The Independent Edition

Barth's Market Owner: James Barth Opened: 1940 in Irvington; 1960 in New Providence; 1996 under current ownership; 2017 in current location Cooperative: none Location: 41 South St, New Providence, NJ Photographed: June 2021 Just across the street from the ACME in New Providence is this longtime butcher shop. I'd recommend reading all about the history of this store here , but the highlights in its history are this: Otto Barth opened his first butcher shop in Irvington in 1940, 20 years later moving to New Providence. The business was sold a little after that, and the Barths went into meatpacking, making sausage for Foodtown stores. That business went under in 1988, and the family then bought Barth's Pork Store in New Providence back from the other owners. In 2016, construction started on the existing building to expand from 4300 square feet to 9300 on the first floor and adding a second floor over part of the original building. At some point probably around 2000, the

  It's the Great Swamp, Charlie Brown! Tucked in between three highways (as so many things in New Jersey are) -- NJ-24 to the east, INT-287 to the west, and INT-78/US-22 to the south, the  Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge  is 7800 acres of protected land near the border of Morris, Union, and Somerset counties. And instead of grouping our next stores around a city, we're going to group them around the Great Swamp, which is just beautiful for hiking, by the way, along with the neighboring Lord Stirling Park in Basking Ridge and nearby Loantaka Brook Reservation in Morris Township. And if it feels like things have changed, they have -- we are out of the eastern part of the state, the congested Union, Essex, and Bergen/Passaic counties. We do have a tiny bit of Union left (New Providence and Berkeley Heights), but these are much more suburban towns bordering expansive green space. So for our next group, we're definitely in the suburbs, and as we continue north through the m

John's Meat Market Owner:  Vincent Losavio Opened:  1939 Cooperative:  none Location:  389 Park Ave, Scotch Plains, NJ Photographed:  July 2018 I'm not typically into photographing stores like butcher shops, but I couldn't resist this wonderful store in downtown Scotch Plains (just outside of Plainfield). A third generation family business, John's Meat Market has been in business since 1939 -- and has been voted best butcher shop in New Jersey four times! Check out their website here . We have one more stop out on route 22 before we finish up with the Plainfield area, so head over to The Market Report to check it out tomorrow!

Everybody's Food Market & Deli Owner: Godwin Sayers Opened:  1987 Cooperative:  unknown Location:  306 E Front St, Plainfield, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Everybody's Food Market & Deli is our final downtown Plainfield store! As you can see in the picture, the central downtown area kind of ends right past this store. But we certainly got to see a lot in town. Make sure you check out today's other post too , over on The Market Report. And now that's all for downtown Plainfield, tomorrow we'll be heading out on South Avenue (NJ-28) from downtown to our next two stops, one closed store over on  Grocery Archaeology , and a tour at the store that's still in business right near it over on The Market Report !

Plainfield Health Food Store Owner: Moo Han Opened: 1989 under current ownership Cooperative:  none Location:  218 E Front St, Plainfield, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Unfortunately, it looks as though Health Food Service (which today is the Plainfield Health Food Store) is more of a vitamin and supplement store than a food store, but come on, that sign was too good to just walk by without photographing! The building has been painted many times it seems, but the sign has probably been up for several decades. But wait, that's not all for today! We also have a former A&P just across the street over on Grocery Archaeology. And tomorrow, we have our final day of downtown Plainfield with one tour on The Market Report and a snapshot here on The Independent Edition!

Green Village Farm Owner: unknown Opened:  2015 Cooperative:  none Location:  149 E Front St, Plainfield, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Green Village Farm is our next stop here downtown in Plainfield! It's a small storefront, but it goes very far back so it's a pretty substantial greengrocer at just under 7,000 square feet. Unfortunately, the outside could use some work as we can see above with (oddly) no sign and peeling paint. It's a fascinating building though, about four stories high but the entire front is bricked over. Are those apartments? Could the building have been a theater, which were frequently tall like that? Anyway, until about 2015 this store was called the Plainfield Farmers Market; when Green Village took over, they put a banner in the middle of the overhang but it has since been removed, leaving only the sign in the window. We're going to tour the store from the front entrance, but there's also an entrance and exit in the back that lead to a munici

World Supermarket Owner: Felix Pineda Opened:  2017 Cooperative:  Retail Grocers Group Location:  314 Somerset St, North Plainfield, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Another day, another World Supermarket! We saw the original store on Front Street in Plainfield yesterday, which opened around 2012, and this newer one on Somerset Street in North Plainfield came along a little later, in 2017. At 6300 square feet, it's a bit smaller than the first one. This is also our third store today, so if you haven't yet checked out our first two, please do so here and here ! The interior is clearly newer than the other one, but it's also more split up. There are two main rooms: one, to the left, has the register, grocery aisles, and frozen foods. Then, there's a second storefront to the right which has produce and dairy. There's also a third room off of the first that has a butcher and a deli. The aisles, as we can see, are extremely narrow. I don't recall seeing shopping carts

United Halal Meat & Grocery Owner: Zachariah and Muhammad Ahmed Opened:  2006 Cooperative:  unknown Location:  33 Somerset St, Plainfield, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Today's three stores are on Somerset Street, and we're here in the first block west of Front Street for our first one! The 3100 square foot store sells grocery items and has a butcher and deli, and it looks quite nice inside although I didn't go in. Front Street is the main street in downtown Plainfield, but if you go just a few doors up Somerset Street you're in North Plainfield (which is a different town but it's also a different county, Somerset instead of Union). So we're doing all three North Plainfield stores at once here -- our other posts today are the Fine Fare at Somerset and Pearl, and the World Supermarket at Somerset and Park. But don't worry, none of them are more than about a quarter of a mile away from Front Street, and we'll be back to Plainfield tomorrow for a green

World Supermarket Owner: Felix Pineda Opened:  ca. 2012 Cooperative:  Retail Grocers Group Location:  322 W Front St, Plainfield, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Plainfield's downtown has a huge number of small businesses, and several of them are grocery stores. We're starting our travel up Front Street at the southwestern end, and in the approximately half mile of downtown Plainfield, we'll see six grocery stores on Front Street (plus three more on a quick detour up Somerset Street in North Plainfield). Quite a few of these urban stores will drive you and your groceries home with a minimum purchase since so much of the neighborhood is on foot, and an anonymous contributor sent in this picture of the World Supermarket car which was around town... World Supermarket opened here around 2012, and then opened a second location just over the border into North Plainfield in 2017, and we'll see that store tomorrow along with the others on Somerset Street in North Plainfield. But fo