Former A&P Fresh
Opened: October 9, 2015
Opened: October 9, 2015
Location: 55 Riverwalk Place, West New York, NJ
A&P Fresh opened here in the mid 2000's on the first floor of the Riverwalk Place Apartments. A liquor store and a Starbucks are located in the same building right around the corner. Other shops and restaurants are scattered throughout the complex. This beautiful, brand-new Acme opened on October 9th, 2015. (My phone insists on making the ACME sign look orange when it's lit up.)
The circular stand includes directories for customers (see below) to take with them into the store. Acme retained the layout of the store for the most part. I have been shopping here pretty frequently since the store opened. Very few changes have happened since Acme opened. The store was already in excellent condition and Acme took the whole place up a notch. The produce department has improved tremendously. A&P couldn't seem to keep it fresh.
Quick turn to the left, just inside the entrance. The Café is right around the corner and Produce is to the right...
Yes, the Produce is fresh! So far, anyway. Floral is to the right. We'll head through Produce and make a left...
This used to be A&P salad dressing, crackers and gourmet foods area. Acme moved the salad dressing to the grocery aisles and turned this into the health food department. The shelves lining the left wall are the gluten-free products. Acme also removed A&P's shelves which ran the other direction. Such an improvement as shoppers can move through this area more easily. Acme did NOT remove the spot lights here as they are doing in other A&P and Pathmark locations. This store is a little brighter overall than some others. The natural light through the windows really helps too. I wouldn't be surprised if new lighting was installed at some point.
Acme is restoring some of the fresh food options A&P gave up on. The hot foods bar is being stocked again but only with a few selections.
All of the scales in the service departments have a bright ACME logo on the screen. Looks pretty sharp in person.
The Salad Bar is back! In recent years A&P stocked this with bottled drinks.
The entrance there at the front. The Café just offers self-serve coffee...
I had a cup and it was pretty good! They're probably not going to sell much with a Starbucks in the same building.
This is a shot from the "Future Acme Markets" post that show the registers in the back of the store. I didn't get an updated shot of the area now that Acme has taken over. Nothing has changed other than both registers being open! Never once did I see A&P have both registers open and the line could get long. The doors lead out to the parking garage.
Acme stickers placed right over A&P fresh! You'd never know it!
The cases are stocked beautifully in the Meat Department...
These photos were taken very early in the morning so there weren't many shoppers around.
While this store lacks a bit of variety due to its size, the place is immaculate and very convenient.
Safeway brands are being rolled out to Acme. More in some categories than others. There's still a bottle of SupreValu's Chill soda hanging on for dear life. If I never see that logo again, it will be too soon. Awful. The design of Safeway's soda packaging is light years better. Doesn't even look like a store brand!
Here we have Safeway's Snack Artist brand.. and a lot of it.
This is an issue in many places in the store. Same thing is happening at the Edgewater store. You have both Safeway and SuperValu brands mixed together in the same category. I'm assuming Pantry Essentials is a low-end Safeway brand. Can't wait until I never see an Essential Everyday product on Acme's shelves! Safeway's packaging isn't so painfully generic.
The Lucerne brand is showing up in Dairy. All of Acme's milk now has this label.
Dairy cases with doors along this side of the aisle.
End case filled with clearance items! Acme is apparently not carrying any of these items. The Edgewater store still has tons of items on clearance, up and down all of the aisles.
The Pharmacy in the front corner.
A look across the front-end with a huge display of Ivin's Famous Spiced Wafers! One of the things I am loving about the 2 new Acmes in this area is the lack of clutter throughout the store. Hopefully they don't start junking up these places with tons of displays every where you turn.
Thank YOU Acme for coming to West New York! Just downloaded My Mixx to my phone yesterday and clipped a bunch of coupons for my next visit.
They pealed the "Express Yourself" letters off of the self-checkout signs and replaced them with tiny little numbers. I don't think you can even see them in these photos. I haven't missed the self-checkouts here. They always have enough registers open so there isn't much of a wait to check-out.
The Pharmacy end of the store...
Manhattan off in the distance.
This was sad to see... the A&P graveyard. Carts. Shelving. Broken down displays. All outta here.
Some of the signs around the building...
Looks like a fire damage above the "A".
The shopping center's sign out on River Road. ACME at the top of the list right where it should be!
Acme is off to an incredible start in West New York. The store can only get more successful as apartment building continue to go up in this area.
This is probably the first ACME where you can live right above one. It's not very big and kinda looks like an odd layout, but it still seems to work okay. Here are some things I noticed:
ReplyDelete- The Deli is serving Boar's Head, which A&P did. Oddly enough, that's almost never seen in Albertsons Cos. stores (unless you're United). All the other brands carry Dietz & Watson, except the former Safeway brands, who carry Primo Taglio as well (though on a recent visit to a Randalls, that seems to be on its way out).
