The Independent Edition

Bloomingdale Supermarket by Foodtown Owner: Adam Shapiro Opened:  January 5, 2024 Cooperative:  Allegiance Retail Services Location:  78 Main St, Bloomingdale, NJ Photographed:  January 8, 2024 After what felt like a long period of time with lots of Key Food updates, it seems like this latest round of updates has been heavy on the Krasdale! Here's a look at a store that's neither: Allegiance Retail Services (Foodtown/Pathmark/Green Way/Shop n Bag) has opened its latest store in the small northern New Jersey town of Bloomingdale, a store of just 8,000 square feet (although it may have basement space) that was built in the 1950s as a Big Leader Supermarket, then became a ShopRite in the 1960s, then a Pathmark before the store moved to the Kinnelon location that's now Stop & Shop in the 1970s. (It must have been quite the upgrade to go from 8,000 square feet to the Kinnelon location's original 40,000 square feet.) Other independents occupied the space after that, ...

Ashley Marketplace Owner: Cheol Kim Opened:  2013 Cooperative:  none Location:  1 South Orange Ave, South Orange, NJ Photographed:  June 2022 We return to Ashley Marketplace after first seeing it back in the summer of 2018. Unfortunately, the past four years have not been kind to the gourmet supermarket and cafe, with a visit last week showing the store clearly struggling. By the way, the store closed for a few weeks in 2019 "for renovation," but reopened shortly thereafter with no apparent changes. At some point between the summer of 2020 and the summer of 2022, the store did in fact make some major changes to its layout and selection. We're going to take a trip through the somewhat mazelike store from the back entrance, facing the parking garage. The produce department is actually looking really good with the newly streamlined setup, until we start noticing the shelves and shelves of bottled water in what used to be a produce cooler on the right. Also, oddly eno...

Lake Parsippany General Store Owner: unknown Opened:  ca. 1980 - 2021 Cooperative:  none Location:  171 Kingston Rd, Parsippany, NJ Photographed:  December 2020 Here in the southern part of Parsippany, there really aren't any supermarkets. Residents likely go to either the Stop & Shop in Morris Plains or Wegmans in Hanover to the south, or else the Whole Foods or ShopRite to the north. Up until earlier in 2021, there was also the Lake Parsippany General Store, a 3500 square foot oversized convenience store in what was a very early ShopRite (unclear when or who owned it). Though plans to redevelop the dilapidated property date back to 2016 , the store actually continued on in business (and deteriorating) through early 2021 when it was put up for sale and, when it was not purchased, closed for good. The store might have stayed in business until 2021, but it was certainly was in decline for many years. We can clearly see that outside, and inside, it was lookin...

Save More Meat & Produce Market Owner: unknown, possibly Nick Gonzalez Opened:  2020-2021 Cooperative:  Krasdale Location:  84 Main St, South Bound Brook, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 We are here in South Bound Brook to tour the 4500-person town's only grocery store, which unfortunately recently closed in early 2021. We saw this location back in 2018 when Fresh Market had closed up shop in the 4600 square foot space, and that post also has a bit of the history of the tenants. The 9300 square foot building, which has since been subdivided, was originally home to a ShopRite -- likely a Saker store, which probably then moved up to Bound Brook about a mile and a half to the northwest, then that store was replaced by an even newer store in the 90s just next door. Save More Meat & Produce Market opened up in late 2019 or early 2020 and clearly remodeled the place very nicely. Many of the fixtures seem to be new, and the flooring and lighting definitely are. The st...