The Independent Edition

Everybody's Food Market & Deli Owner: Godwin Sayers Opened:  1987 Cooperative:  unknown Location:  306 E Front St, Plainfield, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Everybody's Food Market & Deli is our final downtown Plainfield store! As you can see in the picture, the central downtown area kind of ends right past this store. But we certainly got to see a lot in town. Make sure you check out today's other post too , over on The Market Report. And now that's all for downtown Plainfield, tomorrow we'll be heading out on South Avenue (NJ-28) from downtown to our next two stops, one closed store over on  Grocery Archaeology , and a tour at the store that's still in business right near it over on The Market Report !

Plainfield Health Food Store Owner: Moo Han Opened: 1989 under current ownership Cooperative:  none Location:  218 E Front St, Plainfield, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Unfortunately, it looks as though Health Food Service (which today is the Plainfield Health Food Store) is more of a vitamin and supplement store than a food store, but come on, that sign was too good to just walk by without photographing! The building has been painted many times it seems, but the sign has probably been up for several decades. But wait, that's not all for today! We also have a former A&P just across the street over on Grocery Archaeology. And tomorrow, we have our final day of downtown Plainfield with one tour on The Market Report and a snapshot here on The Independent Edition!

Green Village Farm Owner: unknown Opened:  2015 Cooperative:  none Location:  149 E Front St, Plainfield, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Green Village Farm is our next stop here downtown in Plainfield! It's a small storefront, but it goes very far back so it's a pretty substantial greengrocer at just under 7,000 square feet. Unfortunately, the outside could use some work as we can see above with (oddly) no sign and peeling paint. It's a fascinating building though, about four stories high but the entire front is bricked over. Are those apartments? Could the building have been a theater, which were frequently tall like that? Anyway, until about 2015 this store was called the Plainfield Farmers Market; when Green Village took over, they put a banner in the middle of the overhang but it has since been removed, leaving only the sign in the window. We're going to tour the store from the front entrance, but there's also an entrance and exit in the back that lead to a munici...

World Supermarket Owner: Felix Pineda Opened:  ca. 2012 Cooperative:  Retail Grocers Group Location:  322 W Front St, Plainfield, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Plainfield's downtown has a huge number of small businesses, and several of them are grocery stores. We're starting our travel up Front Street at the southwestern end, and in the approximately half mile of downtown Plainfield, we'll see six grocery stores on Front Street (plus three more on a quick detour up Somerset Street in North Plainfield). Quite a few of these urban stores will drive you and your groceries home with a minimum purchase since so much of the neighborhood is on foot, and an anonymous contributor sent in this picture of the World Supermarket car which was around town... World Supermarket opened here around 2012, and then opened a second location just over the border into North Plainfield in 2017, and we'll see that store tomorrow along with the others on Somerset Street in North Plainfield. But...

Twin City Supermarket Owner: Alfonso & Myrna Perez Opened:  early 2000s Cooperative:  Retail Grocers Group Location:  600 Park Ave, Plainfield, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 It's time for our first store in downtown Plainfield! Admittedly, Twin City is a bit outside of the central downtown area, six blocks southeast of Front Street which is the main street in downtown Plainfield. But it's just up the street from yesterday's ALDI . The store has an interesting history, being built in the 60s as a Finast and then becoming an A&P by the late 70s, then a Met Foodmarket in the late 90s into the early 2000s. Thanks to JoshAustin610 (and the Internet Archive) for the history! And yes, there is an A&P remnant on the property... Easy to identify this as an A&P sign! It's looking pretty faded nowadays, it might be time for Twin City to replace it. And sorry for the low-quality picture taken from across the parking lot; if it weren't 95+ degrees the day I visit...