The Market Report

Ideal Food Basket Owner: Juan Diaz Opened:  April 28, 2023 Previous Tenants:  Food Fair (closed 1979) > Food Lane (1979-2001) > Ahart's Market (2001-2021) Cooperative:  America's Food Basket Location:  410 Montclair Ave, South Side, Bethlehem, PA Photographed:  August 25, 2023 Wrapping up this weekend with a look at the Ideal Food Basket in Bethlehem! We've been tracking this store from its time as an Ahart's , then its progress as an Ideal here and here . At just 18,000 square feet, this is a rather small supermarket, but Ideal has transformed it from its days as a dingy, neglected Ahart's to a spacious, modern supermarket. We enter with a refrigerator of deli and baked goods on the left, with sale items and the Beer Cave (plus a small cafe) on the right. Deli/bakery lines the right side of the grand aisle with produce on the left. Meat is on the back wall, and dairy/frozen are on the left side of the store. I was absolutely blown away by how different this

Ideal Food Basket Owner: Juan Diaz Opened:  April 28, 2023 Previous Tenants:  Food Fair (closed 1979) > Food Lane (1979-2001) > Ahart's Market (2001-2021) Cooperative:  America's Food Basket Location:  410 Montclair Ave, South Side, Bethlehem, PA Photographed:  April 10, 2023 Contributor:  Lucas Finzi The Ideal Food Basket in the former Bethlehem Ahart's opened yesterday. Our friend Lucas was on-site a few weeks ago to check out the store in its final phases of preparation right before it opened, and we see that Ideal did a major renovation on the place, inside and out. While I haven't gotten to the store since my recent coverage, I'm hoping to check it out this summer. In the meantime, you can see a few pictures from WFMZ from Allentown, and Lucas might be able to return to get some interior photos before I can! As you can see, the entire property has been transformed, and if you look at the WFMZ pictures, you can see absolutely nothing is left over form

Azar Supermarket Owner: George Azar Opened:  2019 Cooperative:  none Location:  3131 Linden St, Bethlehem, PA Photographed:  January 8, 2021 Today's post is relatively brief, but we're going to see this really interesting store which seems to be a hybrid of a farmstand, a Middle Eastern specialty store, and a basic grocer. Oh, and a beautiful garden center . It's a somewhat strange packed into the roughly 16,000 square foot store, but it was a very pleasant shopping experience, and the folks who work here seemed to be quite friendly. We enter to a large produce department taking up around 1/3 of the store in the front left corner, with butcher/deli in the back left corner, frozen/dairy around the outside, and a few grocery aisles with basic groceries and imported Middle Eastern items. It's an eclectic mix of items with exceptionally good produce, so it works. I bought kale here for extremely cheap that was some of the healthiest I've ever seen. Check out those gian

Valley Farm Market Owner: Joe Fasula Opened:  2021 under current ownership; 2003 previously Cooperative:  Wakefern Food Corp. Location:  1880 Stefko Blvd, Bethlehem, PA Photographed:  September 10, 2016 & January 13, 2022 We are to visit what's left of Valley Farm Market, once a local chain that had a location where SuperFood Fresh is now. This is a fairly sizable store, at around 66,000 square feet, and part of it was originally a Food Fair (note the signature tower), later a Food Lane and then Valley Farm Market. In 2021, Valley Farm was sold to Wyoming Valley chain Gerrity's, and I was here shortly after the sale. A few months after Gerrity's purchased this store, the 10-store chain joined Wakefern as The Fresh Grocer. I'm not 100% clear on whether this store is still branded Valley Farm Market (initially they said they wouldn't change the name, then later announced it would become a Fresh Grocer). But as of my January 2022 visit, it was still very much the