I went to four more Stop & Shops in Central Jersey today. Maybe it was just a particularly bad day for a particularly bad four stores, but I really feel like we're almost counting down the days here. Once again, all the stores were devoid of any and all customers.
Started at Inman Avenue in Edison, a former Grand Union. Looks pretty nice, and was generally in the best shape of any of the stores I saw today, but the first warning sign was
rows of empty flower/plant shelving outside. Normal enough, we're in between seasons, so on and so forth, okay. But then you get inside and you have
empty produce shelves,
empty meat shelves,
empty egg shelves, and a
completely empty meat counter.
Then it was on to Piscataway, where I've been before (and it still actually has the
Edwards decor inside). Empty shelves all over the place again. And there are things that continue to be a problem I've seen before (toothpaste, deodorant,
organic vegetables) plus new things like
grapes and
dish soap.
Up next was the Easton Avenue store in Somerset. This store was an absolute mess. I went to the
Fairfield Avenue Stop & Shop in Bridgeport, CT about a month and a half before it closed for good, and that was in better shape than this one. It's an enormous, 75,000 square foot former Super Stop & Shop, and there's an even bigger abandoned Kmart next to it. It still has the "Taste & Time" decor and maintenance is terrible -- check out
how dingy it is because of the number of burnt-out lights. The store is way too big, with
big holes in grocery (including things like
chicken broth, which seems to be a problem at all the S&S stores), a
salad bar filled with Gatorade,
empty meat cases,
minimal bottled water, and an absolute mess of a HABA/baby department (
1,
2,
3,
4,
5, and
6). The
natural food department seems to be long gone (although I believe aisle 1 now has some natural foods). I have to imagine this store is reaching the end of its life.
Kendall Park also has Taste & Time, and is even bigger at over 80,000 square feet. It seems to do alright but has all the same problems,
especially in HABA, and the massive salad bar/olive bar/prepared foods bar, which runs around multiple sides of an island in the grand aisle, is stocked with
grab-and-go cold cuts and other random deli items.
Most interesting thing? I was eavesdropping at Easton Avenue, and I heard two people who I would assume were department managers or something like that talking about how they were both frustrated with how little product they had. One said she tried to face and organize what they did have, but "then they get mad" and someone, I assume a store manager or something, has told the department managers not to face or fill empty shelves. Reminds me of the terrible implementation of the
order to shelf system at Whole Foods a few years ago. On the one hand, I wonder if something like that is going on here, but on the other, I have to think the empty shelves coupled with the empty and barely staffed stores (three registers was the most I saw open today), and the fact that so many of the stores are in bad repair, something bigger is behind this. Plus, why would a program like that only be going on at Stop & Shop and none of the other Ahold Delhaize chains? If this is simply the "new normal" for how Stop & Shop stores are run, they must have some of the lowest standards of any grocery chain in the northeast.
)