TOUR: H Mart - Cherry Hill, NJ

H Mart

President: Stacey Kwan

Opened: ca. 1990s

Previous Tenants: unknown

Location: 1720 NJ-70, Cherry Hill, NJ

Photographed: January 2021

Welcome to the H Mart of Cherry Hill, one of a dying breed of H Marts. We've seen quite a few of their locations, many of which are shiny and new and even some of the older ones are large and quite beautiful. Cherry Hill has to have been one of the earliest locations in New Jersey (probably around the same time as Ridgefield, which has been renovated, and Little Ferry, which was replaced with a new store just about a year ago).

Cherry Hill, on the other hand, is about 24,000 square feet (so not tiny, but not that large either). But it's in the basement of this small strip mall, facing away from the street. Here's the view from route 70 and here's how the building is set up. Not exactly an ideal location or layout, and I can't believe the store has lasted as long as it has in this location. And to be completely honest, I didn't do my homework before coming here and vaguely thought the H Mart was in a former SuperFresh, which is actually three and a half miles northwest and was not a supermarket after SuperFresh. Not sure why I mixed that one up, but I am indeed glad I got to visit this H Mart given the rate at which H Mart is renovating and replacing their oldest stores.

I'm going to avoid detailed layout descriptions here because I don't have a perfect memory of it and the store is very oddly-shaped, being in the basement of an L-shaped building. Produce is the first department you walk into, though, with some prepared foods on the wall next to the entrance. No food court here.

I don't believe we've seen this decor in any other H Mart. I'm not sure whether it's a one-off decor package or whether the others with it have just been renovated. More on the decor shortly.

Looks like some of the fixtures have been updated since H Mart's opening. I'm not sure what was here previously, but I find it hard to believe it was a supermarket before H Mart.

It's in the grocery aisles that I get lost a little. I don't exactly remember where this picture was taken, for instance, but I believe the aisles are split in at least one place to account for the shape of the store.

One thing that this store could stand for is some new lighting. The dim lighting doesn't help you forget you're in a basement. But the product selection is quite impressive packed into this small and cramped space. We will see one other H Mart that's quite old shortly, but it seems that it's gotten some renovations while this one has not.

Let's check out this flooring for a second. Where have we seen this before? If I'm not mistaken, it's come up in a few CTowns and Associateds and other such stores. Well, the design firm DY Design was most likely responsible for those stores, and also for the H Mart decor we saw in Edison linked above. So I think it's a pretty good bet that DY Design was doing H Mart's stores almost from the beginning judging by this one. For the latest decor package (see Yonkers above), H Mart has brought their design services in-house.

Service seafood near the back of the store. Meat is also back in this area, along with additional seafood cases in the middle of this aisle. I believe this is in the back part of the L.

And dairy cases face the meat department. I don't recall there being a service butcher here, but there may have been.

Here's another good look at the flooring. And in the back we have the housewares department...

So if housewares take up the back end of the L, and meat/dairy/seafood takes up one side of the back half of the L, frozen takes up the other side of the back half of the L. Does that make sense? And by the way, I love the light fixtures hanging from the ceiling here, even if they have seen better days.

Looks like the coffin freezer here may have been replaced or at least repainted since opening.

More CTown-style flooring here. It's gotta be DY Design, right?

And here we turn the corner of the L to return to the grocery aisles on our way out...

And we navigate the piles of sale items to get across to the registers and HABA in the front...

There's also a bakery, which appears to be an outside vendor, on the front wall beyond the registers which we can see here. Well, if you're intrigued by this H Mart, don't worry, it won't be long before we're seeing a few in the Philadelphia area. But first, we have to finish New Jersey, and we're only three stores away! Tomorrow we're hitting two of those three stores with one each here on The Market Report and The Independent Edition. Stay tuned!