Former A&P Fresh
Opened: October 25, 2015
Opened: October 25, 2015
Location: 1060 Raritan Road, Clark, NJ
Jump over to flickr by clicking on the photos above and below to see more pictures of the new Clark Acme!
AERIAL VIEWS
Acme is in for some stiff competition in Clark! ShopRite and Target very close by and a Whole Foods, which is shown under construction here, is now open.
Actually this store reopened in Acme form only this past weekend, 10/25. That ShopRite nearby is just a miserable place to be...it's open 24 hours, and it's jammed with people ready to trample you for a can of slightly-discounted-in-a-Can-Can-sale beans, 168 hours a week. So I'm happy to see Acme already breathing new life into what was a pretty sleepy A&P. I hope it thrives and stays open forever so I don't have to resort to ShopRite (Whole Foods is too rich for my blood, so it's out of the question).
ReplyDeleteThanks for catching that! That text was copied and pasted from the Edgewater post and I neglected to change the date.
DeleteConcerning the A&P, it oddly enough resembles the entrance facade at the failed Limerick store- one wonders if the same person designed them. Yeah, I remember that ShopRite from when I lived in the area- it and the Target are a pain to get to thanks to a confusing traffic circle right there. Meanwhile, the Target was once a Grant City, then a Bradlees- it became Target when I was small. And where the SR is now was once the site of a Howard Johnson's inn.
ReplyDeleteTim, I thought the same thing. It makes me wonder who designs the exteriors of certain stores. is it possible sometimes they are already designed and just waiting for a tenant, and once that tenant arrives the only thing done is add signage? It would explain why the Limerick store looked different from every other Acme and this A&P looked different from every other A&P.
ReplyDeleteThis is a nice store but it's clear A&P really let things go in the last few years. The ceiling is warehouse-style with drop ceilings above many departments- everything is exposed so you can see the wires that suspend the ceiling grids and panels- they're filthy from years of circulating air and Acme wasn't able to clean it all up in the three days they had to convert this store.
It's also showing that there are lots of issues getting Acme signage. As is common between A&P and Acme stores, there is "Thank You For Shopping At..." above the front windows. In this store the A&P logo was replaced with a cheap Acme sign that doesn't match at all. The building has two Acme signs (normal sized ones) but the street sign is missing. The new stores blog also has a photo of a store in New York where there is a tarp where the sign on the building should be.
Seemed like a good store when it was A&P (and it was the easiest one to access from the Woodbridge area after they closed their rather oddly placed store on 35 which hides behind a Shoprite from the main road of 1&9).
ReplyDeleteNow it'll be the easy Acme to access if in that area :)
The Clark ShopRite is a Wakefern O&O store.
ReplyDeleteI knew they had a few scattered down there in NJ but didn't realize that was one of them.
DeleteUp here in NY (pretty much anywhere north of the immediate NYC surroundings) all the stores are corporate (AKA SRS - ShopRite Stores) locations as they bought out a failing franchise (Big V) many years ago and have since expanded in a few areas (like returning to the Albany market and adding a store here and there elsewhere).
Nothing against exposed ceilings, but done wrong it looks dirty, gloomy, and generally uninviting. This is one of those "wrong" examples. Hopefully it will be renovated soon to add a ceiling or to clean it up and add new lighting.
ReplyDeleteI found an online review for the Clark Acme. It sounds like there are some scanning issues and concerns about prices vs Shop-Rite:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.yelp.com/biz/acme-markets-clark
This store is almost done a quality built remodel
ReplyDeleteIf you didn't know before this store opened in the 2000s thier was an older former a&p on this site
ReplyDeleteWhich I assume was closed in the 90s I remember going in as a kid and then they moved to Westfield ave
And now where it is today I could be wrong though
There was an A&P in this exact spot. The old store faced Raritan Road.
DeleteYup anyone have pictures of it?
Delete