The Independent Edition

Botto's Italian Market Owner: Catherine Botto Opened:  1997 Cooperative:  none Location:  1411 Kings Hwy, Swedesboro, NJ Photographed:  January 2022 I was incredibly disappointed upon entering Swedesboro, New Jersey and finding that their only grocery store was not in fact a Swedish grocer, and that there weren't even Swedish Fish available for sale (which I assume to be the national cuisine of Sweden, right?). But I will say that if I can't have that, one of the best independent Italian markets in New Jersey will do just fine. So let's tour, as our final New Jersey store, the roughly 10,000 square foot Botto's Italian Market. If you want to read about the store, I recommend you check out this profile from 2013. The store is attached to Botto's Italian Line restaurant, which I'm sure is excellent as well, and they also sell their products online. Inside the grocery store, we have most of the sales floor (unsurprisingly) taken up by Italian groceries, with...

Rastelli Market Fresh Owner: Ray Rastelli Jr. Opened:  2014 Cooperative:  none Location:  710 NJ-73, Marlton, Evesham, NJ Photographed:  January 2021 It's our second to last store here in New Jersey, and it's an impressive one! We arrive at the 35,000 square foot Rastelli Market Fresh in Evesham Township (also referred to as Marlton), which opened in about half of a Genuardi's in 2014. It's Rastelli's second retail location (their first is to the southwest in Deptford , and is much smaller). The butcher shop-turned-gourmet grocer also has a very large wholesale division , which today is the business's focus. Like Patel Brothers in East Windsor , Genuardi's facade is fully intact here but inside, there's nothing left from the former tenant. The interior has been beautifully renovated by Off the Wall, a name that I'm sure is now familiar to any readers of this blog. We enter to a spacious produce aisle with service departments lining the right side of...

  We're at the end here, folks! After over a year making our way up and down the whole state, we have come to our last group. And now we're down to the last week and a half or so of posts for the Garden State. We begin to the southeast of the city of Camden (unfortunately, no posts within the city limits of Camden) and continue more or less east along route 70 to Marlton. And then we finish up with one stop down towards the Delaware Memorial Bridge before finishing up New Jersey! Highlights include our final NJ Supremo, a heck of a lot of ACMEs, a couple of chains we've never seen before, and four former supermarkets around this area. Check out our first store here tomorrow on  The Market Report !

Mister Meat Owner: Benjamin Gorden Opened:  1985 Cooperative:  Krasdale Location:  3945 Federal St, Pennsauken, NJ Photographed:  January 2021 Our third stop in this strip mall is Mister Meat, a butcher shop and deli that looks to be in the range of 2,000 square feet. There's also some groceries inside -- although mostly things that you'd cook meat with, and sauces to put on meat -- and some dairy/frozen items too. Unfortunately, the butcher counter was far too busy for me to grab a photo of, but we do get to see a little glimpse inside... As we see, it's a small space with a lot packed in. Looks like the store opened in 1985, and some things are likely original (such as the shelving) but the freezers are obviously newer. Make sure you check out the Save-A-Lot that's also in this strip mall here , and a look at the Penn Fruit that used to occupy the anchor spot here . Tomorrow, we head into Maple Shade for a great classic store on The Market Report !

Four Seasons Market Owner: unknown Opened:  unknown Cooperative:  none Location:  2925 US-130, Delran, NJ Photographed:  January 2021 We're taking a look inside a small Turkish and Middle Eastern store along route 130 that caught my eye as I was driving by. Very interesting selection inside, with packaged goods in most of the store. The 9,000 square foot store was previously half the Four Seasons Farmers Market (not sure if it was the same business or not) and half an army-navy store. The area that used to be the army-navy store is now a butcher-deli-bakery area, with the packaged food in the other half. The shelving above looks like it may have been constructed for produce, so it's possible the Four Seasons Farmers Market was more of the traditional small produce market type store we've seen before and they closed around the time the army-navy store did, with the new Middle Eastern market opening up in the whole space after that and just taking on the same name as ...