decide when a store gets those new carts -- Kenilworth opened with a brand-new fleet of these gray and red ones in 2015, and then around 2020 they got all-new black carts of the same type that's going into other Albertsons divisions.

Another shot of dairy on the right-side wall (looking towards the back wall of the store).

Frozen foods are in the second-to-last aisle, and since Acme Style didn't get a picture of frozen in 2010, I don't have a clear idea of how old these cases are. They look quite new, but they're not the same type that's going into other ACMEs.

11 aisles total, with #11 on the front wall here. Interesting that frozen isn't in the first aisle, as we see in Fair Haven (another wonderful classic store).

And a look at the front-end with four registers, just as Acme Style thought. No self-checkouts, though. I wonder if this store is going to hang around for much longer. But for now, it seems to be doing alright and it's certainly a great part of supermarket history as well as a well-maintained store today. Tomorrow, we move on to our final store in the Camden North group, out in Mount Laurel to the east here on The Market Report!