Special Report: Bravo Supermarkets - Clifton, NJ

Bravo Supermarkets
Opened: April 2024

Owner: unknown

Previous Tenants: A&P > Met Foodmarkets > Pioneer Supermarkets > Super Exito Supermarket > CTown Supermarkets

Cooperative: Krasdale Foods

Location: 218 Dayton Ave, Clifton, NJ

Photographed: July 13, 2024

This store is a Bravo supermarket, but you'd hardly know it from the front! It switched from CTown to Bravo in April of this year -- CTown and Bravo are both part of the same group, Krasdale Foods, and I'm not sure whether ownership changed during that switch -- but the sign has yet to be updated. Other signs around the building, including on the front door and in the back, have been switched, and they've run the Bravo circular since April.

This store has changed banners many times during its life. It was built in the 1970s as an A&P, then by around 1990 it had become a Met Foodmarket. Within a few years, it switched to Pioneer Supermarkets (at the time, both were overseen by White Rose Foods and the DiGiorgio Group, which was the retail side). In the late 90s or early 00s, it became an Extra Supermarket. Then by the mid-00s, the store became Super Exito Supermarket, part of a local chain that also goes by the name Exito Freshmarket. Super Exito renovated in 2022-23, then in April 2023, became a CTown. Almost exactly a year later, in April 2024, the store switched to Bravo. Very little has changed, although the CTown logo inside has been switched over to Bravo.

I don't know if the many banner changes suggest the store has been struggling (and, to be clear, the way these independent NYC-area stores work -- it's hard to tell exactly how many times this supermarket has changed ownership despite all the name changes). There's a SuperFresh basically across the street that seems to do better than this store does, a Price Rite just across the river, and then an ALDI and a Food Universe about half a mile west. This, by the way, is as good a time as any to talk about the Food Universe. It opened in May 2023 and seems to do quite well. When I visited last weekend, it was well-stocked with lots of fresh items -- the perimeter looked great -- and the grocery aisles were very complete. More prepared food items had been added to the deli's hot food bar, a small seating area was also added, and two registers had been removed to add more grocery and produce shelving. It appears, though I'm not positive about this, that another grocery aisle was added at the end of the store to include a lot more selection. The Passaic one, which opened in May 2024 under the same ownership, looks just terrible. It was a mess, produce was awful, the deli-prepared foods selection has been scaled down significantly, several meat cases had been repurposed (one filled with apples and another very sparsely stocked with baked goods). I don't know what's going on there, but I have to assume they're really struggling in Passaic while Clifton is doing very well. I don't know the stores well enough to diagnose exactly what the problem is, though. But that's all for this store, and here's a list of today's other stops!