Rutherford ShopRite Closing Forever

[ghostrider]

I walked into my local store tonight and noticed that some of the shelves seemed strangely empty and the usual weekly sale banners hadn't been put up on the front wall. When I checked out, I asked the cashier jokingly if the store was going out of business. She replied "Yes." I had to ask her two or three times before it sunk in that she was serious.

This is probably just a blip on most folks' radar, but it's got me in a state of shock. When you've been shopping at a place for 16 years & it suddenly decides to fold, it's depressing.

Granted, it was never a great store. Their produce wasn't kept well, & it was obvious that they had ongoing problems with antiquated BOH refrigeration equipment. Still, they always had the basics, and I could count on them for good beef, a decent deli counter that always met my needs, and good prices, particularly if you watched the weekly sales.

Of course, their big advantage was location. A lot of apartment dwellers & seniors without cars relied on them and are going to have their lives really messed up when the store shuts. I feel horrible for the little old lady who lives down the street from us who always walks slowly down to the store using her wheeled grocery cart as a walker, and then makes her way back up the hill and down the avenue to her home. She seems to enjoy her independence. What's she going to do? This sucks.

The closest alternatives, depending on which side of town you're in, now become the Stop & Shop in Carlstadt, which has its virtues but is consistently overpriced on staple items, and the big new ShopRite in Lyndhurst, which for all its glitz has never had produce substantially better than that at the Rutherford store and usually has deli & checkout lines that are good for a 10-point spike in your blood pressure.

Either way, you've got to have a car. Wherever I wind up, it's all going to take up more of my time, and that irks me. But I at least still have options.

I guess those stores & the discount megatubs of food at Costco & Walmart between them just drained off too much of the town's clientele. The people have voted with their wallets, as they always do. It's a tough business with thin margins, I know. I wonder if Walmart was the final nail in the coffin. The timing makes them suspect for sure.

Me, I really liked having a local grocery, one that we could walk to when the weather was decent and often did. I guess that simple act has become a luxury in today's America. It was nice while it lasted.

[jwjojo]

I heard the news as well and am very upset. I too feel bad for local folks without transportation. The store is/was needed in this town, and it is a shame that we are losing it. A drag that I have to now drive to Lyndhurst to buy what was easily purchased walking down the street.

[Oceangroveguy]

Until very recently there was an Acme market on the Elizabeth/Union border (Magie Avenue, for those who know the area). It wasn't a very good supermarket, but like the Rutherford SR was popular with older people who lived nearby and walked there. No alternative within walking distance exists - an A&P is 2 miles North, up a long hill, and there's a SR about the same distance South.

This Acme didn't have much in the way of prepared foods - which have higher margins than ordinary grocery items- and it may be that with the typical supermarket margins (which I recall are 1 to 2 percent) it couldn't make it in the face of rising costs.

I also wonder if what we're starting to see is marginal locations being done in by the loss of grocery customers to Wal Mart, Costco, Target, etc.

[phaelon56]

I moved from Rutherford back up to central NY state three years ago. Up here that attriition process for neighborhood grocery stores has long since been close to complete.

I'll guess that the Shop-Rite just ddidn't have enough drive-in trade to survive. I lived clear over on the other side of town (Mountain Way) and it was actually easier to drive to Lyndhurst rather than make my way past the trafffic circle and snake in an out of their parking lot.

But it's a shame. And there's an element of perosnal service in many such stores that just can't be replicated in the bigger stores. My mom shops at a neighborhood grcoery that was part of a three sotre local chain and couldn't survive but was acquired by a larger chain. Some of the cashiers in there have been ringing her up for 25 years and all know her by name.

Just curious - with the fish vendor gone and the Shop-Rite going soon... is the little butcher on Park Ave across from Village Gourmet still in business?

[Josefinajoisey]

The butcher is still there (thank god), but is an endangered species in this day and age. It's hard to believe that a town of 18,000 can't support a supermarket, which just confirms that people literally 'buy' into the thought that bigger is better.

On another forum, I posited the suggestion that the Maywood Marketplace is able to thrive as a small 'gourmet' supermarket, maybe that could be an option. I enjoyed shopping in my own town - and even though their negatives were incredibly obvious, they did contribute to the town events when needed.

[ghostrider]

I'll guess that the Shop-Rite just ddidn't have enough drive-in trade to survive. I lived clear over on the other side of town (Mountain Way) and it was actually easier to drive to Lyndhurst rather than make my way past the trafffic circle and snake in an out of their parking lot.

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Yep, I thought I'd noticed a fall-off in volume at the SR over the past year, but wasn't really sure because I'm a late-night shopper.

I was corrected today - the new Secaucus Walmart is not a Supercenter with full grocery department. I thought it was.

So it's the Costco and the bigger, more modern supermarkets that have taken the trade away.

I'm also wondering who is going to donate all those Thanksgiving turkeys and Easter hams to the Rutherford Elks now. I suppose they'll adapt.

[Cook456]

I grew up in Rutherford in the late 60's and there were three Supermarkets, then.

The Medical Center across from The Williams Center used to be a Grand Union. I lived on Sylvan Street and it was great having a store right down the street.

Also , where the Rite Aid is located on Park Ave was much larger Shop Rite with a liquor store next to it. The liquor store , which was privately owned, was also called Shoprite Liquors. If I remember correctly, it was then bought and became Tommy's Liquors..

It's a shame that the town can't keep one supermarket in the town or a good liquor store for that matter..one with some good wines for those BYOBs.

[jwjojo]

the good news...Keyfoods opened up in the old space. It is much nicer, although more pricey...happy to have a local supermarket again.

[ghostrider]

the good news...Keyfoods opened up in the old space.  It is much nicer, although more pricey...happy to have a local supermarket again.

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Couldn't have said it better....

Hope they can keep it going. Place seems pretty empty whenever I'm there but that's usually just before closing time.