Look Inside: Stockton Food Store - Stockton, NJ

Stockton Food Store
Owner: unknown

Opened: unknown
Cooperative: none
Location: 12 Bridge St, Stockton, NJ

Photographed: January 2021

Remember how I was talking about small towns having grocery stores in Branchville? Branchville is a town of 800 with a 5000 square foot grocery store. Stockton, here, is even smaller, with just 500 people and a 2800 square foot grocery store. But it's really not a full supermarket, although it's still a great little store.

And in case perhaps you couldn't tell, it is located in a former train station! Brings to mind the larger Morgan's Grocery in Penn Yan. But while Morgan's is located along an active train line, the Pennsylvania Railroad line that once lined the Delaware River has now been converted into the Delaware & Raritan Canal Trail, a rail trail popular with bikers and hikers -- and I assume this store invites them all for lunch, with the seating outside here and some inside as well.

The tiny store is very quaint inside but it's also been maintained very nicely. Hard to tell exactly how old it is, but it's looking good. We have the deli and prepared food section on the left side of the store with a grocery wall to the right, and behind that the store has two more aisles of groceries. As you can tell from these pictures, it's a little fancier than most convenience stores and is definitely designed for a higher-end positioning.

Refrigerated drinks and dairy on the left side wall as well, behind the deli counter.

And on the other side, we have some nonfoods and pet products. Notice the Parade brand product on the shelf to the left! I do love those wooden beams, which I assume are original to the station. Clearly, this space was converted with an eye towards preservation of the historical characteristics of it outside and inside.

But it is a convenience store or a small grocery store today, and given that there's no other grocery store around here for a few miles, I assume it's quite a good resource for the locals as well as passers-by on the rail trail. We continue our travels north along the Delaware with a stop in Frenchtown, just about ten miles north along the river as the crow flies. Check it out tomorrow right here on The Independent Edition!