TOUR: Redner's Fresh Market - Audubon, PA

Redner's Fresh Market

Opened: 2019

Previous Tenants: Genuardi's (1992-2012) > Keller's Family Market (2016-2017)

Location: 2850 Audubon Village Dr, Audubon, PA

Photographed: July 22, 2021

It's our last store in the 276 corridor group! And we're ending on a high note with this store. The 46,000 square foot space was constructed in 1992 by Genuardi's before closing with the chain in 2012. In 2016, a Philadelphia grocer called Keller's Family Market moved into the space, before closing almost immediately. (I suspect that the corner grocer was overwhelmed in this large space, and execution looked pretty weak with no renovation and huge sections of the store turned into weirdly massive seating areas.) In 2019, the established no-frills Pennsylvania supermarket chain Redner's Warehouse Markets announced they would be moving into the space, but as their new higher-end concept Redner's Fresh Market. Additional locations of Redner's Fresh Market are near Reading, PA and Wilmington, DE, and we'll be seeing the former shortly.

If Keller's failed because of their lackluster execution, Redner's has established early on that they are focused on excellent execution. First of all, the branding storewide is exceptional, with no traces of the old Redner's logo or name. They renovated the store extensively inside and have brought in new features that weren't here before and aren't in other Redner's stores. Second of all, the branding of Redner's Fresh Market is quite good, with the core benefits of Redner's (mostly pricing) combined with a higher-end and more perishables/service-focused store interior.

So let's head into the store and check it out!

We enter the beautiful grand aisle with produce in the front right corner of the store. Beer and wine line the left side of the grand aisle, with prepared foods and seating in the middle. A prepared foods to-order counter is on the right side of the back of the grand aisle, with bakery and deli on the back wall. Meat and seafood line the rest of the back wall, with frozen in the last two and a half aisles and dairy in the front left corner.

As we see, there's no remnants left from any previous tenants. Another way to tell the execution is well done here is that the store feels large, but not too large -- there's no large empty spaces, nor are there underused spaces like Keller's had.

I'm a big fan of the overstated decor because of the store's high ceilings.

Here's a look towards the back of the grand aisle from the produce department.

On the perimeter wall is a prepared foods service counter and coffee shop, with additional prepared foods (and cheese, I believe) in an island facing. Most of the services in this island were closed due to the coronavirus at the time of my visit.

And opposite that on the back wall is the bakery department.

As we can see, this is a much higher-end interior and experience than the average Redner's. Though I will say that I like the traditional Redner's too, just very different store positioning.

Beer and wine department, above, and deli, below...

As we can see here, the store at 46,000 square feet is plenty large but not oversized. In fact, it's probably smaller than most GIANTs in this area. But it's a large enough store to feel spacious and open.

Even in the fixtures used here, the experience overall is higher-end.

In the grocery aisles, we see a lot of the red sale tags that still emphasize the price-focused positioning of Redner's but the selection is pretty mainstream overall.

The script signage here brings to mind the Kings decor -- can you imagine if the Kings stores looked like this Redner's?

In the back we have frozen meats that transitions us into the frozen foods department. It's unusual to not have this area as milk, but I imagine that's how it would've been set up by Genuardi's.

Frozen foods begins in the third-to-last aisle, then all of the second-to-last and most of the last aisle.

I assume all of the cases are brand-new, and if not, they're at least very nicely refurbished.

And a look down the last aisle. We can see the dairy department in the front corner.

More great signage in this area! As I've mentioned before with other decor packages, this decor package is nice because it doesn't run out before the end of the store. We're still getting some really nice signs and 3-D decor elements in the last aisle of the store.

And beyond the dairy alcove, we move on to the registers on the front-end. I believe customer service is at the far end, near produce.

This is a really beautiful store! And we will be seeing the other Redner's Fresh Market in PA, although this one is nicer. But that is all for our 276 corridor, and up next we're moving outside of the immediate Philadelphia area! Come back tomorrow to see what's up next.