TOUR: ACME Markets - Yardville, NJ

ACME Markets

Opened: 2001

Previous Tenants: none

Location: 4400 S Broad St, Yardville, Hamilton Township, NJ

Photographed: January 2021

I visited the Hamilton Square ACME at the northeastern part of Hamilton Township, roughly three and a half miles north of this one, and this Yardville ACME, in the southeastern part of Hamilton Township, on the same day. As I mentioned on the Hamilton Square post, that store used to have a really unusual decor package but right before my visit had been remodeled to Quality Built. I assumed this one had also been recently remodeled to Quality Built, but I am very pleased to say that I was wrong.

The 55,000 square foot store was built in 2001 as a replacement for the older Yardville ACME, now a CVS, about a quarter of a mile away. Check out today's other post on that store here. It looks to me as though the store still has not received Quality Built, but I don't know for sure. As I mentioned in the Hamilton Square post, I find this later variation on the 90s "fortress" style ACMEs to be much more appealing than the earlier one, and I think the layout works much better here.

We enter to cheese on the front wall with deli on the left side of the front part of the grand aisle. Towards the back of the grand aisle produce takes up both sides and then bakery lines the back wall, with meat/seafood running along the back wall. Frozen and dairy are on the right side of the store with pharmacy in the front right corner and a few short HABA aisles running between that and a floral island.

We see that the decor is in very nice condition here, despite being 20 years old at this point. Worth taking a quick look at least at Acme Style's 2011 coverage of the store, a comparison with which shows us that the lighting has been replaced along with some fixtures.

"The Cheese Shoppe Boulevard" signage has been removed. I never understood that name. Anyway, it does leave cheese and deli sign-less...

I can't tell from Acme Style's pictures whether there ever was signage at the deli department, but there certainly isn't now. We last saw this decor package in the Milltown ACME, which at the time was preparing to close, but this store is clearly healthier and has been maintained much better over the years. We won't be seeing any closed departments here, which is actually a little surprising given it's under two miles from the ShopRite of Hamilton Market Place to the northeast and about a mile and a half from the ShopRite of Bordentown to the west (as the crow flies; it's not actually all that easy to get from here to there). And if you're dying to see the Bordentown ShopRite, well don't worry, we'll be making a stop there tomorrow.

Here we move into bakery in the back of the grand aisle. This department was designed beautifully to begin with and has been also maintained very nicely over the years, although I did find that the selection was a bit smaller than I was used to in my northern NJ ACMEs.

For instance, check out the seafood encroaching on the Fresh Specialty Breads. I don't think that's a sign of the store struggling, though. I think it's just that the area has been reset a little.

Large service seafood/butcher department up next on the back wall.

Here we're looking back up towards the grand aisle. I love this signage...

...although it's probably reaching the end of its life. It's in pristine condition, though.

Cold cuts are in the back right corner of the store. Same arrangement for frozen/dairy as Milltown, although we do see a scaled-down version of the decor...

Still looking great, though. I particularly like the ceiling structure over the frozen/dairy department.

I had a vague feeling that I'd seen something like this before, but I couldn't place it. Well, I've now remembered that it appears in, among others, the Golden Farms in Ozone Park, Queens (although it's around the whole store). I loved that store, although I'll probably never have a reason to go back.

Very cool setup here in the last aisle with frozen and dairy! As we see the maintenance overall has been excellent but there are a few slats missing in the ceiling structure.

Pharmacy in the front corner, and in the hallway to the pharmacy backroom and customer restrooms, we find something really cool...

Trenton Shopping News, February 1949! No locations listed on this page, but I love the rendering in the upper left corner. Worth noting also that this ad would predate not just this Yardville store, obviously, but also the older store that this one replaced, by about 20 years.

And here's the floral island opposite the pharmacy.

Quality Built checkout lane markers, but I don't think that's a sign of a full-store remodel beginning. I think that's similar to the reason this store has PF&H category signage -- just a quick upgrade to replace some older decor. Possibly even from a closed store nearby. Don't forget to see the older Yardville ACME here, and tomorrow, we move on from Hamilton Township for a look at the Bordentown ShopRite here on The Market Report!