ShopRite of Springfield
Opened: 1975
Welcome back to the ShopRite of Springfield! This store, of course, was planned as a Marina-style Safeway but wasn't yet open when Safeway pulled out of the area. Their area stores went to Finast, and this one opened as a Finast in 1962. In fact, there's even still a Finast sign on the property. In 1975, local ShopRite operator Village Super Market moved into the spot. They've renovated the store several times over the years, expanding it to its present 40,000 square feet. Most recently, it received a minor renovation in late 2024.
You can take a look at my post of the store prior to the renovation here. As we'll see, not much has changed, but it's looking pretty good.
New decor in the grand aisle with some minor resets of the departments. Here's what this area previously looked like.
Gourmet Garage has arrived in the prepared foods department!
And there's now a big ol' blue fish over the seafood department. Love it!
Village Fruit & Vegetables replaces Spring Field Farms. Some new fixtures here in produce, too.
While this is a pleasant update, it's a far cry from Village's new stores. As I've mentioned on those posts, there's a difference in execution, too. Certain new stores, like Watchung and Old Bridge, actually have different offerings in the perimeter departments. They have different baked goods, different prepared foods (although the introduction of Gourmet Garage items to other stores has minimized that difference), and certain expanded selections such as Fairway-branded coffee and cheese departments. The remodel here was little more than a slight cosmetic update to the grand aisle, and was not exactly a reinvention of the store. Bernardsville was also recently remodeled (equally lightly), but I haven't been back yet. In non-Village news, Clark also recently got a minor cosmetic update and Belleville is currently undergoing renovations. I'm not sure how extensive they'll be.
The rest of the store basically hasn't been changed at all (except for one small change we'll see later). The Village Market numbered aisle markers remain from the ca. 2008 decor, which remained until around 2018 in this store.
Butcher counter added in the ca. 2018 remodel. It's a very nice fixture, and similar to the new seafood cases.
But the rest of the decor, including the Work-Eat-Live-Love with Purpose wall at the top of the arched roof, remains from the previous decor package.
The store is in very good shape for its age, but extremely awkward in layout and very cramped.
And it actually just got slightly smaller. The other change since my last visit is that the pharmacy has been closed and the short HABA aisles in front of it (which once, long ago, were a liquor store). I'm not sure exactly when the pharmacy closed, but it would've been after ShopRite closed about a third of their pharmacies in 2021. Since then, some more stores have closed their pharmacies and several new stores have been built without pharmacies. There are about 340 ShopRites, but these days, I think there are probably only around 100-150 ShopRite pharmacies. Village has installed a row of bread shelving in front of the former pharmacy area, and all the HABA items have been moved into the grocery aisles.
But the front-end is looking as good as ever with the high arched ceiling!
The ShopRite of Danbury, which we toured in 2020, is finally shedding its original A&P decor in an ongoing renovation. The outside hasn't yet gotten a change, but it's slated to with a new sign. It looks like they'll also finally fix the extremely odd signage placement on the outside.
The inside is very much in progress, and while the renovation looks to be largely cosmetic here too, it's definitely thorough. The whole store will be redone with new decor, and there will hardly be any traces of the prior decor. Grade A Markets, which has recently rebranded as Cingari Family Markets, is in the process of renovating all of their locations. We recently saw the transformation of the Newfield Avenue store in Stamford.
Here's a look at what the grand aisle will eventually look like. Great use of the high ceiling left from the A&P days!
For now, there really isn't any decor on the walls in most of the store, but it's obviously coming soon. Some fixtures have been replaced, such as the hot food bar here, but it looks like others may just be painted.
I'm not totally sure what's going on here ceiling-wise, but it looks like it'll get a fresh coat of paint in the remodel. You can also see some of the new light wood-texture flooring going in.
The ceiling over the produce department has already been painted black.
Bakery has a mixture of old and new fixtures.
Seafood, though, has a nice new tile backsplash that I'm sure will look great with the new decor.
I've photographed a couple of the other renovated Cingari stores and might post them shortly, too. It's a pretty impressive transformation, because Grade A/Cingari's previous decor package was not just outdated but several decades out of date. When they acquired a couple Shaw's stores in CT with this decor package, their "renovations" actually made the store look much older. They were always rather well-run stores, but definitely the ugliest ShopRites. Now, they're among the nicest.
Another transition between concrete subfloor and new wood laminate flooring on the back wall...
Some parts of the grocery aisles have been updated, such as the Men's Grooming shelf on the left below. The flooring hasn't gone in yet, but it looks like it'll be replaced in the whole store.
Kitchen Shop installed when ShopRite moved in. A&P would've had a similar setup, actually.
Some more work in the back corner near dairy, and it looks like this may have previously been a door to a backroom or something like that.
I don't know if these fixtures will eventually be replaced.
These old signs will look very out of place shortly, if they stick around!
Consider this before-and-after at the Commerce Street store in Stamford. Here's a look at the grand aisle before the renovation, and a look after. Make sure to click through the whole photo gallery to see the extensive upgrades.
This beer case is definitely in front of something, but I couldn't tell what. Was there previously a pharmacy here? Or something like that? You can see that the hanging lights were definitely intended to hang above something that was farther back than the beer refrigerator. I don't seem to have a photo of this area in my original tour.
Opened: 1975
Owner: Village Super Market
Previous Tenants: Safeway (planned, never opened) > Finast (1962-1975)
Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.
Location: 727 Morris Ave, Springfield, NJ
Photographed: April 19, 2025
Now it's up to Connecticut for a look at an in-progress renovation at one of the remodeled Cingari stores...
ShopRite of Danbury
Opened: 2016
Opened: 2016
Owner: Cingari Family Markets
Previous Tenants: A&P
Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.
Location: 1 Padanaram Rd, Danbury, CT
Photographed: April 24, 2025
And a look at the front-end, which has some new paint but still the old aisle markers. It'll be great to see how this store looks after the renovation, and I'll definitely be back! In the meantime, here's this weekend's other posts...
Thanks very much for the update. However, to correct something you wrote, the Finast actually opened in 1962 (on February 7 of that year, to be exact). I wasn't able to ascertain exactly when this particular Finast closed, although it was still open according to a June 5, 1972 Finast ad. The opening date for the ShopRite of Springfield was April 9, 1975.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct when you stated that the current building at 727 Morris Turnpike was planned as a Safeway yet never opened. Interestingly, there was a Safeway at that address which operated from October 15, 1952 until it was destroyed by fire the evening of September 2, 1960. In historic aerial images, one can see that the former supermarket was located much closer to the road (with its parking lot behind the market) when compared with the current building. Safeway's decision to sell its New York Division to Finast was the reason the planned replacement location never opened as a Safeway.
Fixed, thanks. Late-night writing mistake!
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