TOUR: ShopRite - Hamilton Market Place, Hamilton, NJ

ShopRite of Hamilton Market Place
Owner: Richard Saker / Saker Supermarkets

Opened: early 2000s

Previous Tenants: unknown, possibly none

Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.

Location: 130 Marketplace Blvd, Hamilton, NJ

Photographed: January 2021

We're touring the smaller of the two Hamilton Township ShopRites today, the larger being the ShopRite of Hamilton Square roughly three miles northwest. I don't have a tour of that store, but we did see the ACME just west on NJ-33 also at Hamilton Square. While that store is over 80,000 square feet, this one comes in at just over 60,000, so it's significantly smaller. It's quite nice though, and I wonder about the store's history because of its smaller size than most contemporary Saker stores. Many of the Trenton-area ShopRites went through the Laurenti to Big V to Saker (or close) cycle, such as Whitehorse which closed in 2002 rather than being purchased by Saker, which was at the time called Foodarama.

The exterior probably looks familiar, though, even if the size is slightly different. We enter on the left with Dunkin' Donuts and the ShopRite from Home departments on the front left wall, then produce lining the left side of the store, bakery and Asian food bars in the second aisle, cheese/prepared foods and deli at the back of the grand aisle, and then seafood/meat lining the rest of the back wall. Frozen is in the second-to-last aisle and one side of the last aisle, with dairy on the outside of the last aisle. Frozen continues into the front right corner next to pharmacy.

If you enter and turn around to your left, you'll find these on the front wall.

And here we see produce in the first aisle of the store. We'll see some evidence that the store did not open with this decor package, including the usual tells...

The metal awning structures remain (although we've also seen stores that were built with them and this decor package). The clearer sign that this store was built with the earlier neon decor package is the category signage, such as the Frozen Delights sign to the left, along with some of the other category markers we'll see shortly.

Asian food bars (stir fry, soup, and sushi) here at the back of the second aisle. Guess what my lunch was this day.

At the back of produce we have the cheese department, and behind that the World Class Kitchens prepared foods and deli departments.

Note the second floor. That's used for employee break rooms, manager's offices, and so on. It's also used for overflow cafe seating in addition to the small cafes on the first floor of most Saker stores, and of course it's an ideal photography vantage point. However, Saker had their cafes closed for coronavirus precautions and the second floors were closed off to customers at all the stores I visited. Not sure if it's still that way, I'll have to get back to check it out.

Hot food and cold prepared foods on the back wall here. The main cafe is to the left where you can see a few drink coolers. Deli is to the right...

We see the Asian Cuisine selections here, just like Lawrenceville.

Seafood and then meat along the rest of the back wall. One thing I do really like about the Saker layout (and I may have mentioned this before) is that the meat department is set up as an aisle along the back of the store, with another row of cases between the main meat department and the grocery aisles. That alleviates some of the congestion caused by people choosing meat and not clogging up the people just trying to walk from one aisle to another.

Not a whole lot to see in the grocery aisles. Anyone else try to buy the Arizona unsweetened "Just Tea" where they live? I can get it anywhere in NJ -- ShopRite, SuperFresh (and they usually have the best price on it), Food Bazaar -- but when I'm up in Massachusetts, I can only occasionally find it at Price Chopper.

Less-deluxe Nutrition Center here, probably because of the store's smaller size. You can barely even notice the signage.

In the back right corner of the store, we find the beginning of the dairy department which then continues along the last aisle.

Here's the other older category markers I was mentioning earlier. Frozen Premium Entrees to the left and Frozen Hors D'Oeuvres on the right.

And Frozen Dessert Cakes in the last aisle, with dairy facing.

Here's a little more frozen in the front corner, with pharmacy up next on the front wall...

Interesting that you can barely see the pharmacy itself behind this row of shelving. There's a service window to the right that you could easily miss!

And a look across the front-end towards the grand aisle on the opposite side of the store. Well, the Hamilton Square ACME is about a quarter of a mile from the Hamilton Square ShopRite, and similarly, the Yardville ACME is close by this store (although it is indeed much farther than the Hamilton Square stores, at roughly 1 3/4 miles). We're going to tour that store, along with seeing the store it replaced, tomorrow here on The Market Report and Grocery Archaeology!