Is Edgewater Saying...

"NO THANKS, SHOPRITE"?

Popped into the ShopRite, formerly ACME til they got kicked out, last week in the late afternoon. Totally DEAD. Definitely surprising to see. It certainly appears that Edgewater's need for a traditional grocer is a thing of the past. (I have read that back-in-the-day, the Pathmark here was the highest volume Pathmark in all of New Jersey.) At the very least, Inserra must be disappointed with the early results and I would be any additional remodeling plans are on hold. When I headed to the checkouts, there was only ONE other person checking out all the way down at the self-checkouts. Once I paid, I looked up and down the front-end and saw no customers checking out. There were three manned registers and one of the cashiers, bored out of her mind, asked me if I was looking for something. I said "PEOPLE, where is everyone? This place is dead." She didn't seem to catch on to the point I was trying to make. The ACME wouldn't have been slamming busy at this time either but certainly more people than ShopRite is attracting. 

And at the checkout I was reminded of a HUGE difference between ACME and ShopRite that is so annoying. With ACME you can enter your phone number on the credit card reader at ANY time you'd like. ShopRite? NOPE. You have to ask the cashier to stop everything and set the reader to take your number and wait. They can do nothing until the customer completes the task. Beyond ridiculous. To end on a positive note... the entire front-end staff were all former ACME employees. It's kinda bizarre but good for them!