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TOUR: Simply Fresh by McCaffrey's - Doylestown, PA

Simply Fresh by McCaffrey's
Owner: Jim McCaffrey III
Opened: 2016
Cooperative: none
Location:
 200 W State St, Doylestown, PA
Photographed: July 22, 2021
It's time for another McCaffrey's store! And as you can probably guess, this one is going to be just as spectacular as the others, if not more so. Everything in this store is packed into just 13,000 square feet in downtown Doylestown, and because of the store's smaller footprint and more perishables-focused product mix, it has been branded Simply Fresh by McCaffrey's.
A building previously housing a historic Ford dealership has been beautifully renovated for this store. You can get an idea of this store's setup in these exterior pictures, as well as its position right on a downtown street.
The store is more or less divided into two halves. When you enter the store, from the entrance about halfway to the back of the store on the side facing the parking lot, you encounter the floral department on your left and an island with a coffee shop and juice bar straight ahead. On the back of that island is the cheese department. To your right, you will find the produce, bakery, and deli/prepared foods counters, and those take up the front half of the store (closest to the street). To your left, you will find meat/seafood, grocery, and dairy/frozen, along with the registers. The enclosed porch-type structure facing the parking lot is a cafe.
As we can see here, the building has not just been gutted and remodeled, but actually restored in some ways, such as the beautiful windows and roof beams. This is the produce/deli/bakery side of things.
And if we walk into the produce department a bit, we can turn around and look towards the other half of the store, on the other side of the coffee/cheese island. You can see that the store is small but packed with stuff and yet not overly cramped.
Each department has a surprisingly large selection, too, and of course product mix here is angled very upscale.
You can see how gorgeous all the merchandising is here, like these produce displays!
And the prepared food bars (crepes to order!) take up the entire wall of this side of the store.
McCaffrey's was serious about the Simply Fresh perishables focus, which is great.
Huge cheese island, too, with more cheese and other packaged deli items on the wall facing.
And on the other side of the island, we have the floral department (and you can see the entrance door here too).
One more look at the produce/deli/bakery half of the store before we move on!
This walkway will take us into the meat department area, and the grocery aisles.
Amazing merchandising, amazing signage, just all around a gorgeous store with incredible products.
And the back half of the side wall has the massive meat and seafood counters. Check out that ceiling!
Grocery department offerings are at a minimum, but they still have a solid selection of all the basics and plenty of gourmet items. Obviously, that's not the focus here.
Frozen and dairy line the perimeter of the back section of the sales floor. The ceiling has been fully restored and is beautiful in person.
I love the consistency in store branding, too, along with the historical photos on the store walls!
One more look at the grocery department.
Note the Wild Harvest products. McCaffrey's is supplied by UNFI and sells Essential Everyday and Wild Harvest products. Being that the store is a smaller-format store, there are smaller-format registers also, lined up along the wall by the parking lot.
And beyond that is the beautiful cafe seating area, where I enjoyed my lunch that day.
Check out this picture on the wall... this is the original Ford dealership building back when it was open! You can see how they've modified the original structure but kept its character and bones intact.
A really special store that any independent supermarket fans should check out. Tomorrow we're headed across the street on Grocery Archaeology!

Comments

  1. Before McCaffrey's took over, the space was an independent Hobby/Craft store that was around for 40 years, closing in early 2013.

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    Replies
    1. Very interesting, I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for the detail!

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