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Special Report: Tropical Supermarket - South Plainfield, NJ

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By Zachary
Tropical Supermarket
Opened: October 11, 2024
Owner: Ricardo Hernandez
Previous Tenants: Bravo Supermarkets (1983-2022)
Cooperative: Key Food Stores
Location: 1245 W 7th St, South Plainfield, NJ
Photographed: October 19, 2024
Phew, this is a lot of posts today and this weekend. Ten posts between the two days! The full list is at the end of this post, by the way. And this is a late-breaking addition to the coverage, given that I only went to this store yesterday. It was definitely worth the visit, though. This is a brand-new small chain supermarket of just 15,000 square feet, joining a handful of other Tropical locations in North and Central Jersey. It opened earlier this month, replacing a Bravo that closed in 2022. Even back in 2020, when I visited that Bravo, it was clear the store was struggling and aging poorly. There's also another small grocer right across the street, Meat City Market. After an extensive renovation, Tropical has opened.
The basic layout is similar to Bravo's although a couple departments have been moved around. Produce is on the right side with a large seafood and meat service counter taking up about half the back wall. Packaged meats are on the rest of the back wall. Bravo had an island facing the produce department with deli and hot food, which Tropical moved. Frozen and dairy are on the left side of the store, and Tropical built out a large deli area in the front-left corner of the store including the standard deli counter, a large hot food bar, a juice bar, a bakery, and a small cafe for seating. HABA is on the front wall beyond the registers. It's a much more extensive supermarket than Bravo was.
As far as I could tell, all of the fixtures are new. The decor, of course, is too, and the flooring appears to be terrazzo that was under Bravo's white vinyl tile. I don't know what this store was originally. One minor issue, you can see one of the light fixtures that doesn't seem to be properly attached to the trellis structure above the produce department.
There's a lot packed into this rather small supermarket, and you can see how they do it in these pictures. Each fixture is truly full.
And the store still feels spacious, despite its small size.
Seafood (or should I say Fish Fish) is at the back of the produce department with the meat counter just to the left. Bravo didn't have a service seafood department.
Here you can get a sense of the back wall of the store and how these service counters, which are quite large, are set up.
It's worth noting that, despite the name Tropical Supermarket, this store is definitely a mainstream supermarket with a particularly large selection of Latin and Caribbean foods. As a member of Key Food, they sell Urban Meadow storebrand products along with the odd Essential Everyday and Wild Harvest products from UNFI. You can in fact see the purple Wild Harvest packaging on the organic produce a few pictures back.
Bravo did have a service butcher counter, but it was much smaller than this one.
The grocery aisles are short but again, fully stocked.
I didn't see any fixtures that appeared to be left over from Bravo. These meat cases definitely aren't, for example.
You can see the new deli area at the front of this aisle, and we'll get there as we circle the store's perimeter.
The ceiling doesn't appear to have been replaced. That's the only thing I see that's obviously left over from Bravo.
The freezer cases don't appear to be left over from Bravo, but they also don't look like they're brand-new. There is a row of freezer cases in the second-to-last aisle, which we see below, and then another one in the last aisle. The outside of the last aisle is dairy.
Half of the dairy cases are open and half have doors, which you can see ahead. Packaged deli items like cheese and hummus are at the front. Here's what this area looked like previously. Tropical's deli area appears to have been built where Bravo had that separate room, which you can see with the dark windows. I believe that was offices, but I could never really tell exactly what was there.
Looking towards the back of the store...
You can tell the ceiling is older in areas like this, where there are noticeable patches. It would've been better if they painted it or removed it throughout the store as they did in the produce department.
Now to check out the deli area. In the below picture, you can also get a glimpse of the carts, which I believe are secondhand former Pathmark carts.
This area looks great and is all brand-new.
Around the corner from the deli counter is the hot food bar and the juice bar, which also had several packaged cold prepared foods in the refrigerator case there.
And opposite this area, one of the grocery aisles is shorter to accommodate a cheese island.
And in front of that is the bakery department, along with a register just to the left here. Opposite from this is the seating area.
It's a great setup and really well-designed. The cafe is between the deli area and the registers.
Here's a look at the rest of the front-end, and HABA is in front of the registers on the front wall. I don't recall seeing HABA in other Tropical stores, so that might be a new addition for this one.
It's nice to see they've done a great job renovating this location, and it's certainly much better than the previous Bravo. Always good to see a nice new independent supermarket!
And make sure to check out the many other posts from this weekend...
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