ShopRite
Opened: 1980
The exterior has gotten a new facade, and I must say I really like the wood-texture facade at the two sides. Inserra, the owner of this ShopRite, has done similar things previously. The main entrance is on the left side, although there's entrances and exits on both sides. Inside, the store has retained most of its original layout with some notable changes. Upon entering, you'd walk through the food court (prepared foods and seating area) and bakery in the front-left corner to enter the produce department lining the left side of the store. Floral was at the back of the produce department, with meat running along most of the back wall. In the back right corner, there was an alcove for seafood and deli counters, with dairy on the rest of the back wall to the right of that. Dairy continued down the last aisle along with frozen foods, which then extended into an alcove in the front-right corner running along the front wall. Customer service and pharmacy were in islands between the grocery aisles and the front-end. The layout hasn't changed that much, but there are some notable differences. For one, the entire food court has been removed, with the floral department relocating into that area. The rest of the perimeter is the same, except for greatly-reduced deli and seafood counters (although they're in the same spot). The only other change is that frozen has been moved from the front corner to the aisles, with the last few aisles extending farther into the front of the store than they had.
I loved the terrible decor here. It was a time warp, with the old ShopRite logos and so many shades of turquoise and the script!
The new decor is, well...
...not very exciting. In the above picture, you can see where the food court used to be between the entrance, which is just to the left of the picture above, and the bakery. It makes sense to move floral here from the back corner, which is just a bizarre place to put it.
Bakery looking sharp with some new fixtures, but you can see the bones are the same. In fact, the renovation overall was quite simple. Fortunately or unfortunately, the work did involve removing the elaborate lit ceiling over the produce department.
The produce department is, well, kinda bland now. But it's of course more modern.
Still, a careful look reveals that the flooring and refrigeration on the outside wall haven't been replaced. In fact, this remodel seemed to be more about removing the aging decor and unused service departments than actually adding anything new. The entire food court is gone, with prepared foods reduced down to just a small case near the deli. There used to be a sushi counter, which has been downsized to just one case of packaged sushi in the deli (unclear if they're still making it in-store). The pharmacy is also gone (Inserra doesn't own any pharmacies anymore). And the new decor just looks like they aren't even trying.
One possibility, though, is that this is only temporary. It's possible they needed something short-term to do a grand reopening to coincide with the shopping center's exterior renovations being complete, and now will begin to add new decor. But that seems unlikely given that they've already held a ribbon cutting. Still, in Ringwood -- a former Stop & Shop and the newest addition to Inserra's portfolio -- Inserra did exactly that, installing some temporary decor and then, after the store opened (and after I wrote that blog post), announcing plans to more extensively remodel it. You can see the decor used in this store is practicaly exactly the same as Ringwood.
My guess, though, is that this store doesn't need to do all that much renovation-wise. There's only two other stores in town, a Stop & Shop that's just north -- it's relatively new and rather nice, and seems to do a good business -- and a small but popular DeCicco Family Markets just south.
A combination of new and old fixtures over in the meat department, and it's funny that I visited right around the same time of year last time so in both photosets you can see St Patrick's Day decorations up.
Much sleeker and more modern, but a far cry from the extensive renovations Inserra has done at other locations.
The mirrored metal panels have been removed from the aisles with new lighting on the ceiling -- a good choice, since I remember the store seeming dim previously. Now, the store is anything but dim.
The grocery shelving was not replaced, but it also didn't seem to be in bad condition. The ceiling could use a paint job, though. There's a few things, like that, that really draw attention to the fact that it's an older building.
Still, it's looking pretty good. You can see where flooring has been patched in areas like below.
It's clear they take care of the store well, but I just wish the renovation had brought some more excitement to it.
Here's another very significant change in the remodel: while deli and seafood are in the same place they were before, both service counters have been very significantly scaled down. Before...
...and after. You can see the service deli takes up just a fraction of the space it used to, with new cases displaying packaged items. This is it as far as prepared foods go, too.
As you can see, this refrigeration is all new, though, which is nice.
And a tiny seafood counter where a much larger counter used to be. I think there's a couple possibilities here, and one is just that the industry generally has been shifting to more packaged and less to-order selection (you don't have to look farther than Wegmans' food courts for evidence of that). Another is that the DeCicco is the town's choice for specialty items, including a much bigger deli and seafood counter than they have here, so ShopRite just doesn't need to have those items because people aren't buying them here anyway. The DeCicco is much smaller than this store, but also seems to do a very good business.
HABA aisles, and you can see the island with customer service and the former pharmacy counter straight ahead.
Dairy begins on the back wall and then continues down the last aisle.
In an effort to brighten up the slightly dingy store, I think they may have gone overboard. It felt jarring in person.
Frozen foods used to be in an alcove on the front wall, and are now in the grocery aisles in new cases.
As I mentioned, the last few aisles are longer than they used to be to extend into what used to be the frozen foods area. Since the flooring wasn't changed, we can actually see where it used to be. The black diamonds would've been in the aisle dividing frozen foods from the grocery aisles, and you can see the patch where the coffin case in the above picture would've been.
Dairy is still in the last aisle along with some frozen foods.
But as you can see, there's no signage for dairy or frozen in this area. In fact, there's almost no decor in the store after the meat department, except for the aisle markers.
A mixture of old and new cases.
In the below picture, frozen foods were on the other side of the wall ahead and to the right where the ice sign is.
Looking in the other direction towards the food court and bakery.
The front-end feels much brighter and more open now, but also much blander.
Opened: 1980
Owner: Inserra Supermarkets
Previous Tenants: none
Cooperative: Wakefern Food
Location: 66 N Main St, New City, NY
Photographed: February 26, 2025
Welcome back to the ShopRite of New City! We've visited this small town about seven miles north of the New Jersey border before, and I've actually posted a tour of this ShopRite, but that was a long time ago so if you don't remember it, don't sweat it. My 2019 pictures are also included in this post.
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The 56,000 square foot store opened in 1980 as a new-build store and, at the time of my visit in 2019, was still looking very dated. (It was renovated and expanded out both sides in the 90s.) In 2023, it was announced that the mall it's in was set to be remodeled, and that the ShopRite would remodel to accompany the overall new look. The work finished with a ribbon cutting on February 24, 2025.
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Still, it's not a bad store and it's good to see some updates happening, even if I have my complaints about the updates in question. Don't miss this weekend's other posts today and tomorrow!
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