The Independent Edition

Rockland Great Farm Owner: unknown Opened:  2016 under current ownership; 2003 previously Cooperative:  none Location:  406 Nanuet Mall S, Nanuet, NY Photographed:  August 12, 2022 Welcome to the Rockland Great Farm! The rather unassuming 5,000 square foot greengrocer shop actually has a very exciting secret hiding inside it. Before we get there, the store is mostly a produce market, with produce taking up most of the sales floor and a small, apparently closed seafood counter in the back left corner. A small grocery, dairy, and frozen selection is on the left side of the store. Can anyone spot the supermarket history here? That's right, this store somehow has an original Grand Union Clean, Fresh & Good ceiling fixture in it! It's an incredibly difficult thing to photograph, but a really impressive one. This was my first time seeing one in person. It's amazingly well preserved! How many others still exist out there? This is the only one I can think of off the top...

Giant Farmers Market Owner: Sang Kim Opened:  2018 Cooperative:  Retail Grocers Group Location:  19 Wyckoff Ave, Waldwick, NJ Photographed:  November 12, 2023 It's time for a quick update at the Waldwick Giant Farmers Market! We first saw it in 2020  and since then, it's gotten a minor renovation that shuffles around some of the departments and has turned it from a farmers market-type store with some groceries into a fairly straightforward supermarket with a disproportionately large produce department. Not all the change is positive, though, and some of the produce cases we can see below to the right were empty when I visited. Then again, there was some excellent produce and that appears to have been where the organic selection used to be. I was a bit concerned when I came back and saw those empty cases and then the mostly-empty bakery department in the back. The service counter that was there had been removed and replaced with shelving for bread that was mostl...

Marrazzo's Market Owner: Sam Marrazzo Opened:  2000 Cooperative:  IGA Location:  1400 Parkway Ave, Ewing, NJ Photographed:  January 2021 We arrive in Ewing, roughly four miles to the northwest of downtown Trenton, for our first stop in the greater Trenton area! This building was constructed in the 1970s (between 1971 and 1979, according to the Historic Aerials) as a Grand Union before closing in the 1980s. It then became a Shop n Bag until 1997 when it became Marketplace, then sold to the current owners in 2000 who were Thriftway until 2016, then becoming IGA. Here's my source on the history. Notice that the facade actually still has that Grand Union look to it, although it's been covered with the metal siding. It's a little strange that the sign isn't on the main facade, especially since it used to be when the sign said Marrazzo's Thriftway (see the link above). We enter to the grand aisle on the left side of the store. Bakery, seen here, is in the front left...

Subzi Mandi Cash & Carry Owner: Jasbir Singh Opened:  2016 under current ownership, ca. 2000 previously Cooperative:  none Location:  251 Littleton Rd, Parsippany, NJ Photographed:  June 2021 Today we are taking a look inside this Subzi Mandi at the corner of Littleton and Parsippany Roads just south of US-46, along with a former ACME at 46 and Parsippany Road. We saw this once before as a former Grand Union, but today we're focusing on the Subzi Mandi. We've also previously seen Subzi Mandis in Iselin and Piscataway . This store is more similar in size to Piscataway than Iselin, at between 6000 and 7000 square feet. It's extremely deep but very narrow, taking only a small slice of the Grand Union that once occupied this whole building. Much like what we saw at Tirupati, secondhand carts abound before we enter the store... Here's something interesting. Note that these carts are (mostly) the same age, but we see three different handles: a 90s orange ShopRite h...