Stop & Shop
Opened: 2001
Owner: Ahold Delhaize
Previous Tenants: Mayfair Foodtown (ca. 1990-1995) > Edwards (1995-2001)
Cooperative: none
Location: 2275 W County Line Rd, Jackson, NJ
Photographed: April 19, 2024
Closing Date: September 19, 2024 (approximate)
Today's next already-closed Stop & Shop (joining
Newton and
Carlstadt) is Jackson, which closed on or around September 19. This store was one of the
32 closures announced in July, but its closure was
actually announced in April on its own. The roughly 68,000 square foot store was constructed around 1990 as a Mayfair Foodtown, then became an Edwards, which converted to Stop & Shop in 2001. It seems that the store was renovated and expanded almost immediately after that.
It wasn't redone subsequently, so right up until its closure it sported its early-00s Super Stop & Shop decor. The store looked pretty good when I visited -- which was about a week before the closure was announced -- but it was obvious it was struggling.
It's a standard early-00s Super Stop & Shop layout, with the grand aisle on the right side. Natural foods and floral are in the front-right corner, with deli and prepared foods on the right side. Meat, seafood, and dairy are on the back wall, with frozen and HABA are on the left side. Bakery and pharmacy are in the front-left corner.
The store, no doubt, was kept extraordinarily clean right up until the end.
Still, we can see maintenance was slipping, such as the burnt-out lights and the water stains here.
I love these cheese shops that the early 00s Super Stop & Shops had!
Service seafood was long gone here, although it's hard to tell if that was a sign of a struggling store -- by my estimate, most Stop & Shops in New Jersey closed their seafood departments in the 2010-2018 era, although stores began reopening them in the remodels 2018 to the present.
Since I don't believe I've mentioned this on the blog previously, Stop & Shop
has a new president who started on September 30. Gordon Reid, who led the company since 2019, is stepping down to be replaced by Roger Wheeler, who worked for Ahold Delhaize corporate as their Chief Commercial Officer but prior to that was a longtime Stop & Shop executive. Given the recent events -- and the fact that Stop & Shop has been struggling for at least a few years now -- I find it hard to believe the personnel shakeup is unrelated to the chain's struggles. It seems more likely that either Reid felt he wasn't up to the challenge of turning around the chain, or that Ahold Delhaize corporate leadership felt he wasn't doing a good job and sought someone else to take the helm. I've been very consistently happy lately with the Food Lion, Giant-PA, and Hannaford stores I've visited, so maybe a revitalization of Stop & Shop will help the chain fit more in line with some of the better-run other Ahold Delhaize chains. I'm cautiously optimistic but the chain still has a long way to go.
Like in other stores, the meat department is all pre-packaged, and the meat room was closed several years ago. This shade was placed over the former butcher windows.
Compared to, say, many of the
ShopRite stores in New Jersey (which can extend to much larger than this location), these stores has a minimal perimeter and lots of grocery aisles, which can cause them to feel too large. That ShopRite is around the same size as this store, but feels full because of an extensive selection in the fresh departments.
Notice the international foods signage in these aisles.
Dairy is located entirely on the back wall in this store, with frozen in the last aisle.
Rumors circulating on Facebook suggest that this store is set to be subdivided with a kosher supermarket in half and a gym in the other half, but nothing official has been announced yet. (Some people have claimed on social that the strip mall was sold recently to a member of the Orthodox Jewish community, bolstering the argument for a kosher supermarket coming soon. While there may still be a kosher supermarket coming, the property has been owned by an affiliate of real estate firm
Brixmor since 2007.)
Shades of Beauty and other HABA items are in the aisles extending from the pharmacy in the front.
I'm not totally sure why the pharmacy in these stores has sky above it (when no other department does), but I do kinda like it.
I spotted this cart being used for holding sale tags in one of the aisles. There were a few of these around the store.
These frozen foods cases might have been replaced after the store was renovated. They're not that old.
The fixtures
have been auctioned as of last week, making me think nobody (supermarket-wise) is waiting to move in immediately to this space. If someone, like a kosher supermarket, is looking to move into part of the space, they'll need to start from scratch in installing new fixtures.
Breads and frozen foods were in the last aisle.
I'm glad I got the chance to photograph this store before it closed! There are still more than a few Stop & Shops out there with this decor out there, but they're quickly disappearing.
Customer service on the front wall next to the entrance/exit near the produce department.
Another Stop & Shop has closed its doors for good, and there are plenty more coming. But let's hope that a new president can take the chain in a new direction!
Seems that most of the Stop & Shops period (not just NJ) had gotten rid of the seafood service department at some point.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking those carts (like the one with the tags) were originally designed to be used by someone with a wheelchair (like that they could fit in behind it so they could roll themselves and the cart at the same time) - probably something that got less use once stores started getting the motorized carts.
Perhaps if a kosher market does want to open, they'd want to start with new equipment in order to keep things kosher (not sure exactly what they might otherwise have to do to "cleanse" stuff that had been previously used for non-kosher purposes)?
True, about the seafood departments. And that seems logical about the cart -- I've only seen them at two locations. But my assumption was that it would be for some "back-of-house" function.
DeleteYes, I just remember some store(s) having those many years ago for that use (with a wheelchair).
DeleteBut it makes sense to repurpose them now that other (better) options exist, and using them for the signs is a good one as they are just high enough to be easy to get to for the person doing that vs. a more normal cart that would be lower.
I used to visit this store from time to time when I lived in Farmingdale. If I was hitting ShopRite and S&S in the same trip, it was usually easier to head to Jackson, at least before the ShopRite opened in Howell. Back then (2013-2016), this store seemed to be doing all right. I still preferred Howell or the former Norkus Foodtown in Freehold, but this store was usually well-stocked with sale items.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that the decline has been in those past few years then -- and that's consistent with what I see in the rest of the chain. It seems like Stop & Shop most significantly declined from around 2018-2024, in terms of investment in the stores, basic maintenance, prices, and so on.
Delete