Update: ShopRite - Millburn, NJ

ShopRite of Millburn

Owner: Village Super Market

Opened: 1976

Previous Tenants: Staff-Good Deal

Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp

Location: 220 Main St, Millburn, NJ

Photographed: June 16, 2023

We are back at the tiny, ancient ShopRite of Millburn to see the words on a poster near the entrance that I never thought I'd read at this store...

That's right, one of the most outdated ShopRites out there (and one of the smallest, at 30,000 square feet) is undergoing what seems to be a fairly major remodel! Here's a rendering posted by the entrance of what the store will look like eventually.

While there seem to be relatively few structural changes, it looks like the store will receive all-new fixtures, decor, and flooring. I hope the ceiling is either refurbished or removed entirely, but that's unlikely I suppose. The layout doesn't seem to be changing much, although it looks like service seafood may be eliminated as seafood is moved to the back wall of the store.

Here's the entrance as it currently is, clearly very much under construction. Now let's notice something interesting here -- the Fairway-branded nuts on the right. I commented in my post on Fair Lawn that Inserra and Village seem to be using their name a lot more prominently than the ShopRite name lately, and while it's not conclusive for anything, it does mean they are beginning to be more recognized as brands. Here, we see that Village is clearly developing its own supply chain outside of the existing Wakefern one (through its acquisition of Fairway's stores and more importantly, warehouse). We can obviously expect the Fairway warehouse to serve the Fairway stores, but it seems that it's serving the ShopRite and Gourmet Garage stores, too, now. Again, that means not much, but it could be a sign that Village is hoping to move more independent from Wakefern, a process I summarize in a comment on that Fair Lawn post. Once again, I don't really think Village intends to split from Wakefern -- but they're certainly making it more possible than it used to be.

Here's the seafood and deli counters, currently on the front wall of the store. It seems the deli counter will be moved into the corner and the seafood counter will be removed, along potentially with these islands in the middle opposite these counters, which are relatively new.

The produce cases look new too, but I'm not sure whether that's part of this remodel or unrelated. 

If we can take the renderings at face value, cheese and prepared foods are being moved to the outside wall on the right, while the space currently occupied by these islands will become produce cases.

Here's a look at the rest of the produce department, again with some new and some old cases.

This is the right-side wall, with what I believe will soon be deli and cheese cases.

And moving to the back wall, it looks like seafood will be going into this new upright case on the back. Seafood may still be prepared in-store, or it may soon be prepared in a nearby store and brought in -- or even brought in from Village's Fairway warehouse in the Bronx. I'm unclear on how much that warehouse actually does.

The grocery aisles will likely stay roughly the same, as they're not in terrible shape. The floor may have been refinished since my original tour.

Old and new aisle markers below. A random side thought: is it possible this store could be converted to Fairway, and that's why we're seeing some Fairway products here? I mean, I doubt it, but it's a small store in a very upscale area, which sounds to me like a Fairway, not a ShopRite. But it lacks the service departments and the specialty product selection that characterize Fairway. I'm sure Village would also lose a lot of brand equity by taking the ShopRite name off of the store, too.

I bring that up because again, none of the new signage inside says anything about ShopRite. Then again, if conversions happen, they seem to be going in the other direction -- at least based on the Fairway in Pelham, NY, which was converted to ShopRite recently. Village also owns that store.

New freezers looking good, but the floor needs some updating. It's in good shape, but so obviously visibly outdated.

Meat department on the back wall.

Notice something very interesting here: the grocery aisles have actually been shortened, pretty substantially. The new endcaps look great, but wouldn't shortening the aisles significantly decrease selection in the already small store?

It's a good idea, though, since the store feels less cluttered now. New dairy cases in the back.

Dairy also continues down the last aisle. While this is likely the decor this store opened with, it's definitely been painted, probably around 2005.

And this is the last we're going to see of it, as the store is remodeled!

Here's a very stark example of the aisles being shortened, in the front left corner of the store. You can see the border in the floor where they used to end, and although this area feels so much more open now, I have to wonder how many SKUs were eliminated to accommodate this. Or is it just that the space is used more efficiently?

New aisle markers and endcaps looking good on the front-end, though.

And here's a look at the new front-end, with new register lights in already (and self-checkouts!).

I thought I'd never see the day that Village finally puts some much-needed money into this store, but I'm glad that they are. And it's going to be interesting to keep an eye on what they're up to as far as branding and distribution, although as much as I like to theorize, I really do not think anything much is changing in the near future. That's all for this store, but we have many more to check out!