Food Bazaar Supermarket
Opened: 2007
Let's check out some newly-renovated Food Bazaars! I'm a little late to the Trenton party -- the store held its grand reopening last summer, around the time that the Junius Street store in Brownsville, Brooklyn did. Junius Street received a floor-to-ceiling renovation (I've visited and photographed, but not yet posted, that store. It's quite nice), but Trenton got more of a lighter cosmetic-only remodel. To be fair, it was in pretty good shape before the renovation, and you can see it here.
The store being fully decked out for Valentine's Day when I visited helps distract from the simpler version of this decor package, which is very beige. (Compare to a deluxe version here.) Still, it's nice and the renovation has brought some other changes, too, such as lots of new fixtures.
Notice that the tile flooring remains in the produce, meat, and seafood departments, but has been removed from most of the supermarket in favor of polished concrete. In the above picture, we're looking towards the right side of the store across the front wall which here is packed with perfectly faced packaged produce.
And although the setup in the meat department is roughly the same, many of the fixtures have been replaced, though not all.
Meats are in this room on the far right of the store, with some dairy and frozen (in addition to cold cuts and frozen meat). Seafood is to the rear of this room.
Not much has changed here, except for certain new fixtures. You can see a lot that remain, along with a lot of older signage that remains. Very different from Junius Street, where everything was replaced.
Still, it looks good, although I would've painted the older refrigerators black to match the new ones.
Back over in produce, the changes were again strictly cosmetic, but it's looking great. The maintenance here has been really good, and you can see they keep the store absolutely spotless.
And absolutely piled with produce!
I don't know for sure, but every indication suggests this store is high volume. You wouldn't be stocking produce like this if it weren't all selling. Notably, it's the only large supermarket in Trenton. The next closest store comparable in size is a ShopRite in Ewing, about three miles away. For Trenton's population that doesn't drive, that's an hour and 20 minute walk or a 40 minute bus ride -- simply too far.
The produce department looked particularly good, but I was here in the morning, so it hadn't yet gotten most of the traffic it would during the day.
New signage in seafood, but the bones are the same. These fixtures are not that old, though.
But new freezers for frozen seafood are opposite the fresh seafood department.
We see bigger changes on the back wall. The deli counter has been shifted a bit to eliminate a small alcove with baked goods and refrigerated packaged items next to the deli counter, and those items are now next to the service deli in a straight-across refrigerator case rather than a corner. A corner that appears to have previously been deli prep and storage is now home to kitchenwares.
And it's a pretty significant selection. You could definitely stock a kitchen with equipment from what they have here. Obviously, there aren't things like large appliances here, but they do have small appliances and various utensils, pots and pans, and dishes.
Here's a look at the rearranged deli counter.
The grocery aisles are similar, but with a newly-painted ceiling and new concrete floors. The concrete is generally in really good shape here.
The freezers are pretty new, too, so they weren't replaced in the renovation. But the snowflakes are new!
Looking good.
The dairy cases weren't replaced or painted.
But the decorative wooden fence was added, and I like the look of it.
This is the only Food Bazaar with a pharmacy, and it's an outside business that rents space inside the supermarket. Food Bazaar doesn't run any pharmacies.
A look across the front-end with the new trellis structure over the registers, and new register lights.
We return to the Coney Island/Gravesend Food Bazaar for a look at how the work there is going. Spoiler alert: slowly. In fact, not a whole lot has changed since my last visit in October. Before we get too into the details, here's a look at the store's layout according to this directory posted rather inconveniently directly below a self-service coffee dispenser in the deli.
Keep in mind that this map is only...moderately accurate. For one, aisles 6, 7, 8, and 9 are not actually empty (8 and 9 are the produce department), and HABA is not actually in the front-left corner but in aisle 17, I believe. The area labeled health and beauty is actually kitchenwares. Complaints aside, let's take a look at the supermarket's interior!
