Special Report: Livoti's Old World Market - Brick, NJ

Livoti's Old World Market
Owner: John Livoti

Opened: March 7, 2024

Cooperative: Associated Supermarket Group

Location: 1930 NJ-88, Brick, NJ

Photographed: March 8, 2024

Welcome to the newest Associated Supermarket Group store, and the latest location of Livoti's Old World Market, a chain of upscale Italian gourmet supermarkets! We're down the shore in Brick (about 12 miles south of Asbury Park and 50 miles north of Atlantic City) to visit the brand-new store, opened about a week and a half ago in roughly 40,000 square feet of a former Pathmark. The supermarket looks to be about 30,000 square feet of that, with the rest going to a Livoti's-owned liquor store next door.

This supermarket has been long-awaited in this part of town since Brick's Pathmark closed in 2015 without a buyer. Eventually, North Jersey chain Corrado's announced they'd be taking the space, but after the chain's recent struggles and closing all but two locations, they were evicted, although the exact reason remains unclear. I suspect the remaining two Corrado's locations have been sold based on a recent trip to Clifton -- which is in just as bad shape, if not worse, as when I was there before. They're now selling a combination of random Krasdale and Parade items, along with some other random storebrands from elsewhere. Back here in Brick, though, Corrado's departure made room for the local specialty market chain Livoti's to move in.

Livoti's dates back to 2014, when John Livoti, who previously worked for other supermarket chains in the NJ area, started his own company with a specialty market in half of a former ACME in Aberdeen. The format took off, with new locations following in Englishtown (2014), Middletown (2017), and Freehold (2021). In late 2022, Livoti's announced they'd be moving into the Brick Corrado's location.

After what seems to have been a very extensive renovation (although I'm not clear on just how much Corrado's did before they were evicted), Livoti's has opened another stunning gourmet supermarket. It's limited on the center-store items, of course, but the perimeter is spectacular. I was there on the second day the store was in business -- a week ago yesterday -- and it was packed, but to their credit, they were more than able to handle the crowds. Looks like Livoti's will do just fine here -- and no doubt in large part because it's one of the New Jersey towns with the highest Italian-American population.

The grand aisle is on the left side (and the liquor store is to the left of that, but it's a separate storefront). Floral and bakery are on the left side of the grand aisle, with produce in the middle and on the right side. Prepared foods and deli are at the back of the grand aisle, with a massive cheese department between the grocery aisles and the back wall, where meats are. Seafood is in the back-right corner, with dairy and frozen in the last aisle on the far right.

As we see, the store is gorgeous as well as being full-service. It looks very similar to the other Livoti's in a lot of ways, so it seems even if Corrado's was pretty much ready to open as news reports said, Livoti's still completely remodeled the store.

The line for the bakery department, at times during my visit, went all the way up to the entrance. You can see it's extremely popular. And why shouldn't it be? This looks more like a bakery than a supermarket bakery department, much like we saw in Aberdeen...

I'm guessing the massive selection of Italian style cookies will be in high demand around here.

It looks like in addition to C&S via Associated Supermarket Group, Livoti's is also still supplied by Bozzuto's which they were prior to joining ASG.

Looking back up towards the front of the store...

Notice the digital price tags on the produce items. Those are becoming more popular, even among the smaller operators (I've seen them in ShopRite, Fine Fare, Food Bazaar, and others), but implementation is inconsistent. In this store, for instance, only the produce department has digital tags and the rest are regular stickers.

Pizza, packaged prepared foods, and sandwiches are in the back left corner of the store. The massive Cucina Italiana is to the right of that, with several prepared foods bars with hot and cold foods and olives in front of it.

And of course, the service deli is on the back wall. I love the wood pattern and the backlit signage here.

Not only is the store gorgeous, the merchandising and displays are consistently beautiful across the store. Admittedly, I visited on day 2 of operation, but judging by the other locations this is pretty standard for Livoti's.

The deli case itself is similarly piled with prepared foods...

As we see, each department is more like a standalone business (bakery, deli, seafood market, butcher) than the supermarket department. It's very similar in style to Uncle Giuseppe's, also a member of the Associated Supermarket Group, but the closest Uncle Giuseppe's is just under 20 miles north in Tinton Falls.

The cheese shop is up next, and in addition to having a huge selection of cheeses, employees make mozzarella fresh in front of you. The mozzarella for sale was all warm because it was freshly made.

Here you can see one man pulling the mozzarella (on the left) and the other packaging it. They could barely put it out fast enough for the traffic that was there when I visited. In the above picture, you can also get a sense of the layout of the back right area of the store with meats on the back wall and seafood on the right side.

Here we can see some closeups of the cheese counter, which includes packaged cheeses...

...and fresh-made prepared items with the homemade mozzarella.

And of course, here it is -- along with smoked mozzarellas and seasoned -- pesto and pepperoni mozzarellas!

The grocery aisles angle higher-end and Italian specialty, but there's pretty much a baseline of all the regular groceries you might need. There's a small nonfoods/pet/paper and cleaning selection in the last aisle.

There are very minimal storebrand selections on the shelves.

We can see that the grocery aisles are complete but not the focus of the store.

Back to the perimeter, let's check out the butcher counter!

A large case for aged beef is to the left of the service butcher...

...and I'm not a big steak guy, but wow...

Packaged meats are on the rest of the back wall and in an island facing.

Even in the meat department, there's a lot of fresh-made and prepared items. Check out these!

An island for oils and vinegars is opposite the meat department. I believe you can bring your own container or use their bottle.

For some items, I believe Livoti's has Avenue A branded storebrand items from ASG. For others, though, the products are under their own name...

The seafood department is in the back right corner of the store.

And what a seafood department! Again, this looks more like a standalone fish market than a supermarket fish counter.

Dairy and frozen are in the last aisle.

And a look across the front-end. There's a small cafe under the hanging lights you can see near the entrance at the far end of the front-end.

This store was a lot of fun to visit. I always like seeing a store on its first day or two of operation, but this one seems like it'll keep doing well for some time. That's all for now, and on Monday we're back to Connecticut!