Market Basket
Owner: Anthony Chernalis
Opened: 1988
Cooperative: none
Location: 813 Franklin Lake Rd, Franklin Lakes, NJ
Photographed: July 2020
We've previously taken a quick look at this store over on The Market Report, but I returned for a tour this past summer and oh boy, was it worth it. The store is amazing with extremely high quality products, all of it homemade or specialty that you really can't find anywhere else.
The store is only about 15,000 square feet, but they pack in an amazing selection. The prepared foods department runs along the right side of the store, with deli at the back of the first aisle. Meat, seafood, and bakery take up the rest of the back wall, with a few grocery aisles in the middle and then floral, dairy, and produce at the far end of the store.
Check out that beautiful butcher shop!
Chicken even gets its own service case.
Grocery aisles are tight but compact, with a very solid selection. Market Basket focuses on high-end products, and does not use a storebrand.
And a beautiful seafood counter faces the produce department at the far end of the store.
As you can see, the store is not brand-new but it's in excellent condition and still beautifully stocked and merchandised.
And a bakery runs along the back wall of the store, which is exactly as impressive as you'd expect. The chocolate chip cookies -- a favorite dessert of mine -- were some of the best supermarket cookies I've ever had.
And I love the light fixtures over the case!
Cheese counter with floral next to it and dairy on the other side, along the front wall.
And a look across the front end from the cheese/produce/bakery side to the deli/prepared foods side. This Market Basket (which has no relation to the Massachusetts-based chain) is an outstanding store that's definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. We're going to head west to Oakland for a look at a large greengrocer tomorrow on The Independent Edition and then a look at a large supermarket, then circle back via NJ-23 into Wayne and beyond.
The Market Basket is a weird one for me. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't. I haven't been in a few years, so I don't know if they've gotten better, but my last memory of them was nice store but it just had an off feeling. I usually only came for cheese.
ReplyDeleteFair enough, maybe I was just there on a good day but I liked it very much. It's definitely on the older side but still upscale. Cheese is certainly a good thing to get here!
DeleteI am 99% sure this was once an Acme that opened in the 60's (I am not 100% certain because it would have been much smaller than the stores being built by the company at the time.) It definitely has a cult-like following in the area, although I agree with others who claim the overall experience can sometimes be underwhelming.
ReplyDeleteYep, you are correct -- late 50s or early 60s, although it looks like I actually neglected to mention that in the post. Thanks for the history here!
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