The Independent Edition

Extra Supermarket Owner: Mitchel Lopez Opened:  2001 Cooperative:  Retail Grocers Group Location:  360 Martin Luther King Jr Dr, Bergen-Lafayette, Jersey City, NJ Photographed:  December 2020 We're returning to the Extra Supermarket here in the Bergen-Lafayette section of the southern part of Jersey City after first seeing it back in September 2018 . As I mentioned in that post, the store was just beginning a renovation which finished sometime in 2019, I believe. We'll be taking a look at the interior in a second, but first, check out that updated sign! Much easier to read than the red-on-brick that was here previously. Moving into the store, the interior is looking better than ever. The retrofitted Citi Market decor we saw previously has been removed and replaced with a much more modern decor package with a lot of Jersey City character. The layout remains the same, with produce on the left side of the grand aisle and deli/seafood in an island on the right side, bake...

Asian Food Markets Owner: Jon Chen Opened:  2013 Cooperative:  none Location:  701 NJ-440, Hackensack River Waterfront, Jersey City, NJ Photographed:  December 2020 It's time for our first tour of an Asian Food Markets store! We've previously taken a look at the North Plainfield store, and I commented on how I've driven by it but never actually gone in. Well, I've still never actually gone into that one but I've been into multiple other locations including this one here in Jersey City. The 25,000 square foot big-box space is at the far end of the Hudson Mall, and was previously a 6th Avenue Electronics store that closed around 2012 with Asian Food Markets moving in the following year. We enter to a very large produce department that takes up the front 1/4 of the store or so. Because the store is narrow and very deep, the departments are kind of stacked one behind the other instead of side to side. So we're looking at hot food and bakery on the right side wall ...

Corrado's Market Owner: Jimmy Corrado Opened:  2013 Cooperative:  Associated Supermarket Group Location:  45 River Rd, North Arlington, NJ Photographed:  June 2020 We're jumping into Hudson County starting in the northwestern corner of the county, immediately over the Passaic River from Essex County, in fact this store is only a quarter of a mile southeast of the former Bell Farm over in Belleville. The rear parking lot of this store borders the river, which here forms the dividing line between Essex and Passaic counties. Speaking of the rear parking lot, the store is oriented towards the back. The 14,000 square foot store was originally C&J Glass , then Spring Farms . We enter and exit here in the back. Frozen and produce line the first aisle all the way to the left when you look at the store from the back, with cheese on the front wall. Deli and meat line the right side of the store with dairy in the front corner and grocery aisles, in very low shelving, in t...

Our next (fairly brief) stop in our tour of New Jersey is Hudson County! We've extensively covered the northern parts of the county previously, with Union City and West New York covered here . We've also been to Harrison and Jersey City previously. We're back for some more stores, more extensively covering the areas we haven't been to yet. We're going to start to the west of the Hackensack River for stores in North Arlington and Kearny, before crossing the river and passing through the Hackensack River Waterfront, Bergen-Lafayette, and Downtown/Newport in Jersey City; then over to Hoboken, circling north for one more store in Union City, and finishing out Jersey City with the Heights in the northwestern corner of the city. Lots of good stuff coming up, so come back here for tomorrow's tour! HOUSEKEEPING:  I know a lot of the links have been wrong lately, and I believe they've all been fixed. However, there might still be a few broken links here and there t...

Route 10 Farmers Market Owner: unknown Opened:  2010 Cooperative:  none Location:  577 Mount Pleasant Ave, Livingston, NJ Photographed:  December 2020 Our final store here in the Essex County group is one we've seen before , and we're returning not because anything has changed, but just because when I came by last time the store was closed for the night and I couldn't get inside. The stores run by the Farmers Market Group  really aren't my favorite -- the prices are very, very cheap but the quality just isn't there. Compared to an operator like Giant Farmers , it's obvious the FMG folks are getting second-rate products. Most of the store is dedicated to produce, with a deli on the back wall and some packaged dairy in the back corner. There are also some basic groceries but that's not the focus on this store. Here's an example of what the FMG stores do all the time. They'll get a large shipment of some item that's about to go bad, like these pack...