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Update: SuperFresh!

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By Zachary
SuperFresh
Opened: July 31, 2020
Owner: Kevin Kim
Previous Tenants: ShopRite > Pathmark
Cooperative: Key Food Stores
Location: 101 New Brunswick Ave, Hopelawn, NJ
Photographed: March 20, 2025
There's a lot of SuperFresh news lately! In this post, we'll be seeing some changes going on at the Linden and Hopelawn locations, and a Met Foods in Brooklyn recently switched over to SuperFresh. Starting with Hopelawn! The store is still relatively new, having opened in the summer of 2020. But it's one of three SuperFresh stores that apparently went up for sale this winter. The new owner, Kevin Kim, took over about a month ago. More on that shortly. The store still basically looks the same -- and, to be clear, it'll remain a SuperFresh with no significant changes, since it was just a sale from one SuperFresh owner to another.
They're building a new counter in the front corner of the store next to the entrance, which looks like it may be a new customer service counter. Customer service is currently in an island on the front end, which you can see above. I'm not sure why they're moving it, or if this won't be customer service, what might be going in here. Over in the deli, the deli counter has been downsized a bit to accommodate a new hot food bar. The sushi counter was also moved over to this area -- you can see it under the word "Yours" -- from just around the corner, where a small seating area has been added. In between sushi and the seating area, a "Dominican cheese factory" is in progress, according to signage. It looks like it'll be a counter for fresh made Latin American cheeses. Can't say I've seen that around here before!
With those changes, along with what I was seeing in the rest of the store, it looks like the new owners are serious about taking the store up a notch. Especially given that it's not quite five years old, it's always been a nice store, and the previous owners cared for it well. It looks like the store performs well, and it's always been busy when I've been there. (As an aside: you won't see anyone much in these pictures because I was here on a weekday morning.) So it doesn't seem that the sale was related to subpar performance, here or at Linden which we'll see shortly. But under the new ownership, the store is looking as good as ever.
I've been here twice under the new owners, and both times it's been absolutely pristine. They've kept all the shelves perfectly stocked and every display extremely carefully organized. That starts with a great first impression in the produce department, which is the first department you walk into.
And every aisle is equally perfectly stocked and faced.
It's a bit surprising to me that this store is in such fantastic shape, since the new owner is (as far as I can tell) Kevin Kim. If you've been reading my blog for a long time, you probably know that name as someone who can't quite keep a store open. But how things change. After closing or selling all of his supermarkets, Kim acquired the SuperFresh in Bloomfield in 2020, and has most recently replaced some of the fixtures, expanded the produce department, and added a counter for arepas and empanadas. In the spring of 2023, he opened a Food Universe in Clifton, which he then sold a few months ago. There, too, the sale seemed to be unrelated to store performance as it seems to do well. And in the spring of 2024, he opened another Food Universe in Passaic. Bloomfield and Passaic seem to be in great shape these days, and if Hopelawn is any indication, Kim has turned things around.
Because when do you ever see a store in this condition? It looks great, and they clearly are taking care of it. We'll see how these stores do long-term, but given that he's owned Bloomfield for about five years, maybe this is permanent now.
Now moving on to Linden, the largest SuperFresh and also the largest store in the Key Food cooperative!


SuperFresh
Opened: May 2019
Owner: Charles In Park (?)
Previous Tenants: Pathmark
Cooperative: Key Food Stores
Location: 651 N Stiles St, Linden, NJ
Photographed: March 15, 2025
 There's a change we can see right away outside, with new signage on the storefront. The lettering for SuperFresh and the circle-S logo are actually larger, and they've added a "Foods Market" sign below that (why?!). The storefront has also gotten a paint job, with an equally confusing (and, um, rather ugly) red stripe now running along the bottom. Inside, it's clear the larger size of this store presents a little bit of a challenge, given that Key Food and its various independent store owners are more comfortable with much smaller stores, not stores like this near 70,000 square feet. Around the same time that Hopelawn was sold, previous owner Howard Lee also sold the Linden SuperFresh. It appears that the new owner is Charles In Park, who owns a SuperFresh on Long Island. What's particularly interesting there is that a former Pathmark was subdivided between a beauty supply store and a Key Food owned by Pick Quick Foods, which eventually pulled out of the project before it opened. I recall reading that Key Food subsequently approached the owners of the beauty supply store and offered them the Key Food space -- provided they operated it as a supermarket within the Key Food group. They opened it as a SuperFresh shortly thereafter, and it's a beautiful store (I've visited but not posted my pictures yet). Here in Linden, they're taking a similar approach...
The large international department, originally Pathmark's HABA department, located next to the produce department has been removed and will soon be a Feel Beauty. That's the same brand as in Baldwin. Despite that, it doesn't seem that the supermarket was reduced or cut back. Instead, the new owners have packed what appears to be the same or similar selection into the reduced space. One of the biggest changes is that the aisles are no longer split in half front-to-back as they previously were, so there's more shelf space in the aisles. HABA and greeting cards were moved out of the grocery aisles and onto the front wall, and a few endcaps are now used for more grocery shelving. I'm not 100% sure, but it looks like they may have also added another row of shelving on top of the existing grocery shelving, giving them more height without changing the fixtures.
The biggest change is that the general merchandise and seasonal department, which took up three aisles in the middle of the store, is now entirely gone, replaced with the international department.
Here's what this area previously looked like. Obviously, it's a much more efficient use of space these days. But I miss the tree and the larger, more spacious previous setup. Despite the tighter space now, it actually feels like the selection in certain areas has increased. There's definitely more produce now, with a lot more small shelves and bins added.
I'm sure the international selection (which is still quite substantial) has been cut somewhat, but it's also clear that they've worked really hard to try to cut as little as possible. They've also used a handful of other tricks as they've reset the rest of the store. One example I noticed: things that might have previously been in the international aisles are now integrated with the regular grocery items. For example, Latin American coffees were previously in the Latin American aisles and Caribbean herbal teas like ginger or sorrel teas were previously in the Caribbean aisles. Now, those are in the coffee and tea aisles alongside Lipton and Folger's. That allows them to condense the international department.
I'll come back to photograph the store once all the work is done! But in the meantime, here's my other posts for this weekend...
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