Bonus Store:
Location: 120 Orlando Dr, Raritan, NJ
The Stop & Shop in Raritan closed this past November. Not a terribly exciting store but I always enjoyed how the interior layout had a 70's supermarket vibe. Endless aisles of groceries with service departments tucked out of the way around the perimeter of the store. S&S expanded and extensively remodeled the store in the early 2000's shortly before the fresh craze swept through the industry.
The Raritan Stop & Shop began as a Foodtown in the late 80's and became an Edwards in the 90's when the store was acquired by Ahold. The Edwards banner was retired in the early 2000's with the stores being converted to Stop & Shop. Many converted stores had interior and exterior remodels similar to the one seen here. New Jersey stores have remained largely untouched ever since with the exception of exterior signage updates. Is it just me or does Ahold sort of ignore its New Jersey fleet of stores? Giant stores of PA and Maryland are remodeled and updated far more often. I don't know of any Stop and Shops in New Jersey with the last round or two of the company's updated décor. The last round of remodels was done in the late 2000's with the Yellow/Purple/Fruit Bowl décor and I don't think much remodeling has been done since then.
Stop & Shop dismantled the store within days of closing.
I made one last visit during the store's final week...
Produce was on the right side of the store with the Deli to the right side of Produce. Floral and the Health Food departments were tucked away in the corner behind where I'm standing. The entrance on this side of the store was actually quite a distance away from this area. Neither entrance here funneled shoppers into any of the fresh departments.
Stop & Shop could have easily killed off two or three aisles of groceries to expand the fresh offerings here. Selection and variety was limited in these departments, especially considering the overall size of the store.
Service Seafood long gone with self-serice cases in its place.
Meat and Dairy along the back wall.
I've always been pleased with Stop & Shop's Health and Beauty Aid departments. Great selection and prices competitive with discount stores. Not something Acme is willing to do.
Leaky cases throughout this end of the store. It's been a problem for years.
The Bakery was updated recently with the new gray cases. Another fresh department tucked in a corner far from the entrance. You'd pass the bank and the bathrooms before you see any fresh bread.
Endless registers which is a pretty standard feature at Stop & Shop. 17 or 18 here. A few years ago they shut down the last 6. Computers were removed and shelving was added around them to keep them blocked off but the counters and lights all remained in place.
Stop & Shop has managed to survive the past seven years just a five minute drive from the new ShopRite in Sommerville. The store is also about 10 minutes away from the Wegmans with Whole Foods coming soon to Bridgewater.
The Raritan Mall has been in decline for years now despite assurances from the mall owners that improvements are in the works. Very few store fronts are occupied at this point, many closing in the past few years. Stop & Shop ultimately decided not to renew it's lease here with deteriorating conditions at the mall being a likely influence for that decision.
A few weeks after closing...
The ShopRite took over an abandoned Pathmark after expanding and drastically renovating the existing building. Pathmark closed in 2007. I've read the closing was hastened by Sommerville's attempts to get the store condemned. It was in that bad of shape!
Another Shop & Shop along Route 206 closed last year as well. The Hillsborough store, which was never updated from it's Edwards day, closed laar August. For more pictures of this store store, please click here.
If I remember correctly, the Somerville pathmark being condemned was not about the building condition but about the town trying to force a revitalization of that area.
ReplyDeleteNot updating to the latest Stop and Shop decor might not be a bad thing. It looks terrible. Battleship gray on all the walls with just plain white lettering for the departments.
The North Edison (Inman Grove) store was remodeled to the decor package with the Giant-PA type aisle signs, and also got a new front facade. Of course, before that it hadn't been remodeled since it converted from Edwards.
ReplyDeleteThe one in South Orange that took over a former Pathmark has the Giant-PA signage as well.
DeleteVery neat store! I live close, and I have to admit, I never knew that this store closed! Is it just me, or does Ahold keep their closings private/out of the press? It seems like every time an Acme or ShopRite closes, it's all over the news!
ReplyDeleteAnd also, to note, Edwards was discontinued as a chain in the late 90's, not early 2000's. The Stop & Shop in Phillipsburg (1998) was about to start as an Edwards, but a day before opening, Corporate called in and said to take everything down, it's becoming a Stop & Shop.
Stop and Shops also don't have closing sales. They just let everything sell out at the regular prices.
DeleteEdwards was still around in 2000. The announcement of the planned conversions happened in May 2000.
Huh, didn't know that. I was there recently, and they still have the Edwards flooring in produce, and these little "diamonds" on the facade are still trimmed in Edwards' green color.
DeleteEdwards was run for a while as part of Giant-PA before being moved over to the Stop & Shop division; when the Edwards in Phillipsburg opened the newspaper in Easton would get both Giant and Edwards flyers, exactly the same except the logo. As AcmeStyle said, the name wasn't changed until 2000.
