TOUR: Sim's Quality Market - Bethlehem, PA

Sim's Quality Market
Owner: Dipak & Kailash Patel

Opened: 2020 under current ownership; 1996 under previous ownership; prior opening dates unknown

Cooperative: none
Location: 609 W Broad St, Bethlehem, PA

Photographed: January 6, 2020

It's time for a small and very interesting supermarket just west of center city Bethlehem. According to LehighValleyLive, the building has been a supermarket dating back to the 1940s, when an ACME was on this site, then went through several iterations of Sim's before being sold most recently soon after I visited, in late 2020. The 6500 square foot building does not resemble a 1940s ACME in any way that I'm aware of; this would've had to have been a real anomaly for it to have been built by ACME with a pitched-roof style -- but a very very small one -- in that time frame. Possibly, this was an early 1960s rare prototype pitched-roof ACME, or even more likely, there was an ACME here in the 1940s that was demolished for this existing building, constructed by Sim's, at some point around the 1960s.

Sim's bridges the divide between a convenience store and a full supermarket, but with small but complete selections of produce, meat, and deli items, it's closer to the supermarket side of things than the convenience store side.

Baked goods and produce are in the first aisle as we see here, and some of the fixtures are much newer than the rest of the store. Notice the wonderful aisle markers here, likely here for over half a century...

Not to mention the meats lettering on the back wall! I assume this is Sim's signage, since this doesn't resemble any ACME signage I can think of, and neither do the aisle markers for that matter.

As we can see, there's a lot of great old signage here but also some newer signs and many of the fixtures have been updated. I'm not sure what if anything has changed since the new owners took over. As we can see, there are a few maintenance issues with things like burnt out lightbulbs, which I hope have been fixed.

As you can see, there's quite a full grocery selection here, even though it's a small place. The store is supplied by C&S and uses Best Yet storebrand products.

Looks like some service counter -- possibly a butcher counter -- has been removed in the back here.

Frozen foods in the last aisle. The beams here do strongly resemble ACME store structure, so I'm not entirely sure what to think when looking at this store. Can any locals offer some help?

And a look at the checkouts in the front.

That's about all for this store, which I think is a pretty cool little place. Tomorrow we're headed on The Market Report to a big supermarket which I believe is the newest in Bethlehem, to the north of center city. Come back to check it out!