The Independent Edition

Sim's Quality Market Owner: Dipak & Kailash Patel Opened:  2020 under current ownership; 1996 under previous ownership; prior opening dates unknown Cooperative:  none Location:  609 W Broad St, Bethlehem, PA Photographed:  January 6, 2020 It's time for a small and very interesting supermarket just west of center city Bethlehem. According to LehighValleyLive, the building has been a supermarket dating back to the 1940s, when an ACME was on this site, then went through several iterations of Sim's before being sold most recently soon after I visited, in late 2020. The 6500 square foot building does not resemble a 1940s ACME in any way that I'm aware of; this would've had to have been a real anomaly for it to have been built by ACME with a pitched-roof style -- but a very very small one -- in that time frame. Possibly, this was an early 1960s rare prototype pitched-roof ACME, or even more likely, there was an ACME here in the 1940s that was demolished for this exis

Ahart's Market Owner: George Ahart Opened:  2001-2021 Cooperative:  Great Valu Markets Location:  410 Montclair Ave, South Side, Bethlehem, PA Photographed:  September 10, 2016 We saw the Ahart's stores in Phillipsburg (now demolished) and Allentown (now a Grocery Outlet), and although I photographed the Bethlehem location at the same time as those -- as a matter of fact the same day back in September 2016 -- for whatever reason it didn't quite come around to my radar to post until now. Bethlehem and Phillipsburg were definitely the worst two stores, and my lingering memory of this store was just how strongly the store smelled of rotting meat and mildew. The 17,500 square foot store is just a few blocks from the very attractive if very hilly campus of Lehigh University, but was the only supermarket on the South Side until the CTown opened. That store, by the way, has been remodeled since I visited, but is only about half a mile away. You can see coverage of the store

Nyack Fresh Market Owner: Wilson Bermeo Opened:  February 20, 2023 Cooperative:  Key Food Stores Location:  119 Main St, Nyack, NY Photographed:  March 8, 2023 In Orange, we saw the transition of a Krasdale-affiliated CTown to a Key Food-affiliated Universal Food Markets. Key Food is growing in a lot of ways, including conversions like that, but they've also been opening a lot of new stores around the tri-state area in recent years. The 15,000 square foot Nyack Fresh Market is one of their latest openings, having opened in late February in the middle of the small down on the west shore of the Mario Cuomo Bridge (formerly the Tappan Zee) across the Hudson. A former theater building was converted to this supermarket, which despite its small size feels very spacious and complete. It's also a beautiful store. We enter on the left side of the store to the deli-bakery department, and although it appears they don't bake in-store, they have a lot of baked goods and a lot of prepare

Universal Food Markets Owner: Vishnu Patel Opened:  2023 Cooperative:  Key Food Stores Location:  16-26 N Day St, City of Orange, NJ Photographed:  March 3, 2023 Brief Lehigh Valley interruptions. I've been documenting a lot of the expansion of Key Food, the Matawan, NJ-based cooperative started in Brooklyn in 1937. Today the cooperative is almost 400 stores, mostly in and around New York City. And here in New Jersey, we've seen the Universal group of stores, which is made up of Universal Food Markets in Rahway , Paterson , and Camden; CTown locations in Orange and Hackensack; Bravo in Newark ; Super El Rey and Eagle in Elizabeth; the Hackensack Market in Hackensack; and Golden Mango in Paterson. Rahway, both stores in Paterson, Camden, and most recently, this store in Orange have joined Key Food, meaning that I can only assume the other stores aren't far behind. The stores were all previously affiliated with either Krasdale or Retail Grocers Group. Because CTown is a br