Glen Mills Gets The Frosted Mug!

Location: 101 Byers Drive, Glen Mills, PA

The Frosted Mug has officially arrived at the Glen Mills Acme! The first few pictures are from the store's original post which can be viewed by clicking here. The a la carte cafe, which you see in the photos, has been removed to make way for the beer department. The self-checkouts also got the boot which made for additional room for the new department. New Albertsons is on a mission to remove all self-checkouts from their stores in an apparent move to improve customer service. Big mistake as far as I'm concerned.



And now for The Frosted Mug under construction...


Photos are courtesy of World of Retail's flickr collection which can be viewed by clicking here.




Hard to see in this picture but it looks like the "cheese shop" has been moved out of its original spot. You can see how the department looked previously...


The new paint from The Frosted Mug extends over to this corner and the "cheese shop" signage is gone. It would have been a smart move the pizza station from the back of the store to this front corner. What goes better with beer than pizza? This store is serving beer on tap which I don't believe is the plan for all Frosted Mug departments...

The final touches on the new Growler Station at the Acme Store in Glen Mills, PA. #mainstbeverage pic.twitter.com/lgyRYq1P6L
— Main Street Beverage (@MainStBeverage) February 18, 2015

You can view additional photos on Acme's Facebook page by clicking here. The Frosted Mug has also opened at the Doylestown store, which has yet to be covered on the blog.


Word of Retail also snapped this picture over by the entrance on the Pharmacy side of the store. I did not get a photo of this area but I don't believe the "wall of values" was here at the time. I would have noticed it for sure! It was definitely added after the store was but since the font is not a match to the rest of the departments. This may have been the Floral department which looks to have been moved out the the aisles.

As reported on the blog previously, Wegmans is building a 140,000 square feet store just steps away from the Acme. Above is a picture of the stores progress. Thanks to Gary for sending it in. While Acme will certainly be taking a bit, they won't be alone. Giant and Whole Foods are going to take a beating as well. Wegmans offers about half of the products Whole Foods carries at drastically lower prices. These new, giganic Wegmans stores offer a mind boggling selection but the stores can be a little overwhelming to shop in, especially for just a quick grocery run. The chain has older, smaller models in New Jersey, many of which are very disappointing. I wonder sometimes if Wegmans is growing too fast. Some of their New Jersey stores are dirty and very poorly stocked. The service is impressive but I've been so frustrated with out-of-stock items that I no longer bother shopping there.


A review of the food stores in the area. The Westtown Acme, seen in the upper left corner, has closed.  A portion of the store will soon house a farmer's market. More details can be found at dailylocal.com by clicking here. (Check out the labelscar from the red oval logo in the picture!) Fascinating quote from the article...

"'The store at one time was the highest volume Acme in the Philadelphia area,' said Walter [a partner in the company that owns Westtown Village], recalling that the center added 15,000 square feet of space to the supermarket’s original 40,000 square feet."

That confirms my speculation in the Westtown post that the store was expanded from its original size. Kinda of interesting too that it kept it's 80's Remodel decor after the expansion. Acme may not have had another decor package going at the time. Surprising too how it was one of Acme's most successful stores only to fade into extinction. You can visit the Westtown post by clicking here.


Will the Acme be able to survive against Wegmans? The company certainly thinks so or they wouldn't have bothered making the investment to add The Frosted Mug.

Acme — Glen Mills, Pennsylvania

Location: 101 Byers Drive, Glen Mills, PA

Now that we've made the rounds to the two stores that closed this week, let's switch gears and move onto a successful, stunningly beautiful Acme. The Glen Mills store is one of the newest stores in the whole chain, opening on April 25, 2008. At the time, Acme touted it as the Philadelphia area's most environmentally friendly store. Former President Judy Spires will tell you all about it in an article over at SupermarketNews.com. While several new stores of the 2000's failed to catch on, Glen Mills appears to be doing pretty good business... for now. Wegmans is nearing final approval to build a store close by.

This location was among four new "Premium Fresh and Healthy" stores opened during the SuperValu years. They include Avondale (if you jump over, scroll down below the Kennet Square pictures), Bordentown (the new store coming to the blog soon) and the doomed Limerick store (long closed and abandoned). All four locations received the original Premium Fresh and Healthy decor package, with Glen Mills getting a much needed injection of color. This decor package was rolled out to existing stores as well. Locations like Feasterville, Burlington and Wilmington/Naamans Rd received the original floor to ceiling package, which was relatively short lived, I'm guessing due to the cost. A simplified version, using colors similar to what is seen in Glen Mills, wound up being rolled out for most of the remodels. This newer package ditched the gigantic Albertsons leaves in favor of much smaller ones and took the elegant backlit department letters and stuck them to the walls. We'll take a closer look at one of these remodels in a future post.

