TOUR: Schiel's Family Market - Wilkes-Barre North, PA

Schiel's Family Market
Owner: Frank Schiel

Opened: 2005

Cooperative: ShurSave
Location: 7 George Ave, Wilkes-Barre, PA

Photographed: August 12, 2020

Welcome to the other Schiel's! This one is five years newer and, at 51,000 square feet, more than double the size (it was a new-build store opened in 2005). The ShurSave-affiliated store is very similar to the more southern location in town, but we can tell it's newer and larger inside.

This store also has a state-run Wine & Spirits store inside of it. The layout is roughly the same but larger, with produce in the front right corner, deli/bakery in the first aisle, meat on the back wall, and dairy/frozen on the left side of the store.

This store, too, feels a little on the older side these days but that's mostly cosmetic stuff (the decor and some fixtures could stand to be updated a little, but everything else mostly looks good).

We can tell the store is larger because the deli and bakery departments are much larger here, and this whole area is much more spacious.

It's possible some of the fixtures, such as this coffin case visible to the left below, were brought in secondhand from elsewhere when the store opened, since I didn't think stores were still installing things like that new in 2005.

Opposite the grand aisle is these short diagonal aisles, displaying international foods. There's a larger selection of that here than the other location in town, too.

But the basic layout is the same, with the split grocery aisles down the middle. Here we're looking across the middle to the dairy department.

Ah, 2020. Remember the toilet paper shortages?

As we see, although this store does look good, it looks dated already despite not being even 20 years old.

An overview of the back wall, with the meat department taking up most of the space.

Aisle 7 is double-wide, with sale displays here in the middle.

And frozen foods take up the last two aisles in the front. Some of the freezers have been replaced, it's possible too that there was a coffin case in the middle of the freezer department.

And a look across the front-end!

Although there's not a whole lot special about the Schiel's stores, and they could use some cosmetic updates, I liked them. They're good, solid, well-stocked supermarkets and I do love any independent grocer that's doing well in its community. A good way to end the week! On Monday, we're going to be taking a look at another store in northern Wilkes-Barre that unfortunately closed some years ago but is still mostly intact. Head over to Grocery Archaeology on Monday to check it out!