Stop & Shop
Opened: 2001
Welcome to the Brick, NJ Stop & Shop! This is one of the relatively few New Jersey Stop & Shops I hadn't photographed until recently, and I visited at the end of February to find (unexpectedly) the store celebrating its grand reopening. Stop & Shop doesn't seem to announce grand reopenings on social media, so I wasn't aware this store had been remodeled.
The Jersey Shore Stop & Shops seem to generally do really well. In this area, the primary competitor is Saker ShopRites, which is a strong operator with large, generally well-run stores. But there's definitely room for a second mainstream supermarket in the area, and in many northern shore towns, that's Stop & Shop. (In the southern part of the shore, ACME is the primary ShopRite competitor, and those ShopRite stores are generally owned by Village Super Market rather than Saker.) This Brick store looks like a mid- to late-00s new-build, but it's actually a former Grand Union that opened around 1980, becoming a Stop & Shop in 2001. In 2010-11, the store was renovated and expanded from its original 38,000 square feet to its present 55,000 square feet. What's particularly interesting is that its renovation happened right around the time Chelmsford was constructed. But during the renovation, Brick got different exterior and interior designs from Chelmsford, which got a bizarre combination of the early-00s exterior look with the mid-2010s interior look. This store previously had the yellow version of the yellow and purple decor. (There was also a white version.)
This winter, the store received a renovation to the latest Stop & Shop decor package, which I honestly really like. It's sharp and modern, and for once, not completely monochromatic. What impressed me more is that Stop & Shop is clearly serious about improving the store operations, as this one was clearly better-run than the majority of stores I'd been seeing. Price investments seem to be coming to the chain, and lower prices are noticeable. I've also seen better produce, better-stocked shelves across the store, and better staffing than I had in the past.
As you can see, this Brick store is impeccable. It seems to do a very good volume, although Placer.ai says its volume is less than half of the nearby ShopRite (which I've photographed but not yet posted). Brick also has a specialty market called Livoti's, along with a LIDL and an ALDI.
This decor package is slowly making its way through the chain, and we first saw it in the brand-new Allston Yards store in Boston, then in the new Acton store. A handful of the Jersey Shore stores have it, but I believe the majority of renovated North and Central Jersey stores have the very gray decor that came a bit before this one. (A different and nicer but still monochromatic decor package is used for the renovated NYC stores.)
You can see that the decor package here is a bit less deluxe than, say, Allston Yards, such as the icon signs not being lit, or some of the department signage being scaled down to accommodate the store's lower ceilings -- a side effect of its past as a Grand Union.
The layout is essentially a mirror image of Chelmsford, which I linked above. Produce is in the front-right corner with deli and prepared foods in the back right corner. Meat and seafood are on the back wall, with dairy, frozen, and HABA on the left side. Bakery and pharmacy are in the front-left corner.
Unlike Chelmsford, though, there actually are prepared foods here. (Chelmsford had most of that department filled with tortilla chips.) Plus, there's a service seafood counter, although a small one. It looks like there always has been, too, which is a good sign for this store's health.
I've been to a handful of other Stop & Shop stores lately, and have seen drastically better store conditions than I was seeing a year ago. I don't know if it's just the change in management -- the previous president, who ran the chain from 2018 to 2024, abruptly retired and was replaced by a corporate Ahold Delhaize person -- but Stop & Shop seems to be in much better shape than even a couple months ago. There are still a few stores that seem to be poor performers, but the vast majority seem healthier and better run these days.
Plus, Stop & Shop seems to be on a mission to remodel all of the remaining stores that haven't gotten upgrades yet.
Looking across the back wall, back towards the grand aisle on the right side...
It looks like the majority of fixtures were just painted, not replaced, in the renovation, which is logical given that many of them were probably new when the store was expanded. Everything in the store looks and feels pretty new, even though things like the flooring, ceiling, and lighting weren't changed.
All new bakery fixtures, though, and looking good. Notice that some of the circular department icons are lit up (pharmacy) but others are not (bakery).
A look across the front-end.
Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the store prior to the renovation, except for some terrible drive-by photos of the exterior from back in 2021.
Here you can see the old logo on the storefront. I like the new paint job on the outside. I was never sold on the purple scheme, but the new colors look sharp and modern.
That's about all I have for this Stop & Shop, but there's a couple more posts for this weekend! Check out the full list below.
Owner: Ahold Delhaize
Previous Tenants: Grand Union (ca. 1980-2001)
Cooperative: none
Location: 55 Brick Blvd, Brick, NJ
Photographed: September 8, 2021 and February 28, 2025
Here's a look at this weekend's other posts!
Comments
Post a Comment