The only other store to open since the four mentioned above is the one in Bryn Mawr. That store was destined for success as it replaced a well established older model. Acme refers to Bryn Mawr as their "flagship"store. I think their flagship store is right here.


Even the exterior here is among Acme's best! As I mentioned in the Westtown post, I was pretty shocked to see how busy this store was. Ceratinly one of the busiest Acmes I've been to.

Let's head inside…




This Acme goes by 2 names, which is not uncommon. While the address here is officially Glen Mills, the shopping center is called Concordville Town Centre.


Absolutely beautiful inside! Nice attention given to the lighting in this area of the store. While it does have the same exposed ceilings as the the Albertsons Marketplace model, it doesn't have that awful, cavernous warehouse feel to it.


Turning around here and looking back towards the entrance… we have an a la carte case with a "cafe" in the front corner… which is nothing more than a seating area with some self-service coffee urns.


A closer look at the cafe. As I've mentioned in other posts, I'm a huge fan of the drum pendant lights seen often in Premium Fresh and Healthy stores. Only problem is… they're difficult to keep clean. This store is doing an impressive job maintaining them.


Cheese shop is in the front corner to the right of the entrance.


Deli comes next followed by the Bakery...


If you follow this blog regularly you know I do my best to keep interior shots as people-free as possible. These two shoppers were winding up in every shot I was taking around the Bakery. Finally gave up trying to lose them.


Cool curved ceiling over the produce cases. Limerick had an identical setup which you can see a better view by clicking here. This drop ceiling extends over to the Wild Harvest Department.


We're in for a surprise on the other side of the "fruits & vegetables" wall. (Did you notice that Limerick didn't have the f&v sign on their back wall?)


Looking towards to front. Notice the gold and brown color scheme. A nice change from the cream color of the original PF&H decor package. You can take a look at some examples by clicking here and here. The wall colors here give this store very nice ambiance.


Bright lighting here throughout which is can't be said for either Avondale and Bordentown. I found both of those stores to be quite dark and gloomy.


Meat Department located in the back corner.


Love the backlit letters which are no longer being used in remodels.


So here we are on the other side of the produce wall. Not a great shot of the area but what you see just ahead there is a full-service pizza station! That area is normally used for the "Shop the World" shelving. I was stunned to see pizza here. Do any other Acmes have a pizza station? I haven't seen any. As cool as this is, I did find it odd that it's located all the way at the back of the store. Wouldn't it make more sense for pizza to be right out front? Catch those customers when they first walk in? Closer to the "cafe"?? Oh well. Still a nice feature. Whole Foods often has their pizza stations in the back too.


One short coming of this store are all the random displays. You can see plenty here along the back of the store. The last aisle is jam packed with them too. I was here SuperBowl weekend which might be the reason for all the soda and chip displays.


Quick jump to the front-end. Serivce is located just past the seating area. More displays.


Look across the front-end. Every register was open.


First aisle with Wild Harvest in the front and Shop the World in the back. The frozen food cases on the right back up to the produce cases. Nice lighting in this area as well, although no drum pendant lights which are often found in this area of the PF&H stores.




Polished concrete floors throughout. A neutral floor like this makes for easy remodels in the future.


The aisles are quite long here. No center aisle except for a few around the Wild Harvest area.


Refrigerated cream located IN the coffee aisle!


Frozen Food makes it return to the center of the store! Avondale, Bordentown and Limerick all have their Frozen Food Department in the back corner running behind the Health and Beauty Aid Department.




This store is 54,540 square feet and tops out at 16 aisles. Bordentown has 18 and Limeriick, at 58,800, had 20.




Another look across the front-end. Aisle directories are located at the front and back of the store.


Random stacks of soda to navigate your cart around.

Limited Aerial Views...

3D views are not yet available for this location so we'll just have to settle for looking at the roof.




Carrying over the map from the Westtown post which showa all the competitors in the area. I've since added The Fresh Market and Costco which are both across the street from the Acme. Costco is so new it's not showing up in any satellite views. Wegmans has yet to be built but approval is expected any day now.


A view of the packed parking lot as we head out of the Concordville Town Centre. We'll be back in Jersey for the next big store post which will go up on Friday, March 7.