DeleteCouple of points I want to make to piggyback off AcmeStyle (since I'm a S&S employee): he's right. I've been a part of one closing and all we did was sell off our remaining stock until our closing date, which we publicized throughout the store. The last day we were open, we did do a sale and couldn't get the stuff out fast enough.
DeleteSecond, Ahold didn't officially begin the transition to Stop & Shop until that fall; I was still working for Pathmark at the time and the Edwards where I live hadn't made the conversion by the one and only time I set foot in it as an Edwards. I think October 2000 was when the store became a Super Stop & Shop.
Interesting! Not what I heard from the employee that worked there the opening night :)... must have been a miscommunication!
DeleteAnd Tim-- If you were at that store, did you notice the endless amount of cracked tiles on the floor? Terrible that this store isn't being updated. I actually called corporate a few days ago, and they said that they would look into extensively remodeling the store both inside and out. I feel bad for the employees that work there, half of the deli slicers don't work, and corporate refuses to update them until a later date. Sad considering my Acme around that area (Doylestown, it's a hike :) ) has been remodeled around four times since the S&S in Phillipsburg opened, when the S&S has only been remodeled... wait... 0 times? Same carts and everything since day 1.
I worked for a Giant PA store that shut down towards the end of 2013 and it was publicized pretty well. But really, everything continued as normal for the month after they told us we were closing. Basic items (milk, bread, bananas, etc.) were still getting delivered until a few days before closing, and the only real sales were some merchandise that would expire in the next few months, and the very last day, you could load up a plastic bag with anything in the produce department for $2.00.
Deletestore215:
DeleteInteresting details! Which store did you work for? There's not many GPA stores that I remember closing. And I'll have to remember the $2 produce! Too bad A&P didn't do that with their closing sales.
Warrington PA...opened in 2011 and closed in 2013. This store was designed to fail though. At this time, Giant was testing the waters into taking over Genuardi's locations. They wanted the Feasterville, PA store, and I feel like Safeway forced them to take on this location as well as a 'package deal'. Giant gave it a quick remodel (not sure why they even bothered as the store was in really pristine condition due to lack of business at Genaurdi's), mainly just some decor changes.
DeleteThe store was always dead as a Genuardi's (opened right at the time Safeway took the company over), and even slower as a Giant. (A Wegmans opened in a new center almost behind this store in 2006, and Target in the same center as the Giant added p-Fresh). A Super Walmart also opened almost next to this store about 6 months after Giant closed, which probably hastened the decision to close it. (Although in all honesty, this is the slowest Walmart I have ever been in. The community really didn't want or need this store there. Target is always jam packed).
I only worked there for a year and moved on to slightly better things soon after they closed.
Yeah-- I'm not surprised Warrington didn't do that well... it's like the center of everything around there, you can go to other Giants in Doylestown, Chalfont, Warminster, Langhorne (If you want to make the hike), etc. That area is jam-packed with supermarkets. I live around an hour away from there, but it's the nearest place for everything, so I tend to go up there a lot. Surprised Giant even bothered renovating it-- my Stop & Shop in Phillipsburg needs more love! Ahold's priorities for renovations aren't on-point, for sure.
DeleteI know that the S&S in Howell has been remodeled twice in the last 5-7 years, with the most recent package currently present. They have tons of new competition, with an expanded Walmart directly across the street and a massive new Saker ShopRite just up Route 9. The Walmart expanded late in 2012, and the ShopRite opened in 2016, so S&S has paid a lot of attention to this one.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there are still NJ S&S stores that don't have the yellow and purple. The massive store in Jackson is still festooned in green and red from when it was first converted from Edwards. Quite a step back in time.
ReplyDeleteParamus too.
DeleteStop&Shop runs two stores in Danbury CT. Both stores were SuperStop&Shop stores when they were non Ahold owned. Ahold bought Finast, converted Finast to Edwards, then Ahold bought Stop&Shop. New England’s number one chain at the time, all Edwards then became S&S. Both stores in Danbury are filthy. Filthy bathrooms right next to the Deli Dept. Poorly lit stores as a result of energy savings make shopping there a chore. Cingari owned Grade A ShopRite stores in Fairfield County Ct are highly rated hog volume stores that offer consistently low prices compared to S&S. IMO S&S cannot, although they try, win in the battle against ANY ShopRite chain!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure they're trying to win, but if they can be a solid 2nd choice, I'm betting that's good enough.
DeleteI really wonder where Acme fits in long term. When I had the choice of all three, Acme was my third choice, and I think most people feel the same way.
If you're going based on two stores in Connecticut then you're not really grasping the whole issue.
DeleteThere's more than a few ShopRite owners out there who are having problems competing with Stop &Shop, especially in New Jersey. I work within driving distance of Brookdale, Little Falls, and Nutley and have worked at both Clifton stores. ShopRite doesn't do as much damage to these stores, and especially that monstrosity in Nutley that's the oddest supermarket I've ever shopped at.
