A&P is officially gone...

While all remaining stores were due to close last Wednesday,

A&P's websites continued to show a few operating stores

over the holiday weekend. The websites have now updated

to show zero stores in operation.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

A familiar image here on the blog but it is perfect the 

Thanksgiving holiday. Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving! 

I will be taking some time off from the blog for the holiday weekend. 

Posting will resume next Wednesday. 

A&P Winding Down...

Updated 11.24.2015 –
3 A&P STORES REMAIN



2 PATHMARKS*


*This map has been updated since this post went up this morning.
Pathmark had been showing 10 other locations that are no longer open.

4 WALDBAUMS



2 FOOD BASICS

As of November 23 —
JUST 6 A&P STORES REMAIN

15 PATHMARKS

14 WALDBAUMS

2 FOOD BASICS

AND

ZERO SUPERFRESH STORES

Food Basics – North Bergen, New Jersey

Location: 1425 Kennedy Blvd, North Bergen, NJ

One of just two remaining Food Basics is on it's way out. I popped in to check out the remaining selection of America's Choice products. Not too much left but probably more than in most of the A&P and Pathmarks that are still open. Photos of some of the products are included after our tour of the store.


This store was a fairly nice A&P up until the early 2000's when it was converted to Food Basics. The North Bergen ShopRite replacement store opened around that time. At first A&P tried to compete by doing a light remodel. Not long after, the store was closed and converted to A&P's low-price concept. The company had huge hopes for this new banner. It was an easy way for them to dump unionized employees in all of the service departments. All products in Food Basic stores were prepackaged. The format failed to live up to A&P's expectations and many of these stores have been closing in recent years. The North Bergen location seemed to be very successful. They tampered with the format here many times, never seeming to figure out what these stores needed to be. The last revamp actually included a reduction in sales floor space. That far wall was installed reducing the store by a 2 or 3 aisles. Rather costly move as they had to relocate the frozen food aisle. I would stop in here every once in a while to see what kind of deals they had. It was never worth the hassle. The store was always a mess and the lines at the registers were ridiculously long.


Ummm... the savings are, in fact, about to stop.




After the last revamp, they added a "Dollar Store" to this area. Didn't last long.






Center aisle. It was strange being here for the closing sale. I remember vividly shopping here when the A&P was in it's final days.

Last look at some of the America's Choice products

 Food Bazaar will be taking over this location.

Store Count...

FINAL ROUND!
While there are still a few more conversions to come,
conversions of Acme's initial acquisition of
A&P owned stores is now complete.

The following Acme locations have opened:

Superfresh at 250 East Lancaster, Wynnewood, PA
Superfresh at 1025 Youngs Ford Road, Gladwyne, PA
Pathmark at 4365 Kirkwood Highway, Wilmington, DE

Future Acme – Boonton, New Jersey

ACME ACQUIRES ANOTHER

A&P FRESH!

Location: 550 Myrtle Ave, Boonton, New Jersey

The news broke yesterday that Acme is purchasing the Boonton store. The store was scheduled to close for good today but it won't be going dark after all! You can jump to an article on tapinto.net by clicking here.  Thanks to Dan Asnis for sending in the article!

Acme – Hoboken, New Jersey

Location: 614-632 Clinton St, Hoboken, NJ

Acme has arrived in Hoboken! I don't believe the company ever had a store in this town but they do now. This location opened on November 28, 2015.

While we're seeing a lot of stores getting stuck with banners, the Hoboken Acme got the real deal. Not sure why since this store opened later than others that haven't gotten proper signs. Jersey City, which is literally just blocks away, opened 2 weeks earlier and has only a banner. We'll never know how many stores are dealing with local sign ordinances and how much difficultly the sign manufacturer is having keeping up with all of the orders. A before photo is below...


I drove by the day they were putting up the new sign and once again was surprised to see they painted the facade after the sign was installed.

A&P spot lights out... Acme's fluorescent tubes in. They are covered and rather nice looking fixtures although they look like exposed tubes in these pictures. Acme worked a miracle in the Produce department which we will see in a moment.


Wine and Spirits out, health food, seasonal and deals are in. Acme was unable to keep the liquor license here or at any of the A&P's that had Wine and Spirits departments.


I'm puzzled by the ceiling being so uncomfortably low in this area of the store. There must be a second floor above this section of the store.


Acme cleaned up the Produce aisle! I was quite sure they were going to do something with the mess that A&P always had in this aisle. Just look below for the "before" shot...


Sorry but this aisle is way too narrow for all of these displays and baskets and boxes.


So here we have white stickers on the wall art and the black "Acme loves local" on the aisle markers. Notice how huge the artwork is in this store.


One thing that desperately needs to happen is fresh coat of paint for the ceiling tiles.They're all different shades of white and gray throughout the store.




This was the first time I have seen these white stickers in person. Didn't mind them one bit. They seem more out of place in pictures then they do in person.




Frozen Food aisle is clear! I remember this aisle being loaded with displays back when I shopped here in the early 2000's.


I think this store may have had a repaint recently. The colors, particularly the blue above Seafood on the far wall, are not typical to the "fresh" remodels.




Looking down the Dairy aisle toward the Bakery in the front corner.






Another Acme Bakery with a huge selection of products. I've seen much larger stores that aren't carrying the variety that this small store is.


The olive bar was filled with baked goods which seemed strange. The labels were still out for the olives but there were none to be found. Maybe the bar is on the fritz.




There used to be a full service cheese department in this corner.  You can see the leftover signage above. It's been removed to make room for rotisserie chicken and packaged deli meats.


Cashiers waiting for customers at the front of the registers. I do love this about Acme. It's been this way in all the stores I've visited so far.


Hoboken even got an interior sign! Why so many stores are missing this I'll never know. Can't be too hard to manufactor. Staples could do it.

A trailer with two different logos! 

AERIAL VIEWS

A look at the store's proximity to the Hudson River.


Very densely populated area. This used to be Hoboken's only major supermarket until ShopRite built a store a few blocks away in the mid-2000's.




As well as I know Hoboken, I had no idea these stores were so close to each other until I saw this aerial image.


The Acme is gonna love it when it rains. Doesn't take much to flood the area of town where the ShopRite is located. The place was heavily damaged by flood waters from Sandy. Closed for months. Have to say, ShopRite did an outstanding job remodeling the store during that time. It was kind of an awful store from the day it opened. ShopRite seemed clueless as to the clientele they would be serving here but clearly figured things out by the time they needed to remodel.

HISTORIC AERIALS

1987

Expanded sightly on the left side by 1987. Not sure if A&P was here in '87.

1979

I believe this store was a Foodtown in 1979.

1966

Nothing in 1966.