TOUR: Zazzera's Supermarket - Forest City, PA

Zazzera's Supermarket

Owner: David Trichilo

Opened: 1975

Cooperative: none
Location: 600 Main St, Forest City, PA

Photographed: December 18, 2019

Forest City, Pennsylvania is probably not a place you've ever heard of, with a population of just over 1700. Its quaint Main Street parallels the Lackawanna River well up and out of the Wyoming Valley, around 20 miles northeast of downtown Scranton. Right in the middle of the town is a 6500 square foot supermarket, Zazzera's Supermarket. (As someone whose first AND last names start with Z, I can appreciate the name!)

It's been in business since 1975, although I wouldn't be surprised if the space has held a grocery store for longer. As we'll see, though, the store is immaculately maintained and a very complete supermarket, if it is on the older side.

We enter on the front wall and walk across to produce in the front right corner. Dairy and cold cuts are in the first aisle on the right side, deli on the back wall, and frozen in the last aisle on the left side. Note that this store's owner's last name is the same as the family that owned Pasquale's in Carbondale, so it's possible they're related.

A quick note on product selection. Since this is a local independent store, we see a lot of local products, like this maple syrup coming from just six miles north of the store.

Looking up towards the front of the store. Zazzera's sells Best Yet and Full Circle products from C&S.

I don't remember how many aisles there are here (they're not numbered) but I think there are four or five.

Notice that the decor on the back wall appears to have been painted over. There's no department signage around the store, which makes me think that possibly the departments have been shuffled around.

Here we can see how clean and organized the store is, especially given how much stuff is in a small space here.

Brand-new freezers in the last aisle. And a look at the front-end and the produce department in the front corner...

I like this flooring in the front! Well, we have wrapped up the Wyoming Valley (this store and our last few, of course, are not really in the Valley itself), and up next, we're headed into the Poconos, the mountain range to the southeast of the Wyoming Valley. Come back to check it out!