The Independent Edition

Edison Pepper Farm Owner: Edison Pepper Farm Inc. Opened:  unknown Cooperative:  none Location:  431 Plainfield Ave, Edison, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Today's look inside is a very quick stop by an 1800 square foot store on the road between Edison and Piscataway. It's a bit out of place among the industrial buildings and warehouses in this part of Edison but it also seems that it's been a produce market for a very long time, so it might very well predate all of the warehouses. (See today's other post here .) The store consists of two aisles, with some groceries on the back wall. The rest of the store is pretty much all produce items. There's one single register at the front. It's a great little spot and I'm glad I took the time to go inside! That's our final store in Edison, and our next stop will be just over the border into Piscataway. That'll be right here on The Independent Edition tomorrow, so come back to check it out!

Kam Man Foods Owner:  Wellman Wu Opened: 1996 Cooperative:  none Location:  511 Old Post Rd, Edison, NJ Photographed:  January and July 2020 Our tour today is the 29,000 square foot Kam Man Foods, a Chinese grocery store, just off US-1 in Edison. The interior is much nicer than the East Hanover location we've toured previously. That's likely due to the fact that there's a lot more competition in Edison for Asian markets than East Hanover, which is maybe 45 minutes to the north. In addition to the Lotte Plaza that took over the Superfresh , there's a large Hmart and 99 Ranch Market. Both of these will be coming soon to the blog! Meanwhile, there are no other significant eastern Asian supermarkets near East Hanover. The above exterior photo is from my January 2020 visit, with the remaining pictures from the visit of July of the same year. The layout is much like if the East Hanover location were rotated 90 degrees. Bakery and prepared foods are a...

India Grocers Owner: Heepal Patel Opened:  2013 Cooperative:  none Location:  1665 Oak Tree Rd, Edison, NJ Photographed:  June 2020 It's time for our third Oak Tree store (see the first and second here). This is probably the strangest store of them all, as we'll see. Built as a 75,000 square foot ShopRite in the 1980s as a replacement store for a 60s location just down the street at 1518 Oak Tree -- now a Subzi Mandi, which we'll see in three days -- this location may have been owned by the Sakers, who own stores to the south, or by the Sitars, who own Carteret and a development just across the Parkway on Oak Tree. Around 2000 it became a Pathmark , which later relocated to the west along Oak Tree to South Plainfield in 2009. That store, at 3600 Park Ave, is now a Saker ShopRite and we'll be touring it when we get out to South Plainfield. But for now, let's focus on this store, which has been subdivided and is now anchored by a 25,000 square foot grocery store -...

Apna Bazar Cash & Carry Owner: Khadag Singh Opened:  2005 Cooperative:  none Location:  1700 Sugartree Plz, Edison, NJ Photographed:  June 2020 There is an approximately three quarter of a mile stretch of Oak Tree Road between Edison and Iselin (an unincorporated community within Woodbridge) that has no fewer than six Indian and South Asian grocery stores along it. We're starting here at the farthest west one, although we will be returning to Oak Tree even farther to the west out in South Plainfield later. I must say going into this post that I have quite a few unknowns about this store. The 13,000 square foot store appears to have opened in 2005 as an Apna Bazar Cash & Carry before having a grand reopening in June 2019 following a renovation and a rebrand as Apna Bazar Farmer Market, but that name change is not reflected anywhere outside or inside (or at least was not at the time of my visit almost a year later; we see the storefront with only one lonely fa...