The Independent Edition

Shop Fresh Marketplace Owner: Nick Nasser Opened:  March 3, 2023 Cooperative:  Great Valu Markets Location:  7 Naughright Rd, Hackettstown, NJ Photographed:  June 13, 2023 We return to Shop Fresh Marketplace of Hackettstown, which opened in March in a former A&P on route 46 just outside of the town. In fact, I attended the soft opening on its first day in business, March 3rd. An official ribbon-cutting was later held on April 1st. I returned to the store on June 13th to find the store well on its way to going out of business. Think I'm exaggerating? I was one of two customers in the store and found the shelves mostly empty... While the store is still very attractive, it is also clearly soon to close. Social media posts as far back as late April show shelves beginning to empty out, and clearly that process has only continued. Most of the service departments have closed, too, leaving only the deli in operation. All the prepared foods are gone... ...and although ...

McMullen's Market Owner: Bill McMullen Opened:  1947-2023 Cooperative:  none Location:  165 Valley St, New Philadelphia, PA Photographed:  November 29, 2019 A very longtime small-town grocer, McMullen's Market served the tiny town of New Philadelphia with their 2000 square foot store from 1947 all the way up to 2023, when the store closed for good earlier this year . In its final years, the store was remodeled to be more of a butcher shop/deli store than a full grocer, but back in 1995 it was a full grocer. There are fewer and fewer independent small grocers like this one around, but there's another one just about five miles west as the crow flies in the small town of St. Clair. We're going to take a look inside that one tomorrow!

Main Street Market Owner: Duane and Nichole Smith Opened:  1995-2022, sold in 2019 Cooperative:  none Location:  90 N Main St, Bangor, PA Photographed:  December 22, 2018 Today's store has a bit of an interesting history. As you might be able to guess from the facade in the first picture, it was built as an A&P, probably in the 1950s. In the 1970s, it became a Thriftway , then Main Street Market in 1995. I visited in late 2018 and the following year, the store was briefly closed and then sold. After some light renovation, it was reopened only to close again in 2022. The 13,000 square foot store has a great classic supermarket feeling, or I suppose it had that feeling since it no longer exists -- and as far as I know, the space is currently vacant. You enter on the right side of the storefront, seen here facing the parking lot, and walk across in front of the registers to the left side where produce and meat line the wall. Deli is on the back wall, with frozen pa...

Ahart's Market Owner: George Ahart Opened:  2001-2021 Cooperative:  Great Valu Markets Location:  410 Montclair Ave, South Side, Bethlehem, PA Photographed:  September 10, 2016 We saw the Ahart's stores in Phillipsburg (now demolished) and Allentown (now a Grocery Outlet), and although I photographed the Bethlehem location at the same time as those -- as a matter of fact the same day back in September 2016 -- for whatever reason it didn't quite come around to my radar to post until now. Bethlehem and Phillipsburg were definitely the worst two stores, and my lingering memory of this store was just how strongly the store smelled of rotting meat and mildew. The 17,500 square foot store is just a few blocks from the very attractive if very hilly campus of Lehigh University, but was the only supermarket on the South Side until the CTown opened. That store, by the way, has been remodeled since I visited, but is only about half a mile away. You can see coverage of the s...

Organnons Natural Market Owner: Jim Gannon Opened: Jan 2021-Jun 2022 Cooperative:  INFRA Location:  409 E Butler Ave, New Britain, PA Photographed:  December 28, 2021 We are here in New Britain, right outside of Doylestown, to tour the Organnons Natural Market. This was one of two locations for the company, with the other in Newtown. Unfortunately, the New Britain location was rather short-lived for Organnons, opening in January 2021 and closing by June 2022. It is located on the ground floor of a new-build apartment complex, and the store is on the smaller side, probably under 10,000 square feet. We enter to produce in the front corner, with dairy in the first aisle and frozen on the back wall. The prepared foods/coffee shop area is on the right side. The store is oriented so as to be accessible to both the street and the parking lot. But sadly I don't think there's much left of the store these days, as everything in it was auctioned off last summer. I don't know w...