Former ACME – Camden, New Jersey

ANOTHER GUEST POST FROM
THE MARKET REPORT!

(This was to be the first guest post, but I jumped the gun with the
Trolley Square store post, hence the introduction down below)

Location: 200 Marlton Ave, Camden, NJ

Hello, friends! This is Zachary from The Market Report, and Acme Style has graciously offered to let me guest-write about some of the stores I've photographed but not posted on my own blog. Today, let's check out this location in Camden — a seriously old-school former ACME, although that's about to change. More on that in a moment!

Let's first talk about the history of this store. It's just under 20,000 square feet, and was constructed by ACME back in 1954, according to Josh Austin. ACME stayed here for a few decades, closing on November 5, 1983. About two years later, a small Philadelphia chain called Cousin's moved in. All these years later, although Cousin's has kept up the place nicely, it's retained so much of its history. But that's about to change. Earlier this year, Cousin's sold this store to a small New Jersey chain called Universal Food Markets (which has a location just up the street), and they've rebranded it as Global Supermarket. They're about to embark on a major renovation of the space.

The entrance and exit are in the front-left corner of the store. You walk along the front, in front of the registers (that's almost definitely a quirk left over from ACME), to the first aisle on the right side of the store. That aisle has the meat and deli departments on the right side, and frozen foods on the left side. Produce lines the back wall, with dairy in the last aisle on the left side. The majority of that layout doesn't seem to me to be particularly similar to ACMEs of the 50s (see here), so it's likely Cousin's did some pretty substantial reorganization when they moved in. I would expect ACME to have had produce on this side, with dairy and frozen on the other.

One other thing I'm not certain of is whether this decor is at all left over from ACME. I suspect it's not. On the other hand, the lettering is nearly identical to what ACME was using in the 1970s, so it's possible Cousin's simply repainted it when they moved in. Global Supermarket has posted some renderings of what the store will look like after its remodel, and suffice it to say not much will look the same.

Rendering via Global Supermarket

I would also expect a 1970s ACME to have signage for Lancaster Brand Meats, which I don't see any evidence of here. You can compare the meat department signage with the Point Pleasant post linked above. On the other hand, the lettering here definitely looks older than 1985.

Rendering via Global Supermarket

It's not a common layout anymore to see produce on the back wall of the store, but a handful of 70s and 80s-era stores had a setup like that, including stores like Mayfair Foodtown. Global is going to flip dairy and produce, so produce is in what will become the first aisle on the left side and dairy is on the back wall.

You can barely see the produce lettering peeking out from behind the toilet paper! And while my belief is that the signage isn't left over from ACME, I suspect the soffit visible running along the ceiling definitely is.

Rendering via Global Supermarket

Clearly, the grocery shelving was installed post-ACME.

Rendering via Global Supermarket

And while I don't know for sure, I would suspect that this aisle was dairy and frozen in the ACME days. This is where Global will move the produce department.

Notice the "bakery" signage here, too. This store doesn't have a bakery these days and doesn't seem to have had one during Cousin's lifetime, so either that section used to have packaged baked goods, or it's left over from the ACME days

Rendering via Global Supermarket

The new produce department will be very different, according to these renderings. And it looks like they might move around some walls, possibly sacrificing backroom space for a larger produce area. This decor also appears in one of Universal's other locations, up in Rahway.

Rendering via Global Supermarket

A new customer service island will be built along the front-end here, it looks like.

It'll be interesting to see how this remodel comes out, and regardless, I'm glad we got to see inside before it's all updated. And for now, thanks to Acme Style for letting me come in for this guest post, and maybe I'll be back soon for another!

ShopRite Underwhelms in Edgewater?

Location: Location: 481 River Road, Edgewater, NJ

Quick post here with just a few photos of the ShopRite in Edgewater. The store was covered over on The Market Report on grand opening day. I was finally able to pop in and take a look at the place. For starters, we see the grand opening banners and flags having taken a beating from the weekend storm. 

Overall I found the store to be quite pleasant. Turned out ShopRite only had 4 days to freshen the place up and get it all stocked and they were able to do a decent job in that time. The store is clean and bright. The crowds have certainly dissipated since opening day, in fact, I was surprised to see so few shoppers here on a weekday afternoon. 

Not surprisingly, floral was downsized a bit and not merchandised as nicely as ACME. 

The Asian Bar was open again but at only about half capacity and the offerings were not looking so good.  

Hot food bar apparently getting shut down at 2:00 pm. ACME's fried chicken was a huge draw here. 

Cool vintage ShopRite logo on the wall! When I took this picture, there was a big curfuffle going on back here. A customer was ranting and raving about the bad selection of chicken. The meat employee there was trying to diffuse the situation and help her but finally gave up. 

Bread is back in its origianl Pathmark alcove! Although this space used to be divided between the bread alcove and a Bank of America. New freezers added here as well which has allowed ShopRite to offer a much bigger selection of frozen foods than ACME. I was impressed by a lot of the items that are being carried here. A big increase in healthier/natrual options, more so than I have seen at other Inserra locations.  

The awful ice cream freezers remain. You can never see it and often have to bust your pint out of a block of ice. 

One huge improvement is the addition of new milk cases. Pathmark's very old, open cases are finally gone. 

So everyone is always saying how expensive ACME is and how much better the prices are at ShopRite. I'm not one of those people. Here's an example of something I buy regularly. ACME sells this for $4.99 and had it on sale ALL summer long for $3.99. ShopRite at $5.99 which is the highest price I've seen.

Two new registers added where ACME's Drive Up and Go area was located. Does ShopRite not do pick up orders? I didn't see a staging area anywhere in this store. The remaining registres are left over from ACME...

Where is everyone? Several times the cashiers were waiting at the front of their registers to guide shoppers to their lanes. There seemed to be a decent number of shoppers around the store but not nearly the volume I thought a new ShopRite would bring in. The store was also overstaffed, which gave the impression of more shoppers than were actually here. A lot of corporate types walking around and greeting customers too. 

A couple new shopping cart corrals with a bunch of old ACME corrals around... 

What I found so interesting about shopping here is that a huge amount of ACME's staff has remained on with the conversion to ShopRite. Customer service, produce staff and cashiers all from ACME. Glad to see they were able to stay! The last days of ACME were pretty depressing with everyone hanging around with not much to do after the inventory was depleted. 

Reports are the store will soon undergo a two-year remodel. We'll have to see if that actually happens. With the amount of competition in the area, the need for a traditional supermarket is not what used to be when Pathmark opened here nearly 30 years ago. And coming soon is... Sprouts! They have officially announced their new location at the Edgwater Harbor Shopping Center. It had previously been reported that they would be opening in this center, which was an impossibility, as there were no vacancies. Sprouts will be taking over the old Home Goods and construction is already well underway. Personally, I couldn't be more excited. Sprouts is one of my favorite stores and is only now coming to North Jersey. I am concerned about the parking lot over there. It is not configured for a food store! It was overly congested just with the Home Goods and it was a huge relief when they relocated to Edgewater Commons.