TOUR: ShopRite - Hartford, Mount Laurel, NJ

ShopRite of Ark Road
Owner: Karl Eickhoff

Opened: 2007

Previous Tenants: Shop n Bag > Super G > Stop & Shop (2005-2007)

Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.

Location: 127 Ark Rd, Mount Laurel, NJ

Photographed: December 2019

It's our final store north of Camden! It's more like east of Camden, slightly north, about 13 miles out on route 38. The township of Mount Laurel has three ShopRites, two of which are owned by the Ravitz family (Nixon Drive and Union Mill), and one of which -- this one -- is owned by Eickhoff, whose stores we've seen before. This one, on Ark Road in the Hartford section of Mount Laurel, and Union Mill were both Super G locations rebranded to Stop & Shop in 2005, then sold to Wakefern in 2007 when Stop & Shop exited this area of the state. Wakefern then turned the stores over to their various member-owners, including Eickhoff, Ravitz, Village, and others. This store appears to have been renovated upon purchase by the Eickhoffs (not all were, and the Village ShopRite in Galloway retains its Super G decor today, although the store is slated to be replaced soon) with a rather uninspiring decor package, but was redone again around 2017-18 with the same decor package that we saw in Burlington.

And the interior is quite nice now, although we can tell that the bones of the store are older and the place is smaller overall, coming in at a solid but not overwhelming 53,000 square feet. Here we see the grand aisle; cards and flowers are in the front right corner with prepared foods and deli lining the right side of the store. Seafood, meat, and dairy line the back wall with frozen in aisles 15 and 16, and the rest of dairy in aisle 17. Bakery and pharmacy are in the front-left corner. I have to assume that layout is left over from Super G, since it's not like the other Eickhoff stores (where bakery would be in the grand aisle).

I visited the store on a Saturday night way back in ancient history, by which I mean December 2019.

There's a mixture of newer and older fixtures around the store. The decor and flooring look great, though.

A cut fruit island towards the back of the grand aisle. This is roughly the size, shape, and location of Stop & Shop's cheese islands, so was this originally cheese? Looks like cheese is now over by the deli.

Speaking of the deli.

Seafood looks like it's all redone except for the tile backsplash here -- although I will say we can tell the decor is scaled down here compared to Burlington, with the Big Fish & Co. signage straight across the wall instead of rounded out. Still very nice -- and very 3-D.

Here we're looking across the back wall of the store. I'm unclear how much of the flooring was replaced in this remodel, but it looks like only the grand aisle was.

The service butcher is set back from the rest of the back aisle, and here we also see some older cases. Not much old in the HABA aisle, though...

The HABA aisle extends out from the pharmacy on the front wall, which you can see if you zoom in here. There's more HABA shelving in front of the pharmacy.

Frozen foods in newer cases, but the blue borders look older. Not sure if that's true.

The lighting and blue cases here makes me think of Carteret.

On the back wall, we move on to dairy which then extends down the last aisle of the store.

It's also possible the flooring accent around the perimeter was installed in the renovation, but not the flooring in the middle. At least, it would all have been refinished.

A very nice bakery in the front corner. I'm forgetting what I bought here but it was very good. Maybe a brownie. This bakery location is much more strongly associated with the Ahold store layout than what we see in Eickhoff stores.

And up next is the pharmacy, with a really beautiful (and extensive) renovation. I love the shelving and the light fixtures (which look like crown moudling with no walls) hanging from the ceiling!

And for a look across the front wall. As we see, the Ark Road ShopRite is a very nice store if not quite as impressive as some of the newer Eickhoff locations, but still well-run. That is all for north of Camden, we introduce our next -- and final! -- New Jersey group tomorrow to round out our coverage of the state!