TOUR: Supreme Food Market - Trenton, NJ

Supreme Food Market

Owner: Eddie Trujillo

Opened: ca. 2006

Previous Tenants: ACME Markets (1967-1992) > Shop n Bag (1992-??) > Lalor Market > IGA (closed 2005/06)

Cooperative: none

Location: 410 Lalor St, Chestnut Park, Trenton, NJ

Photographed: January 2021

It's time for our final Trenton store tour! (As I mentioned, there are also two Compare Foods in town that we unfortunately won't be seeing. Otherwise, we've seen all the supermarkets in Trenton.) Our first stop in town was a former pitched-roof ACME that went through a lot of different banners before becoming a Supreme Shop n Bag and then closing. Now, that store's timeline is nearly identical to this store's timeline, which makes me think perhaps these two stores were frequently bought and sold as package deals when they repeatedly changed hands. This store has now been Supreme (aka Supremo in northern NJ) for over 15 years. Worth noting that this is currently the only Supreme, as even the others called Supreme have been closed or switched over to Supremo. Though this store is only 17,000 square feet, it's been maintained very nicely over the years and still is a full supermarket. But much like Trenton's Super Food Supermarket, which is also owned by Supremo, this store doesn't seem to get any customers. In fact, I was quite literally the only customer in the store the entire time I was here. Perhaps the Food Bazaar about 3/4 of a mile north has really been hard on this store, or perhaps I was just here at a bad time.

In its Supreme days, this store is the same as Perth Amboy, opening with the same white and green decor and receving the repaint/floor replacement in 2020. Unfortunately, a drop ceiling has been installed inside, although the layout is largely original to ACME. We enter (and exit) in the front left corner, then walk across the front wall to produce in the front right corner. Someone, somewhere along the line, expanded produce into the front end to make it more of a department and less of a part of an aisle. That looks a lot like what Supremo has at their other locations, so I'd bet it was done when they opened.

Pretty substantial produce department for a store of this size, which is nice. The products also looked quite fresh, so I guess there is turnover here at some point. Also notice the floral department, which is a little unusual for a store this relatively small.

Here's where I assume ACME would've had produce, in the first aisle. This is all now grocery shelving. On the back wall, we have what likely used to be deli on the right, then seafood, then packaged meat. Now, whatever service department used to be here has been removed and replaced with packaged bread and baked goods, and the deli lettering has been s t r e t c h e d to cover the whole area. I do think this new paint job brightens up the store, but I have to wonder what (if anything) Supremo's long-term strategy is. They have some beautiful stores that seem to do a great business (Elizabeth, Allentown, Irvington, Plainfield, CitiGrocer) and then some of these really sad empty stores that can't be doing a lot of volume (this one, Super Food, and a few that we're going to see). The chain hasn't opened any stores in over five years nor done any significant renovations other than these minor repaints. So I wonder where we'll be in five years.

The grocery aisles are looking great with nice lit shelving and updated flooring, but again, I have to wonder what the turnover is like in this store.

Nice and clean for sure, though.

Here we see meat on the back wall. It looks like some of these fixtures have been updated since the store opened.

Frozen foods in some much older cases in aisle 7...

...and it looks like 8-9 were originally one wide aisle, possibly with lower shelving in the middle. Now, they're two separate aisles and dairy lines the outside of aisle 11. We're looking at customer service straight ahead under the awning.

Again, these dairy cases look newer than the rest of the fixtures around the store. What I believe is ACME's former office and/or bread delivery room is straight ahead with the door facing this aisle. One observation for what it's worth... this is the only Supremo without a security desk at the front, possibly because the store is smaller or because customer service is right next to the entrance/exit, but I've also been seeing a lot of empty security desks at Supremos lately so I'm not sure that's so much of a priority for them anymore.

Here's a look across the front end, with a glimpse at where the ACME sign once would've been, now replaced with the blue Supreme thank you sign. Funny how the windows are just painted with the trim on top.Well folks, that wraps up Trenton! Now the logical thing to do would be to continue south of the city, but we're not going to do that -- just yet. First, we are going to make a circle to the north of the city to wrap up this group. We started to the northwest of the city with Ewing, then moved through Trenton from north to south. Now, we're going to head about three miles east to Hamilton Township and head north through Hamilton and Lawrence townships. After that, we can check out what's south of Trenton! Head over to The Independent Edition tomorrow to check out our next tour.