TOUR: Evergreen Uptown - Pomona, NY

Evergreen Uptown

Owner: unknown

Opened: March 2022

Cooperative: none
Location: 1581 US-202, Pomona, NY

Photographed: August 18, 2023

Welcome to Evergreen Uptown! The store opened in March 2022 in a former Grand Union-turned-Stop & Shop, turning the 51,000 square foot space into a kosher supermarket with several outside businesses, like a kitchen goods store and a toy store, but clearly a supermarket that caters to a broader customer base than a store like Bingo in Spring Valley, whose customer base is truly almost entirely Orthodox Jewish. Don't forget to read up on the store's history, and see some in-progress photos, here.

We enter in the front-right corner to a produce department and a large bakery on the right side wall of the store. Seafood and meat are on the back wall of the store, but part of the meat department continues into a large section in the middle of the grocery aisles with frozen foods behind it. Dairy is on the left side of the store as well as a massive prepared foods and deli area, including a coffee shop and cafe in the front left corner.

And as we can see, virtually nothing is left over from Stop & Shop as far as I could tell. Absolutely everything, right down to the floor and ceiling, is brand new. And the store looks amazing! It also feels much larger than its 51,000 square feet.

In front of the produce department (roughly behind the word "fruits" here) is a large, two-story toy store that the kid in me loved.

This decor style is very popular right now, with everyone from Winn-Dixie in the south to a New York City chain called Lincoln Market employing a variation on it. It looks great with this store's high ceiling!

The neutral color palette works much better here than Stop & Shop, for instance, because there's still plenty of visual interest around.

The massive bakery department is up next at the back of the produce department. There's a combination of lots of packaged items and store-made items, and of course, everything here (and in the store) is kosher -- but plenty of people shopping here were not clearly Orthodox Jewish, unlike Bingo. It seems that a lot of people around here shop here simply because it's a nicer supermarket than the nearby Garnerville ShopRite, which we'll tour tomorrow, with a much better perimeter.

The bakery, for instance, is as good as any freestanding bakery with trays and trays of pastries and a wall of bread, and another of breakfast and dessert items like muffins, cookies, and brownies.

Again, the challah is out on open shelves in the middle of the department.

The bread shelving is quite impressive here, too!

I was here on a Friday afternoon, which of course is right before the Shabbat (when Orthodox Jewish people do not work, and this store is not open). The Jewish friend I toured Bingo with also came with me here and was quick to point out some things like that, although this is less of a specialized store than Bingo.

And a wall of pastries...

That's an impressive bakery department by any standard, not just by the standard of kosher supermarket bakeries. Up next along the back wall is the seafood and appetizing department (remember that meat and dairy/fish need to be separated, so appetizing has fish and dairy items while deli has meat).

Sale items are here in the first aisle, along with lots of disposable pans. Both for holidays like Passover and because of the need to separate dairy and meat items, disposable pans are frequently used. (Even if a kitchen uses both dairy and meat items, they need to be prepared in separate dishes, and a meat pan can't be used to make a dairy meal later.)

Here's a look across the front-end with floral near the entrance.

The grocery aisles, as we see here, are much more standard supermarket-feeling than Bingo, with recognizable brands like Polar and Vintage seltzer here, for instance. There's a broader and more mainstream selection, but still, all the grocery items are kosher.

The meat department has a row of cases on the back wall of the store, but also then extends into a few islands in the middle of the grocery aisles.

Here's a look at the meat and frozen foods department, which we can see is right in the middle of the grocery aisles.

Frozen foods are in the front half, with meats in the back half.

As I said, there's nothing left over from Stop & Shop here. All the fixtures here are clearly new, and the layout has to be so different from what Stop & Shop had that it's likely not even the backroom and prep space is left over.

Dairy is up next in the back-left corner, and continues down the second-to-last aisle.

As we can see, this store is beautiful and also very well-maintained. It's pristine and extremely well-stocked. I think part of that is that there are enough kosher supermarkets in the area that if this one were subpar, there would be plenty of other choices for people who keep kosher. The other part is that the store is clearly trying to bring in customers who don't necessarily keep kosher, and so they're not just competing with the other kosher stores, but with the nearby ShopRites and other mainstream supermarkets. We'll see tomorrow that the Garnerville ShopRite, about two miles east, is not by any means disgusting but not nearly as nice and well-kept as this store.

In the last aisle, we have prepared foods counters along the outside of the store, and self-serve salad and hot food bars in the middle.

It was getting towards the end of the day, so not all the stations were open (this was 3:30 on a Friday afternoon, and for the Shabbat, the store closes shortly after that).

This store strikes me as a gourmet or higher-end supermarket that happens to be kosher, rather than a kosher supermarket that happens to angle higher-end.

In the front corner between the prepared foods and the front-end, we have a nuts and candy department, also with a beautiful design...

...and opposite that facing the front-end is Hava Java, a gorgeous coffee shop. There's a seating area to the left of the coffee shop.

Per Jewish dietary rules I mentioned previously, the dining area is restricted to dairy foods only during lunch hours and meat foods only during dinner hours (when the store is open at night, which is most nights of the week). The design of the cafe is beautiful, too, with upscale decor and furniture, and large windows letting in lots of light...

And one more prepared foods department before we leave this area, a large sushi island at the front of the prepared foods departments.

Here you can get an overview of the whole area. It's very large and very nice. Plus, the food looked excellent.

And a look across the front-end before we move along!

You would have no idea this store made its home in a 1970s Grand Union (which, of course, was expanded in the 90s) from just touring it now -- the latest remodel by Evergreen is beautiful and the store seems very well-run overall. And tomorrow we're off to Garnerville to check out the ShopRite on The Market Report!