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| Photo Courtesy of Acme Style |
This week at A&P Preservation we're taking a look
at the former A&P Fresh in the city of Fort Lee, New
Jersey. For those who don't know where Fort Lee is, it's 5
miles away from Hackensack. It's a very urban town that
mainly consists of high-rise buildings, and a feud over Fried Hot Dogs. I'm a
Hiram's guy myself! If you're ever in Fort Lee, be sure to
stop there. I know Fried Hot Dogs sound odd, but they're
actually very good, and crisp.
This Fort Lee A&P opened in the mid-90's as the The Food Emporium's Flagship
location. It was transitioned to A&P in the Fresh
2.0 era, around 2005-2007 I'd say, and stuck with the decor
and overall format until its closure in 2015. This was one
of 76 locations acquired by Acme Markets of Philadelphia,
who is owned by a large grocery conglomerate doing business
as Albertsons-Safeway.
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| Photos Courtesy of The Market Report |
I've said it once, and I'll say it again. Why does Acme use
paint sparingly? This just looks horrible. They even touched
up some of the building with the new paint on the left here.
Shame!
This was one of the earlier 90's Centennials, with
this store opening in the mid-90's, instead of the late-90's
or even early-2000's, like the deteriorating Hackettstown location. You can
obviously see that the roof is in, well, "fair" condition.
Acme will most likely need to repaint this store by next
year.
This location has somewhat of an atrium. This was
definitely one of A&P's more-deluxe builds. This photo
was taken inside the foyer. There is also a large window
just inside the produce department, as seen in the bottom of
this photo.
This store got a rather deluxe version of the Fresh 2.0
decor, with a significant upgrade from the 90's
Foodmarket decor that Food Emporium used. The floors
were replaced in the produce department, which was a nice
touch.
This location, unlike other A&P's built at the
time, had NO drop-ceiling in the produce department. This
would be a common thing to see in the later 00's Fresh models. However, a 90's
Centennial hybrid was built with the open produce
department-- Pompton Lakes, which is yet to be featured on
the blog. Hopefully I'll find some good photos soon!
You can clearly see where the drop-ceiling starts
here. Note A&P's Hot Foods station to the left here;
Acme is still using it to this day.
...and their salad bar. Well-stocked, Acme! Kudos to
all of the hard-working employees here.
Nice Produce department here! Seafood and Meats line
the back of the wall here, like a standard 90's Centennial.
Checkouts line the front here. This store, unlike
others, has Express Lanes first, and not last.
I'm not entirely sure if Acme was able to adopt A&P's
Liquor license here (hence the Wine & Beer decor above
Seafood), but the store still does carry Wine & Beer.
This is notable because of the fact that the state of New
Jersey requires you to open a new corporation to hold more
than one liquor license. A&P would often use "A&P of
_____, Inc." For this particular location, it was "A&P
of Fort Lee, Inc."
This store's cakes aren't displayed in the usual deli
case like we've seen in other locations with this decor, but
rather an upright case with shelving. An interesting choice,
but it makes perfect sense. For a high-volume store like
this, you can have more product out on the shelves without
service!
The backsplash in all of the fresh departments were
replaced with the Fresh 2.0 remodel to match the paint on
the walls. Unfortunately, since Acme is rapidly phasing out
A&P's decor, it no longer matches! Acme uses more of a brown in their
bakery departments, while A&P's was more orange.
A look at the Fresh departments that run the back wall.
As updated as this store was when it received the
Fresh decor, A&P kept their old-style checkouts! These
would have two bagging options: if you had the metal cover
on top, the customer could bag via the conveyor belt. If you
didn't, you could just scan, bag, and put your bags on the
conveyor belt, sending them on their way! It's a lot more
efficient than the connected variations of this checkout, or
Ahold's crazy turnstiles.
This store also had an Eight-O-Clock Coffee cafe. Acme had
recently replaced the vacant space with Starbucks, which now
fills the blank space on this pylon.
Thanks to The Market Report for these
awesome photos of the Fort Lee A&P!
A&P Fresh of Fort Lee
2160 Lemoine Ave.
Fort Lee, NJ
The Food Emporium > A&P Fresh > ACME
Fort Lee, NJ
