Location: 507 Prospect Street, Little Silver, NJ
Today, the Little Silver Acme officially arrives on the blog. I had considered this store sufficiently covered since it was the subject of an extensive Bonus Store post back in June 2014 and, unfortunately, Acme has done very little with the place other than yanking out the self-checkouts and adding more lighting. The store is still quite nice but a Quality Built décor swap along with a new coat of paint would really freshen the place up. I'm surprised Acme isn't bothering to do this while the landlord is renovating the entire shopping center with a new facade. The parking lot has been reconfigured and replaced. And check out those new lamp posts! It's a no-expense-spared project for sure.
The "before" photo above shows the A&P completely intact with nothing more than a sign swap. You can see the old light poles here along with the angled parking spots which have recently been made straight.
Huge improvements to the exterior of the store!
Odd color choice for the section where Acme's sign will eventually be placed. The dark paneling is not being used anywhere else in the shopping center. According to the rendering of the completed shopping center, Acme's sign will be mounted to a white rectangular panel to help it pop on the dark paneling.
A&P's second round of their "fresh" remodel is alive and well. Looks great at this end of the store but we'll see some problems on the other side.
Some additional photos, like the one above, were sent in by dougbalt back in 2015. The organic signage has since been removed as you can see below...
This area may have been A&P's health food department. Acme has since reset the store which these aisles now being regular groceries.
BEFORE >>>
The division between the original store and the addition which came sometime in the 70's.
Acme has since added new lighting to the last few aisles. Something that wasn't done during the initial conversion of the store. Ceiling fans added as well to Frozen and Dairy.
BEFORE >>>
The photo above is one of Doug's from December 2015.
Yikes! Not sure what is happening here. A&P product mural has been taken down and is all busted apart. Why they are even saving it I don't know. Same situation in the Dairy aisle...
The signs cannot be saved. The photos are torn from the panel being broken apart.
BEFORE >>>
This store tops out at just 7 aisles.
Acme got rid of A&P's coffin cases that were here and replaced them with cookies and crackers.
BEFORE >>>
Doug's photo above showing A&P's checkout lights which have since been replaced with the Quality Built lights.
Self checkouts gone. Acme added this counter with express registers. Part of A&P Customer Service Counter is still in tact behind food donation display.
Not terribly busy for a Saturday morning but there were definitely more shoppers in the store than these photos would lead you to believe.
Workers were on the clock Saturday morning! The design of the facade is evolving from what is shown in the rendering.
Doug snapped this photo of the rear of the store. Old Acme trailer with its logo removed thanks to good ol' SuperValu.
AERIAL VIEWS
HISTORIC IMAGES
2012
1979
Expanded to its current size by 1979.
1957
The original barrel roof store in 1957.
Those busted-up signs might mean an interior remodel is underway, too. I feel like that had to have been done intentionally and I'm not sure what other reasoning they would have behind doing that.
ReplyDeleteIf that were true, I'm sure they would have thrown them away rather than leave them on top of the cases. Unfortunately there's absolutely no signs of any kind of interior remodel going on here.
DeletePhotos don't tell the entire story of how tiny this store is, especially since the various departments take up about half the floor space.
ReplyDeleteIn the first aerial photo, there's a standalone drug store to the right of the Acme (adjacent to a baseball field). With the exposed brick columns along the side, I first thought it was an old Acme, maybe like the closed Union (Magie Avenue) location. But I don't have anything in my records to indicate it was one, and I find it difficult to believe the tiny town of Little Silver needed two grocery stores in its town center, anyway.
That building was originally a WT Grant; Walgreens moved in around the late 80s/ early 90s (around the same time CVS opened across the street).
DeleteThis store really doesn't fit the mold for a small town grocery store, with the big produce and service departments, and then the tiny grocery area. I really disliked this store the few times I shopped there.
ReplyDeletePerhaps, being as it is a small store, they figure this works out better?
DeleteThat is, that locals will travel to other areas to do more major shopping, but will stop here to pick up items in between times and to get things they want/need for immediate use that they wouldn't want to buy a week or more in advance?
Thus the heavier emphasis on the fresh items, quick meal type things and less on the packaged items?
I would say the service departments take about a third of the space. Plus these departments generate much higher profits than grocery. I've actually found the grocery selection to be pretty decent considering there's only 7 aisles.
DeleteYou'd be surprised what a difference a service department makes to a smaller store. The old Clifton Foodtown had a service deli in a store not really built for one and it was always crowded; if you went at the wrong time on a weekend you were stuck. The old Brookdale Shoprite had a busy deli and that had to be what drove that store because it was as tiny as hell and not particularly clean.
DeleteThanks for posting my pics and crediting me. I thought that this was the most unusual ACME I had ever visited because it had all the characteristics of a very typical centennial A&P, but the name ACME was slapped onto it. Gradually throughout the years it’ll feel more abs more like an ACME and less like the old A&P, however, that it once long was. It should be noted this location should theoretically do quite well because it’s in a high income, densely populated area, with not much competition nearby. Shoppers there probably like the smallness of the store because they don’t have time to get lost in a megastore.
ReplyDelete