Associated Supermarkets
Welcome to Pennsauken! It's the suburb immediately to the east of Camden which is also its own town with its own business districts. At one time, it's where the owners of the factories in Camden lived and still has higher and lower end neighborhoods, with Mansion Boulevard intact today but with few mansions on it nowadays. In a very broad generalization, the township's makeup is roughly 50% white, 25% Black, and 25% Latino, with median household income at around $60,000 but based on my observations there's a lot of deviation in both directions from that MHI. Now, that's a lot of different populations living all together in a relatively small area, and it really looked like this store made an effort to cater, at least a little bit, to all of them. This store was previously Costa's IGA, about which I know very little other than the fact that the company actually dates back to 1921 and the owner at the time of closure was Stelio Theodoris, according to outdated online records.
It looks like Frank Mejia, the current owner of the Associated, bought the business from the owners of Costa's in October 2015, holding a grand opening the following month. That's according to this local article, apparently written by someone named Frank Sinatra. I'm not clear on how much work was done to the store's interior, but it does look like there were renovations. These produce fixtures, for instance, look much more like what we see in newer Associated locations than older IGAs. But I wouldn't be surprised if the department signage lettering dates back to the IGA days, especially since it doesn't, um, match the new paint job.
We have deli/bakery and service meat/seafood at the back of the first aisle, with packaged meats continuing on the back wall. The 15,000 square foot store is not that large, but it's got a full selection of basically everything with some nods towards international, specialty, and organic foods around.
I wouldn't be surprised if the flooring and the blue and red stripes on the walls are left from Costa's, but the green walls, aisle markers, and shelving are new. Feels like this store could use a good cosmetic remodel because the fixtures look to all have been updated but the weird decor combinations of new and old range from adequate to really awful.
But decor aside, the store looks really good with well-stocked and clean aisles.
Back on the rear wall for another look at the various service counters.
Like most other ASG stores, this Associated uses Avenue A and Full Circle (organic/natural) products.
There's also a much larger selection of nonfoods than we typically see in these small supermarkets, which makes sense given that the store is a bit more suburban than most Associateds we see.
The store is wide for its size, with 12 aisles total. Dairy is in the back corner and extends down part of the last aisle, the rest of which is frozen.
As we can see, these cases have all been updated recently, probably when Associated opened. I'd love to know what the interior of Costa's looked like, but I assume the fixtures would've all been much older.
Looking up towards the front of the store. There is a bit of a dead area on the front wall, which features large displays of sale and bulk items but not much else. Because the store is so wide, this takes up more than half of the front wall with the registers and customer service beyond that, in other words back on the produce side of the store.
The store was deceptively busy so I had trouble getting pictures of the front end, but here's a look at a few of the registers from produce. Given that the black lettering says only "thank you for shopping" and then has a large space after it, I am assuming that's left over from Costa's with the name removed, which of course would mean the rest of the department signage is also left over. It's nice that it's been painted, and in fact the whole store is looking pretty sharp maintenance-wise, but they really should've had a designer come in and give some thoughts on colors and patterns.
Owner: Frank Mejia
Opened: 2015
Previous Tenants: Costa's IGA
Cooperative: Associated Supermarket Group
Location: 6100 Westfield Ave, Pennsauken, NJ
Photographed: January 2021
The Associated is really the only supermarket in the northern part of Pennsauken, which also has a few more supermarkets in the southern part of town. But there used to be quite a few more, including one just across the street from this Associated. Tomorrow, we'll be checking out another former supermarket out on route 130 about half a mile south of this one on Grocery Archaeology!
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