The latest round of updates from our northern NJ Kings Food Markets, which of course for review declared bankruptcy in the summer of 2020 and in January 2021 was officially taken over by Albertsons Companies.
Millburn
We last saw the Millburn Kings (along with a few others)
in March, and it's time to return to the store post-remodel to see what happened. As I mentioned, the remodel involved removing the olive and mezze (Mediterranean grains and vegetales) bars from the deli area.
These products have been shifted over to the various deli refrigerators around the first aisle. A Google Maps review of Mendham says their salad bar has been removed (and Mendham had the same renovation signage as Millburn but no visible work as of March, and I haven't been able to get back since), but here the salad bar remains. Olives are now prepackaged in the deli alcove...
And now, to see the results of the remodel of the produce/dairy area. First off, I was wondering last time how many frozen aisles there are now. There is still an aisle and a half of frozen, as there always has been. As I mentioned, a wall was removed between produce/liquor and the main supermarket, with the dairy cases being flipped so that they face the produce department. In the picture below, we can clearly see where the division (and wall) used to be.
We can also see that the renovation has brought what I believe to be new lighting, possibly to offset the removal of the lamps along the outside walls (you can see them
here, and you can see the small white circles where they were removed in the above image). In addition, the produce department has gotten new bins, new flooring, and new category signage -- but of course, no new decor.
This merchandising is much closer to what ACME and Safeway (along with the other Albertsons divisions) do in their stores, and in fact is using the same fixtures.
It's quite attractive, I must say. I just wish it tied in with new decor all around the store. Well, I guess we're going to have to wait for that.
Livingston
Can it be? Real, genuine, actual construction work is going on at the Livingston Kings?! We last
saw the store in March, and way back in July 2021 I
excitedly broke the news of an impending remodel at the Livingston Kings. Well, we got the installation of self-checkouts and moving of customer service to the former cafe in the front corner, but the closed liquor store remained vacant since January 2021. While there are no other signs of renovation around the store, I am very pleased to announce that the liquor store is finally being removed.
Here we can see that the wall separating the liquor department from the main supermarket is not, in fact, being removed, but simply cut open (you can see the wall and door that used to be here in
this picture). Electrical work was being done on 6/20 and the wall was removed the night of 6/20 (or early morning of 6/21, I suppose).
So here are my pictures from the 21st showing the walls opened up. Not too exciting, but it's the first step in the right direction. Last I heard, this area was to become a kosher department, with the current beverage case moving to the back wall of the area and used for refrigerated kosher foods. But as we'll see, that's clearly not happening anymore. Still looks like it'll be kosher, but the beverage refrigerator confuses me. I do have a theory...
Here's a look at the back corner of the room, from the hallway to the bathrooms. As we see, this whole area will be opened up. The beverage cooler is just out of frame to my left in the above shot. And again, it doesn't look like the decor will be changed, or that any other work will happen around the store -- but you can be sure I'll track any and all changes.
Here's some new shelving -- or at least, that's what I think it is -- that was delivered outside the store.
And we have this unfortunate endcap to wrap things up. I mean, yes, I suppose if you're entertaining you should have toilet paper and paper towels, but it brings to mind a little bit of Acme Style's
seasonal paper towels at the
Morris Plains ShopRite. But wait, there's more! Here's a few more shots from 6/27 (Monday)...
Indeed. Monday was a big day for the Livingston Kings, with new cases and shelving arriving and being installed. I actually visited twice, once in the morning and once in the evening, to get the full sense of what was going on. We begin with my morning pictures. Clearly there's more activity in this section than there was for a long time before! While I don't have any great pictures on the other side of this tarp, unfortunately, we can clearly see that fixtures are going in and there was work actively happening while I was here.
We get a quick glance at the work happening through this hallway near the restrooms, where new freezers were being put on the back wall. Interestingly enough,
Okay, so if kosher foods are being moved to this area and out of the grocery aisles, that leaves a space in the grocery aisles. What I would bet is about to happen is that greeting cards are removed from the front-end and moved into a grocery aisle, with the beverage cooler moving to where greeting cards are now on the front end near the exit.
We can tell the beverage cooler isn't being repurposed because of this brand new cooler being rolled in while I was leaving the store.
Later in the day, construction had stopped inside, but we could see still more outside...
New, wrapped shelving! Or is it new? The address on the pallets was the ACME in Fort Lee, so either this shelving is coming in secondhand from Fort Lee, or it was originally supposed to go there but was redirected for whatever reason.
Inside, we see that some other work is finally finishing up too. The mezze bar has been removed, and the various deli islands have been condensed down into this new fixture. And you can see greeting cards on the right under where you see thank you -- wouldn't it make more sense to put beverages there?
One end of the deli island is now olives, and the other end is a warmer for rotisserie chickens and so on.
There were supposed to be two of these going in, but right now there's just one. (You can see this store does need some other work, like the floor in the bottom left corner. It still doesn't look like they'll be doing anything other than these few changes.)
And a beautiful new bread case, which I don't believe we've seen elsewhere, has been installed in the bakery. I hope they replace the other random tables with baked goods with another one of these, but they may not. Looks like fixture replacement remains few and far between. A couple more changes:
Now that bread is in an island outside of the bakery, the former bread shelving is now all these Magic Pop packages. (Years ago, the Livingston ShopRite up the street actually used to have a machine to make those to order, which was quickly removed.) The loose bread/pastry case has been moved to this area, which used to have more bread shelving, from the back corner (visible to the far left above), which now has freezer cases being installed. These will presumably hold frozen cakes and the like, which are currently in the frozen aisle.
My best attempt at photographing what was going on inside the room, from the outside when the doors were open. We can see the perimeter is covered with refrigerator/freezer cases, and the shelving will presumably go in the middle. This would make sense for the kosher department, if that's still what it's going to be.
Chatham
Small update at Chatham -- we see that the produce bins have also been replaced. You can see a little bit of the old produce cases in my
original tour of Chatham. Most recently, the
bread cases were updated also. Interesting that the approach seems to be slowly replacing things like lighting and fixtures, with almost no emphasis on decor changes. Why do you suppose that is? Do we think the decor changes will come later, or not at all? (I mean, they have to change the decor someday, right?)
Garwood
A lift truck being parked outside the Garwood Kings when I visited in early June made me hopeful for work being done inside. Unfortunately, if there were to be any real renovation work inside, it happened
aftermy visit. This was back in early June.
We do see updated produce fixtures here too, but no other changes (and no updated bread cases here).
I went back on Monday again. The only other change was the installation of a new deli island similar to Livingston's...
Midland Park
Midland Park has had its bread case replaced too, and these new cases do look very good by the way. For whatever reason (possibly preparing for its removal, as we saw in Millburn) the mezze bar was empty, although the salad bar was fully stocked and the olive bar was filled with olives, but pre-packaged instead of out for self-service.
And the produce bins have been replaced with the new ones we've seen in all the other Kings stores so far. It's also possible the flooring has been refinished -- it definitely hasn't been replaced, but it looks much shinier than it used to.
Here's a look at the new refrigerator bins that have been going into several stores, complete with the blue category markers that have been added to a lot of the stores too.
Other updates from Kings I've visited:
- Verona: nothing.
- Montclair: nothing. The lighting has not even been replaced yet.
- More Livingston: ooh man, are the lemon bars from the bakery good.
Don't forget to see everything else we have today
here!
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