Classic photo courtesy of Mike D.
Location: 505 Richmond Ave, Point Pleasant Beach, NJ
A real treat today with a look at the original Point Pleasant Beach Acme! While this location has been discussed on blog, the store has not made an appearance... until now.
Foodtown took over this locations years after Acme relocated. Mike believes Foodtown moved in sometime in the 70's with Stop and Shop taking over the space in 2011. Funny to think Acme could have stayed here and survived all of those years itself. It's been reported on the blog that the replacement store, just 9 blocks down Richmond Ave, was never very successful.
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POINT PLEASANT'S NEW ACME >>>
Photos courtesy of Lew
Location: 1513 Richmond Ave, Point Pleasant, NJ
Location: 1513 Richmond Ave, Point Pleasant, NJ
Course it's been long closed now but if you haven't already stepped inside, you can do so now by clicking here!
You should make the trip down here and make it a bonus store, its really cool. its fun to see how much they were able to fit in that very very tiny store.
ReplyDeleteI always heard it used to be an ACME. Voila! Now we have a very clear photo of it! It's worth looking at historic aerials. They date back to 1920! I thought the back wing must have been added at some point, but apparently it was just a small section that was added in the back. It almost looks like a former vaudeville theater in the older pic. Amazing that this food store continues to thrive, but there's basically no competition anywhere nearby. How many downtown grocery stores continue to stay in the same building for 80 years, albeit under different companies?
ReplyDeleteIn regards to mentioning of a theater, I heard that this building housed a movie theater and a bowling alley at some point before a grocery store occupied it. The building on the corner of Arnold Ave. and River Ave. nearby (which is currently a clothing store I think) housed a live theater during the 1920s, and remnants of the theater are supposedly still upstairs. I've been told if you contact the Point Pleasant Beach historical society you can still get a tour of it.
DeleteSweet! Thanks for the picture.
ReplyDeleteI echo Michael erwin about how jam packed the store was as Foodtown and continues to be as stop and shop. This store probably moved in part due to competition from the Food Fair grocery store on now route 35 south now housing a cvs and A&P (?) Liquor store. The original A&P was in point pleasant downtown on west part of Arnold ave in what's now an office building. It shut down in the late 1970s but the grocery store had a grandfathered liquor license. A&P maintained the liquor license even without a property and later transferred to the current location on rt. 35 south in the mid 1980s (1984-1985ish.)
As I wrote in a previous post, supposedly the Norkus Brothers (Food Town) owners would never let Acme expand the later building on the larger property. What a shame.
I drove past this teeny little Stop & Shop over the summer when I was returning from a wedding rehearsal. Seemed weird to be placed where it was.
ReplyDeleteAlso seems like for all the big Stop & Shops in central and south Jersey (and there's a lot of em), there's quite a few small ones. Highland Park has a small one that also has the steepest parking lot of any grocery store I've ever seen. And I used to work outside at the Paulison Ave. Pathmark in Clifton before they reconfigured the parking lot. That was almost totally uphill.
(By the way, the cart returns and the old salvage trailer ARE STILL THERE.)
Took me a couple looks to realize that I had actually been to this store (when it was Food Town), as even though it's address is Point Pleasant Beach, it's not too far from where we were in the area between Brick & Lakewood (the Rt. 70 corridor).
ReplyDeleteAs to the Highland Park one, I think that was originally a Grand Union they took over during that bankruptcy?
Although it looks like they have done some remodeling to it, but likely with where it's located there isn't a whole lot they can do (space wise and with the parking lot angle).
I'm not sure that all the small S&S locations are due to acquisitions, but it seems that many of them are, for reasons similar to these (lack of space to build their own stores, so when the store becomes available they grab it to get into that market).
Speaking of other acquired stores, I think the S&S in Brick itself was a Grand Union as well (though with a bit more space to work with) - they were in process of renovating that one, perhaps around the same time this PP Beach store was still Food Town.
Yes the S&S in Brick, near the Silverton line, used to be a Grand Union. So is the one in Pt. Pleasant Boro, as differentiated from the one in Pt. Pleasant Beach. I went to the Grand Union in Toms River growing up. It moved to a nearby location and expanded. It later became a S&S, which it still is now. The original Grand Union was on Water St in Toms River. The building is still there and currently houses doctor's offices. It looks kind of like an old Food Fair.
DeleteYes, the Stop and Shop in point pleasant boro was a Grand Union. It anchored the one end of the stores and Caldors discount department store anchored the othe end of the property.
DeleteAnd, yes, the store here is so small compared to others. Growing up in the area with Food Town and the Acme, made the Grand Union in the Boro and Shop Rite in Manasquan seem like "big" stores.
[ I hadn't been in similarly small stores for years until visiting a local "legacy" chain of rural northern middle TN grocery stores in the early-mid 2000s. Walking into a three register lane store about 1/2 the size of this property brought back memories of Food Town in both sight and the compressed smells of groceries, meat, produce in such a small environment. Sadly, being smaller than new build gas station/quick mart combinations drove this local chain first to sell individual stores out to folks who operated under the IGA operating umbrella and the later forced most to close down.]
And with many pharmacies operating with basic milk/bread food offerings in stores staffed by only 2 to 5 people tital, then a major impact has been taken out of volumes to the grocery stores in the region. Of course, if you want a steak or turkey you're back into the grocery store.
Also I'm not considering the impact of Wal-Mart supercenters though some people tend not to make the extra lenghth trip west on Rt.88 especially during the summer months. Just like the size of the stores, the compression of travel distances in NJ happens due to the volume of people and complexity of traveling (traffic light count, intersection count, etc) which discourages people to travel. Basically, my opinion is that a local road mile in NJ, might equate to 2x to 10x miles in other less densely populated areas.
Lew
Even the S&S in Westfield (a Safeway/Finast/Mayfair Foodtown/Edwards) is bigger that this!
ReplyDelete