It makes sense that there will be much more variability in ShopRite than in the other chains, simply because of the way they are set up.
DeleteUnlike Stop & Shop, Acme (and many other chains) ShopRite varies from stores run by the cooperative itself (most of the ones in NY outside the main city area), to owners with big groups of stores down to ones that have just one or two locations.
So, depending on where you are you may get a very different version of ShopRite from someone else, even sometimes from one town to the next if they happen to be from different owners.
I don't know guys...I think this is wishful thinking. Even the worst ShopRites out there seem to do really well. I have never heard of a ShopRite closing, unless it was replaced by a bigger store, or couldn't relocate, like the Rutherford store.
DeleteStop & Shop succeeds by being a less crowded alternative, but I am not sure people actually have any love for them. The only way they are successful is by buying other chains, and they have TONS and TONS of crash and burn stores.
If S&S was present in the Cherry Hill area, I would shop there over both ShopRite and Acme. The prices aren't dramatically higher than ShopRite (like Acme) and all of the ShopRite stores convenient to me are, frankly, either dumps or insanely crowded. I miss living in Monmouth County and having better choices.
DeleteStop & Shop was present in the Cherry Hill area when I lived in Philly, around 2005. There were 2 stores in Cherry Hill and 2 in Mount Laurel, as well as Sicklerville, Mullica Hill and others. They opened around 10 stores in the Philly suburbs (but in NJ) in the mid 2000’s, and they all crashed and burned within like 4-5 years. I believe they all became ShopRites. There is also a vacant Stop & Shop outside of Cape May which was built from the ground-up and closed within a few years. It is sad to see a brand new store just sitting empty.
Delete@Chris P. I was just using Fairfield County CT as an example. In reality Stop&Shop has flooded the market with store after store in town after town almost like A&P did. How much can all of these stores possibly do in weekly business especially with competition? Who wants to shop in a 70,000 sq ft store that is dead? Not me, that means the food is sitting there rotting! I'd rather shop in a mad house like ShopRite at off hours knowing there is a high turnover of food. Stop&Shop was a GREAT New England Company at one time, as an AHOLD entity, not so much any more imo, and in the opinion of many employees I know. I am a former Finast employee. When was the last time you saw a ShopRite close except to move to a larger store? There is a reason they are the number one chain sales wise in the Tri-State area and I would rather shop at Acme than Stop&Shop.
DeleteThe last time a ShopRite closed (without being replaced) - probably around 2000. That was due to the franchisee (Big V) in NY state going into bankruptcy. They closed many of the older stores (including those still in the "Quonset" style buildings) within their area.
DeleteThey were, at one point, planning to break from Wakefern and either operate independently (using Big V Markets as a name) or sell to another chain (both Pathmark and Stop & Shop were discussed) but in the end in 2002 the stores were sold back to Wakefern, which is why most of the stores in upstate NY are now "corporate" owned.
Big V had also closed the original locations in the Albany area around the end of the 1980's (which the corporate subsidiary reversed over the past few years by opening new ones, 5 as of now vs. the 7 they closed back then).
Yeah, Nutley is one weird store. I lived in the area in the late 90's and you couldn't be in the store as a vendor after a certain time or the older people would about run you over. Thankfully I on;y went there a few times.
DeleteAnother interesting location is Rochelle Park. That place completely crushed back then. It was so bad that some vendors had people in there all day. I remember they would park a frozen trailer at the dock for turkeys, though I don't know if that was a common or uncommon thing. It wasn't until they opened another store in Paramus (I think) that Rochelle Park finally slowed down to a reasonable level. I was in the area when it flooded, and I think the store flooded too, at least in the basement.
Wow, awesome shots! Near us in Waterford, Conn we have four Super Stop & Shops Nearby, and they all looked exactly like this! When Stop & Shop announced their new logo in 2012[?] they went into all of their stores and remodeled the insides, taking away this classic design. So sad to see one go!
ReplyDeleteI agree but one thing I really like about Acme is that they’re an American owned company. S&S definitely cares more about their New England and NY stores. I think NJ S&S stores fill in a gap for Ahold in NJ until you hit their successful Giant/Landover chain.
ReplyDeleteAs a result of Wakefern taking over
ReplyDeleteBigV locations they have opened some POWERHOUSE locations since then, New Rochelle, White Plains, Scarsdale, Poughkeepsie, plus the 5 in the Capitol Region as well as newly planned 70K sq ft store in Mt. Kisco to replace the Bedford Hills store. This store is in spitting distance of the A&P store in Kisco that Acme and Stop&Shop fought until the bitter end over with S&S winning and paying 15 million dollars for! That store does 250K a week less than A&P!!! ShopRite is also planning a new store for Newburgh NY as well. Everyone of these former BigV locales does One Million a week or more in business. Wakefern is not playing around with their corporate stores.