The Independent Edition

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...

Aqui Market Owner: Araceli Perez Opened:  1999 Cooperative:  Retail Grocers Group Location:  617 E Main St, Bridgewater, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 Bridgewater is the final of four Aqui Market locations that we are seeing on the blog! I've been to Journal Square  (which closed in August, by the way) and Garfield Ave in Jersey City, and our wonderful contributor Gerry brings us coverage of Califon which we'll also be seeing soon enough in my own pictures. This store is about 17,000 square feet and was built as an A&P. I assume that the facade, which does not resemble anything I've ever seen on an A&P, came after the opening of Twin City Supermarkets which switched over to Aqui Market around 2018. (This was the last of the original three stores to be converted, and for a while was co-branded with both Twin City and Aqui Market logos.) Clearly, the bones of the store here are quite old. But it's been remodeled recently and it's looking pretty good. Prod...

Pueblo Meat Supermarket Owner: Alfredo Diaz Opened:  1994 Cooperative:  Retail Grocers Group Location:  611 Broadway, Mount Prospect, Newark, NJ Photographed:  June 2020 We've returned to Newark, in the northeastern corner of the city, just about three quarters of a mile southeast of Pueblo Meat Supermarket . This store was opened by Twin City/Pueblo owners Alfonso and Myrna Perez before being sold probably around 2000. The new owner has kept the Twin City name and logo but uses a different website , along with a few other changes. As for the store itself, I'm almost positive it started out as a Food Fair (given the signature terrazzo flooring still intact inside) and I know it later became a Mayfair Foodtown. Like all the other Twin City group stores, this one is a well-run smaller urban supermarket. At 17,000 square feet, it's a little over half the size of Pueblo but still has a solid selection. The first two aisles here seem to have been redone very recently, wit...

Pueblo Meat Supermarket Owner: Alfonso and Myrna Perez Opened:  1987 Cooperative:  Retail Grocers Group Location:  880 Mount Prospect Ave, Forest Hill, Newark, NJ Photographed:  June 2020 We're here at the far northern tip of the city of Newark to see the large supermarket serving the neighborhood of Forest Hill. Opened in 1987 by husband-and-wife team Alfonso and Myrna Perez, who also run the wonderful Twin City Supermarket in Elizabeth and Plainfield (which we'll be touring when we get down to that area), this 30,000 square foot store was built as a Food Fair and later became a Pantry Pride, being purchased by Mayfair Foodtown in the late 1970s and then Pueblo in 1987. I don't entirely know why this store was not branded Twin City, but there is also a Twin City about 3/4 of a mile south (we'll get there in a few days). Awful logo aside, this store is looking great today. The blue color is actually pretty bright and fun in person, and the property is clearly metic...