Vucciria Gourmet Italian Market of Brooklyn
Opened: March 19, 2025
Old Bridge, NJ is a large town in the middle of the state, just south of New Brunswick and not quite at the Jersey Shore but a bit inland from the northern part of the shore. And it (and neighboring towns) have an enormous number of supermarkets. Old Bridge itself has a new ShopRite, an ACME, a new Seabra's Market, and an ALDI, and obviously the ShopRite is the heavy hitter there. But the surrounding area has any number of other supermarkets, ranging from international stores to discount stores to full supermarkets. It's a competitive market, and newcomers sometimes struggle. In fact, the space that is now Seabra's was previously a SuperFresh for just a couple months from June to October 2024. A similar story played out here on Route 9 at Ticetown Road. A short-lived Top Tomato Superstore opened up in late June 2024 and closed by the end of the year. You can tour that store here. Earlier this month, Vucciria Gourmet Market opened their second location here. It's branded Vucciria of Brooklyn, a reference to their original sprawling gourmet store in Bensonhurst. The name itself appears to be a reference to a market in Palermo, Italy. As far as I can tell, Vucciria hasn't previously had any other locations.
Here, they haven't done much to the former Top Tomato store, except for a few minor changes. One is intriguing -- check out those light fixtures! I haven't seen something like them before. They're different from what Top Tomato had, and appear to be LEDs built into the ceiling tiles around the perimeter of what was previously the regular lights.
The fixtures here in produce are new, and there's a little more space than there previously was, but the basic setup is the same. It's looking quite good, as Top Tomato did in the beginning.
Unfortunately, the decision to only minimally change the facility means this store doesn't have any of the charm or personality of their original location. In fact, there's almost nothing even moderately interesting about the facility. On the one hand, I like that because it lets the products speak for themselves, but if you're positioned as a gourmet market, customers often expect a premium store environment.
The layout is basically the same, although Vucciria doesn't have a seafood department as Top Tomato did. They also replaced the rows of low shelves displaying sale items in the back corner here with another aisle and a cheese island.
Their butcher counter was previously both meat and seafood. The deli counter is clearly the big draw here, on the back wall of the store. I love the hanging hams and wish there were more touches like that around the store.
The grocery selection here is small with just the absolute basics and certain specialty items. Top Tomato was definitely trying to be more of a full supermarket.
Prior to Top Tomato, the space was a greengrocer called Garden Farm. This space is about half of an original A&P which later became a Norkus Foodtown and then a Shop n Bag.
Packaged prepared foods, cured meats, and other deli items are in the last aisle on the left side, with dairy and frozen in the front half of the left side wall.
Looking up towards the front of the store from the back of the produce department...
Dairy and a tiny frozen foods department are in the front-left corner here...
And nonfoods have been moved to the front wall. Here you can see one issue with the light fixtures: they look a bit random when they're not in a standard arrangement, such as you can see here in the front corner. I don't know why it seems more noticeable with this type than the usual type.
Opened: March 19, 2025
Owner: Silvestro LoVerde
Previous Tenants: A&P > Foodtown > Shop n Bag > Garden Farm > Top Tomato
Cooperative: none
Location: 3105 US-9, Old Bridge, NJ
Photographed: March 23, 2025
But overall, Vucciria looks great, but we'll see if they can survive in the very tough grocery market here. Hopefully they will be able to, since this store seems a bit tighter and better-run than Top Tomato, but it's hard to know based on just one visit. Check out this weekend's other posts here!
- A Met Foods in Brooklyn converts to SuperFresh
- Two NJ SuperFresh stores have been sold
- The new ShopRite in Watchung nears completion
- A struggling gourmet market in South Orange closes, with plans to reopen
- Food Bazaar prepares its largest Brooklyn store
- A third supermarket opens in Brooklyn's Gateway Center
- East Flatbush gets a new Food World in a longtime supermarket building
- A Brooklyn gourmet market opens its first New Jersey location (this post)
That is one strange font choice for the logo. More haunted house than gourmet market.
ReplyDeleteNo kidding. I don't know why they chose that font, but the one in Brooklyn (along with the packaged breads sold elsewhere) use the same logo.
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