TOUR: Henning's Supermarket - Harleysville, PA

Henning's Supermarket

Owner: Bob Henning

Opened: 2003 in existing location; 1889 previously

Cooperative: none (UNFI supplied)
Location: 290 Main St, Harleysville, PA

Photographed: January 6, 2020

Welcome to Henning's Supermarket, a 60,000 square foot independent supermarket here in the town of Harleysville, PA, the largest supermarket around and a really spectacular store. We're going to begin this tour from above, so that we can get a good idea of the layout. This store has existed in one form or another since the late 1800s, but most recently moved from the other end of the strip mall to the existing building in 2003 in what was previously a Jamesway. At some point, Henning's was Thriftway-affiliated, but I'm not sure when they split off.

Henning's is a rather upscale store, as we'll see, but it's a very complete supermarket. It also feels much larger than its 60,000 square feet, not to mention it's much larger than nearly all of the other independent supermarkets around here. The grand aisle is on the right side of the store, with a massive deli-prepared foods island on the left and bakery and other fresh items around the right side. Interestingly enough, the dairy department takes up most of the back wall with another aisle on the back, with HABA in the first aisle. Meat and seafood, both service counters and packaged, are in the back left area of the store, with produce in the front left corner. It's a slightly unusual layout but really works well here.

As we can see, the setup is really beautiful here and feels very spacious. It strongly resembles a Wegmans or other similar upscale large supermarket, although the store is rather small compared to a Wegmans.

And here we're looking across the front wall with the coffee shop beyond the registers on the front. If I had to guess I would say this store has not been renovated since it opened in 2003, but it's very hard to tell. Maintenance has been excellent either way.

And here's a look at our second-floor cafe before we head down to the first floor and start to tour the store for real.

The cold and hot food bars line the right side of the grand aisle, seen here under the cafe on the second floor. That's why the ceiling is so low here.

The deli island is opposite the prepared foods bars. There's a lot to choose from in prepared foods, again much like a Wegmans. The pizzeria is up next...

And opposite that on the outside wall is the bakery. I love all of the signage and decor here. It's very similar to Wegmans, but in my opinion more attractive and more interesting. I assume it's also more expensive decor than Wegmans uses, which is likely informed by the fact that Henning's is a single-store operator.

We move on to bread and dairy in the back corner. Dairy continues across the rest of the back wall.

The lighting here and throughout the store is really spectacular. In the first grocery aisle, which is extra-wide, we have HABA and other nonfoods, like greeting cards. The wall we see below is the back of the deli island.

And in front of the HABA department is a large selection of grab-and-go prepared foods, with the coffee shop under the cafe seating area on the front wall. Registers are just out of frame to the right below.

As we move into the grocery aisles, we see that the great decor continues into the aisles with Grocery Central aisle markers and named aisles. The store feels similar to a Harris Teeter (like this one), but I find this store much nicer than any HT I've been in.

Even great decor (and very thoughtfully designed, to be attractive but not overwhelming) in the frozen foods aisle!

Here we're on the back wall of the store with the dairy department and packaged meats. As you can see here, there's an additional aisle between this department and the rest of the store.

And on the other side of those cases on the left side...

Here we're looking at the division between the grocery aisles and the back aisle. The meat and seafood departments are up next in the back left corner of the store, again a beautifully designed area.

We can tell that this area is not brand-new, but is like the rest of the store impeccably maintained and just beautiful to begin with.

And in front of that is the produce department. Again, beautifully designed and fantastic lighting.

And so in the front-end area, produce opens up to the registers on the front wall.

I'm betting based on the volume of perishables out for sale here and the extremely high level of service present in each department that this store gets very crowded at peak times. I'm also guessing a Monday mid-afternoon is not a peak time for the store.

Before we move on, here's some bonus retail content from the same strip mall...

It's since closed, but the strip mall was also at the time home to a Rite Aid. Now, I don't know my Rite Aids very well, but I thought it was worth photographing the inside because I can't imagine how many stores are still left with this decor package...

It has the same feeling as the decor in the RVC Associated.

With Henning's out of the way, we're headed about three miles east to Hatfield for our next store, on Monday on The Market Report!