TOUR: The Fresh Grocer - Wyncote, PA

The Fresh Grocer of Wyncote

Owner: Jeff Brown

Opened: 2016

Previous Tenants: Pathmark (1995-2015)

Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.

Location: 1000 Easton Rd, Wyncote, PA

Photographed: July 22, 2021

Remember the Brown's ShopRite we toured two days ago, just about half a mile away? Well, now we're going to tour the Brown's Fresh Grocer at Wyncote, in the massive Cedarbrook Plaza. As you can probably tell from the exterior, this store was built in the 1990s as a Pathmark (1995, to be exact) -- see its similarity to Linden, for instance -- and Brown's did really only cosmetic updates to the outside before moving in. Much more extensive work was done inside, as we'll see shortly.

The awning across the front of the store remains from its Pathmark days, as again you can recognize from its similarity to Linden. I believe the whole structure was painted, though.

Speaking of painted, the side of the store was but it's not exactly a secret around the side what the previous tenant of this building was. The Pathmark stripe remains!

Just like Cheltenham, we're greeted with a cartoony Jeff Brown. Unfortunately, branding suffers in this store. So Jeff Brown is welcoming us to a ShopRite, when of course this store is not a ShopRite.

Which brings us to the question of why it became a Fresh Grocer instead of a regular ShopRite. Originally, the intention was to push this store more upscale than the very nearby ShopRite, with larger prepared foods and perishables departments, and a larger natural foods selection. That, of course, is a way to capture the same geographic area twice and keep out a different competitor. However, it seems that the differentiation between this Fresh Grocer and the nearby ShopRite has been blurred significantly with more prepared foods and natural foods being added into the ShopRite, and this store seeing its natural food department removed at some point in the last six years of business.

The first set of departments, in the front left corner of the store, is the beer and wine department along with the cafe and prepared foods. A Saladworks faces this in the front of the produce department, which takes up the right side of the grand aisle. The rest of the prepared foods and deli line the left side wall, with bakery and seafood at the back of the grand aisle.

The famous chicken grilled-to-order station is the centerpiece of the prepared foods department, which here also features some barbecue items like ribs and fried chicken.

And the seating area, a very well-designed setup, is in the front corner beyond beer and wine. It gives the cafe a nice relaxed feeling because it's not out in the open.

A look at the large prepared foods department. Even despite the changes at the ShopRite, this store's prepared foods section is still much larger.

And if we look at the other side of the grand aisle, we see a combination Saladworks-Frutta Bowls section in front of the produce department.

What used to be Pathmark's pharmacy department, right inside the entrance, is now a customer service counter.

And directly opposite customer service is The Wok, a Chinese food/stir-fry bar.

Let's continue moving towards the back of the store. On the right side, we have a beautiful produce department, and facing it on the left is the hoagie bar and deli.

Interestingly enough, the deli is actually fairly small here compared to the nearby ShopRite. Also worth noting for the interest of the supermarket fans out there, this store was designed by Broden Design Group while the ShopRite was designed by Brown's in-house. That's why we see the decor here looks a lot more like Inserra ShopRites than other Brown's stores.

And the other half of that is that this truly is a ShopRite with a different sign on the front. The Fresh Grocer is sometimes used as a smaller and/or higher-end banner compared to ShopRite (see Nicholas Markets in northern NJ), but here the store is quite large at over 65,000 square feet and looks approximately the same as ShopRites from other owners... so there is very little difference.

In fact, I'm fairly certain this exact Oceans sign has appeared in an Inserra ShopRite or two.

Bakery is up next at the back of the grand aisle on the back wall.

HABA is in the first few aisles, which run from front to back. After that, there are a few short aisles that run side to side. These were previously the natural and organic section, which has been removed and integrated in with the rest of the grocery items. It's impossible to know for sure why (was it just a merchandising decision for all stores coming from Wakefern, or was it due to low sales in natural foods here?), but it again does make this store less different from the ShopRite.

This department is now the snack and beverage area. It works well enough, but it's pretty clear it's not what this was designed for.

Not to mention the "Eating the way nature intended" cooler which is now filled with random meat department items.

That makes sense aside from the signage, given that the meat department is in fact directly across from it on the back wall.

It's hard to tell if any of these fixtures are left over from Pathmark since they're average-looking enough that they could be new to the store in 2016 or original to Pathmark in 1995.

A look at the grocery aisles, which after those first few former natural aisles all run normally from front to back.

Dairy and frozen are in the last few aisles.

I think if Brown's truly wanted to position this store as an upscale natural foods store, they could've done a better job with the store beyond the grand aisle. This area does not look like a natural food store, it looks like a 1980s-era Inserra ShopRite somewhere in Bergen County that got a minor renovation in 2014. It doesn't look bad, to be clear, but it looks a lot more like the ShopRite of Ramsey than The Fresh Grocer of Washington.

In fact, the store looks downright outdated once we leave the grand aisle. I do wonder if this was poor planning that was changed, or if the intention all along was to push this store more mainstream (like the other Fresh Grocer locations in Philadelphia) and they just needed an excuse to differentiate it from the ShopRite. By the way, here's what the store looked like when it opened in 2016.

Wrapping up our tour with a look at the dairy department. I'd be very interested in seeing what things are like over at The Fresh Grocer of Monument Road, Brown's other Fresh Grocer location which is about seven miles south within Philadelphia.

Overall, I don't think this is a bad store at all -- in fact I think it's a well-run, nice, and well-maintained store. I just wonder about the strategy for this location, if there was or is one. That's all for Wyncote and we are now moving farther away from Philadelphia itself and just slightly north to Glenside/Roslyn for our next four stops. And our first one will be right here on The Market Report tomorrow!