Like I said, not much has changed since our October visit. It's not looking bad, but it could certainly use some decor sooner rather than later. This location didn't even get the temporary decor that other acquired stores like Carlstadt did. Still, this store's decor when it was still a Stop & Shop had Stop & Shop logos all over it, so it had to go right away.
The first few aisles are to the right of the entrance as you saw in the directory, and these areas still feel temporary. There haven't been aisle markers put in, for example, and the former pharmacy in the front-right corner (which later became an online shopping staging area under Stop & Shop), as far as I can tell, remains vacant. Obviously, I have no idea, but it wouldn't surprise me if the long-term plan was to remove some or all of these aisles and relocate the produce department here. This store's produce department is so small, even though the store isn't that small at 45,000 square feet. For instance, the Gates and Myrtle stores -- in Ridgewood, Queens and Bushwick, Brooklyn -- are both smaller than this one but have much larger perishables departments. Of course, here Food Bazaar is stuck with the setup Pathmark had, but I imagine over time they'll make changes.
Beverages in the first aisle on the far-right side of the store.
As you can see, in the meantime, Food Bazaar has kept the store clean and stocked, but I can't imagine this is the long-term solution.
The produce department looks good with a reset and new tables in the middle, but it still feels small.
I imagine more extensive work on these acquired stores, if it will happen, might not happen right away. Food Bazaar has at least four stores coming soon right now -- two in the Bronx (Mott Haven and Mount Hope), one in Manhattan (Inwood), and one in Brooklyn (East New York). That comes as a store in Queens has been demolished and is in the process of being rebuilt several times larger. The upshot: Food Bazaar has a lot going on right now, and even though the acquired Stop & Shop stores don't seem to be getting a lot of love right now, there's only so many resources the chain has. Including those stores in progress, the chain has 41 stores, so nearly a quarter of the store base is currently in transition in one way or another. While Carlstadt and Piscataway don't seem to have progressed any further -- Piscataway, as far as I can tell, hasn't gotten any renovation at all yet -- Hempstead is getting more substantial construction, with the drop ceiling torn out (temporarily?) over the grand aisle although Stop & Shop decor remains.
You can see certain sections of shelving, such as where the taco shells are to the right below, that have been replaced. But otherwise, the shelving is left over from the Pathmark days.
One intriguing sign that there might be bigger layout changes coming soon: the aisle markers aren't actually numbered, as they typically are. Instead, the numbers are printed on paper and taped to the ends of the aisles, as you can see in the first few aisles. My guess continues to be that they'll remove a couple aisles eventually to expand the perishables departments.
Deli is in the back-left corner, and again it hasn't really been changed since the Pathmark days.
Stop & Shop category markers are leftover still in the frozen department, and the freezers are Pathmark-era.
Kitchenwares are in the front-left corner. Like Trenton, this store has a very significant kitchenwares department.
And the front-end, with Stop & Shop lane markers but the new wooden trellis over the registers.
Opened: 2007
Owner: Spencer An
Previous Tenants: Edwards (1990s-2001) > Super G (2001-2005)
Cooperative: none
Location: 635 S Clinton Ave, Chambersburg, Trenton, NJ
Photographed: February 12, 2025
One more fun surprise before we head out -- the men's room still has this Giant/Super G poster on the wall!
Trenton is looking good, and it's good to see the older stores getting some updates. Now for another store undergoing renovations...
Food Bazaar Supermarket
Opened: 2024
Opened: 2024
Owner: Spencer An
Previous Tenants: Pathmark (1970-2015) > Stop & Shop (2015-2024)
Cooperative: none
Location: 2965 Cropsey Ave, Coney Island/Gravesend, Brooklyn, NY
Photographed: February 11, 2025
And that wraps up our look at these Food Bazaars! You can be sure I'll be back as the renovations continue at the acquired locations, and of course to the new stores once they open. In the meantime, here's this weekend's other posts!
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