The Independent Edition

206 Farmers Market Owner: Song Suh Opened:  2008 under current ownership Cooperative:  none Location:  626 US-206, Hillsborough, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Notice anything familiar about that facade? That's right, it's a former A&P! The awning has been redone since A&P left, but the bones are there -- A&P just would've had brown shingles on the awning, instead of the signature bright turquoise Bottle King awning. Acme Style first reported on this store back in 2013, and I'm back here for some more pictures in summer 2020. The store looks to be 8100 square feet of the A&P's 24,500 square feet. I also assume, though I could be wrong, that the A&P closed shortly after the ShopRite opened directly across the street. Acme Style has pretty good coverage of the store's history as an A&P, but at the end of the day, I'm here for the current farmers market. It's part of the Farmers Market Group, which also owns the Route 10 Farmers Mar...

Aqui Market Owner: Araceli Perez Opened:  1999 Cooperative:  Retail Grocers Group Location:  617 E Main St, Bridgewater, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Bridgewater is the final of four Aqui Market locations that we are seeing on the blog! I've been to Journal Square  (which closed in August, by the way) and Garfield Ave in Jersey City, and our wonderful contributor Gerry brings us coverage of Califon which we'll also be seeing soon enough in my own pictures. This store is about 17,000 square feet and was built as an A&P. I assume that the facade, which does not resemble anything I've ever seen on an A&P, came after the opening of Twin City Supermarkets which switched over to Aqui Market around 2018. (This was the last of the original three stores to be converted, and for a while was co-branded with both Twin City and Aqui Market logos.) Clearly, the bones of the store here are quite old. But it's been remodeled recently and it's looking pretty good. Prod...

Latino Mini Market Owner: Hugo Castanaba Opened:  unknown Cooperative:  Retail Grocers Group Location:  207 E Main St, Bound Brook, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Anywhere else, a "minimarket" would refer to a small convenience store, maybe with some bottled soda and some chips. But here in downtown Bound Brook, the Latino Mini Market is a 4500 square foot store that's practically a full grocery store, with produce, meat, deli, frozen, dairy, and grocery. This store has a lot to offer, with several grocery aisles, produce here in the first aisle, a service butcher/deli on the back wall, and dairy/frozen at the left side of the store. It looks fairly recently renovated, with some newer fixtures and flooring. We can tell that the store is older, but it's been very nicely maintained. I would say there are maybe five aisles here, but they're not that long. Dairy is here in the back of the last aisle, with frozen foods in the front corner. There's a little alcove on ...

Save More Meat & Produce Market Owner: unknown, possibly Nick Gonzalez Opened:  2020-2021 Cooperative:  Krasdale Location:  84 Main St, South Bound Brook, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 We are here in South Bound Brook to tour the 4500-person town's only grocery store, which unfortunately recently closed in early 2021. We saw this location back in 2018 when Fresh Market had closed up shop in the 4600 square foot space, and that post also has a bit of the history of the tenants. The 9300 square foot building, which has since been subdivided, was originally home to a ShopRite -- likely a Saker store, which probably then moved up to Bound Brook about a mile and a half to the northwest, then that store was replaced by an even newer store in the 90s just next door. Save More Meat & Produce Market opened up in late 2019 or early 2020 and clearly remodeled the place very nicely. Many of the fixtures seem to be new, and the flooring and lighting definitely are. The st...

Star Bazaar Owner: Romeshkumar Patel Opened:  2016 Cooperative:  none Location:  1760 Easton Ave, Somerset, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 We are on the north end of Somerset, New Jersey for a look at this 9300 square foot Indian supermarket right on the Raritan River! (We were previously about four miles to the southeast for a Stop & Shop , a Tropical Supermarket , and a Fine Fare .) Now above, we see the new facade installed on the store. But the store itself dates back to the 1960s, and by zooming out a little we can get a good idea of what it used to be... Certainly a beautiful remodel of an A&P centennial! The building is just over 18,000 square feet, meaning that Star Bazaar takes up a little more than half of the space. Star Bazaar opened in 2016, making it pretty new. It's very nice inside, and spotlessly clean! The store includes eight aisles plus the produce department. The floor looks great! It's the first thing you notice. Very clean. By the way, th...