- The iPhone (maybe others) tends to take red signs as orange, I've noticed that. :-/
- The logo for Chill reminds me of the short-lived Sprite logo from 2006-2008.
- The old Café used to have coffee-related merchandise stacked up in the back, and its present use, despite the new ACME-branded coffee and price board, just doesn't seem long for this world. It's such a waste of space. What I would do is move the coffee and the price board to closer to the hot foods/deli area, then gut the space for more floor space.
- Not sure on where the Lucerne brand on the milk is coming from. In the West Coast, that brand is bottled at one of Safeway's own milk plants, but the East Coast stores likely have it bottled under contract. It'd be nice to see ACME-branded milk!
I noticed the Lucerne brand when I was in the store, plus other Safeway brands. You can tell which come from Safeway if they have the Pleasanton address on the back. I think I looked and the Lucerne milk came from a dairy numbered 34-1594 ,which is Dean/Garelick in Burlington NJ. In case you don't know all milk and dairy has a code. Go to http://whereismymilkfrom.com , enter the code and it will tell you who makes that milk. Dean Garelick makes most of the provate label milk in NJ and supplies Sam's Club, Stop & Shop, Trader Joes, etc.
DeleteDoes Acme/Safeway only have one milk brand? In the stores where I shop at, there's usually a store brand and a cheaper store brand, so Kroger had Springdale, and H-E-B had Hill Country Fare. For pre-2006 Albertsons, it was Good Day. Which is the cheapest brand at the Acme now?
DeleteStrange, I don't remember ever noticing multiple "store" brands anywhere around here - just the store name (Price Chopper, ShopRite, Hannaford or at one point perhaps that My Essentials label).
DeleteI wonder when that fire happened. Also, that center has a Ben & Jerry's shop! I'm also wondering when Acme will start advertising in NYC media.
ReplyDeleteIt must have been recently. I drive by this place all the time and noticed the burn mark only after the Acme sign went up. The Ben and Jerry's is right across from Acme's entrance. They always have flavors you can't get at a grocery store!
DeleteYou mean like Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream? I've haven't seen that in stores for a while now.
DeleteI forgot about that one! I'll check. I've since gotten hooked on The Tonight Dough starring Jimmy Fallon. Milk and Cookies is another good one that's hard to find but Pathmark always had it!
DeleteThe Montclair Acme is selling Boar's Head products as well. Not every A&P store had them (seemed like just the ones in somewhat affluent areas) so I'm not sure of Acme's plans. I hope they continue carrying them (and maybe carry Boar's Head in all stores) because I tend to look for grocery stores that have their products (like Stop & Shop and Kings).
ReplyDeleteThe ones that underwent the Fresh remodels got Boar's Head cold cuts. Not all of them underwent them, though. Bloomfield never did, nor did Garfield; I don't know what Bloomfield had decorwise but Garfield still had the SuperFresh remodel package when it closed (look at the Maplewood Bonus Store post).
DeletePathmark, if I remember correctly, was Dietz & Watson and Thumann's heavy.
They might get a few people to grab the coffee either those looking for a better deal (since it's going to be less than a Starbucks item) or those already in the store who want it while shopping. Maybe a few employees on a break also?
ReplyDeleteOne quick question - are there actually THREE registers in the back? While the 12 & 13 are pretty obvious, that also looks like a 14 up against the glass door area? Or maybe they did have three in that A&P shot and now only two with Acme?
I just noticed that this morning when I was looking at the pictures. I think Acme may have gotten rid of one but I haven't investigated closely. I've been parking out in the lot on these recent visits since I've been taking pics of the exterior. Once I settled back into just shopping here, I'll be parking in the garage and checking out at these registers.
DeleteThe coffee might sell pretty well here since it's so easy to server yourself. I tried the pumpkin and the regular and they were both really good!
Those little numbers on the ex-Express Yourself checkout markers were likely there already. A&Ps with U-Scan and these markers tend to have those in the corner.
ReplyDeleteIs Acme going to switch from the awful Essentials brand to Safeway Label? I noticed a lot on the West NY store. Refreshe, Lucerne and a few others.
ReplyDeleteYes, the Essential Everyday products are on their way out.
DeleteWorst private label ever.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt's not Acme's décor. It's A&P's second version of their "fresh" remodels. You can read and view more of their fresh remodels at the following Bonus Store post...
Deletehttp://acmestyleblog.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-little-silver-new-jersey-and-more.html
Wait a minute... will Acme take those self-checkouts out of there soon? That's what they've been doing at their existing stores before all the conversions started. Or did they realize it's kind of a stupid idea and reverse course?
ReplyDeleteThe self-checkouts are gone. They added full service checkout stands in the front. Can't say I mind it at all. They always have enough cashiers working that the lines are never long.
DeleteBy the way, I found out that A&P Fresh opened May 2007 per an article I found (it was dated July 2007 but mentioned A&P opened two months prior).
ReplyDelete