Lidl | Egg Harbor Township, NJ

 

3121 Fire Road

Welcome to the Egg Harbor Township Lidl!

Welcome back to The Retail Connection! Today, we're in the township of Egg Harbor, located in Atlantic County just a few miles away from shore towns like Atlantic City and Ocean City. Instead of enjoying the boardwalk or the beach today, though, we'll be taking a tour of this Lidl. First, a short history. Genuardi's opened here on February 14, 2001, about a week after their acquisition by Safeway. The Genuardi's division closed in 2012, with many Pennsylvania stores being sold to GIANT (which doesn't operate in New Jersey). No buyer of this store was named, and the store closed in December 2012, eliminating another grocery store from the town after Pathmark closed earlier that year on March 2. The store sat vacant until JR's Fresh Market, a Thriftway/Shop N Bag and later Foodtown affiliate, took the space over from 2015 to 2018. Lidl opened in most of the building on April 14, 2021. Without further adieu, let's begin our tour!

Heading in through the iconic Genuardi's tower...

This store has a different decor package from what we saw in Folsom. The New Jersey flag in the heart is a nice touch.

We enter to the left to the bakery, Lidl's only in-store fresh department. I think I prefer this look over the older one. I like the fake chalkboard signs. By the way, if you've never been in a Lidl before, I think you should know that you can smell the bakery no matter where you are in the store. That's just another thing to love about Lidl.

The produce market is across from the bakery. Interestingly, the produce sign is unchanged from the previous decor.

Seafood and meats are in refrigerators in the back left corner. I really like the "floating" freezers in this store. We'll see them again later on.

Deli meats and cheeses are behind the refrigerators on the back wall. The signage here is definitely much clearer and more noticeable than it was before. See the same area in Folsom for comparison.

General merchandise is in the middle of the store. This Lidl in particular had quite a lot of beach and pool supplies, probably because this store isn't far from the shore.

Frozen foods and the rest of dairy are on the right wall.

Here we see those interesting freezers again. I've never seen anything like them before.

Looking down aisle 7. The aisle markers are hung above the shelves as opposed to above the aisle. I can't say I care for that idea.

Registers along the front end, as per usual. I was intrigued by that "Egg Harbor Township community wall", but it didn't really have anything on it other than ads for Lidl's magazine.

Purpose-built Lidl stores have all glass along the front end, so it's interesting to see decor on the front wall.

Lidl didn't take over the entire Genuardi's/JR's building, so there's a small part on the end still vacant and looking like a Genuardi's. This was the entrance to the Signature Cafe back in the Genuardi's days. Check out Josh Austin's Flickr page to see a photo of this store back in June 2012 when it was still Genuardi's.

Other Images of Interest

Street View Images

2017

The store was JR's Fresh Market and affiliated with Foodtown at the time of this picture. By the way, if you're interested in seeing photos of this store when it was still JR's (which retained the Safeway decor from Genuardi's), click here.

Nearby competition

4.4 miles away: ShopRite of English Creek

This ShopRite on Black Horse Pike co-anchors the English Creek Shopping Center with an Ollie's (former Jamesway). This store opened sometime in the 80's as a Starn's ShopRite, and was sold to Village Super Market in 1986. It retains the "STARN'S" logo on the side of the building, as you can see. Unfortunately we won't be getting to see this store, but I hope to get to it sometime soon. Sleeve Did It has a video touring this store, if you're interested in seeing it. Also, there's an Aldi across the street from this ShopRite, but I didn't get a picture of that.

Thanks for checking out this Lidl with me! While the earlier Lidl stores in the US have beautiful exteriors, the newer ones have very nice decor on the inside. Personally, I'm a big fan of Lidl stores, and this one was no exception. I'm also glad to see an older supermarket building reused and still selling groceries. Thanks for reading and see you next week! The Retail Connection: Rethink grocery.