4454 Black Horse Pike
Welcome to the Mays Landing Acme!
It's our second time in Mays Landing! We saw the Walmart Supercenter in town back in September, and now we're taking a tour of their Acme. The store opened in 1990 as the anchor to the Festival at Hamilton center, featuring the 80's Superstore layout. It received the Industrial Circus remodel in the 2000's, and more recently Quality Built. Despite the white signage on the outside, it never had any variation of the Premium Fresh & Healthy decor. Let our tour begin!
The welcome signage is being obscured by Halloween snack displays, which I'm sure are all stocked for Christmas now. We're entering on the left side to the store's grand aisle.
Produce is to the left upon entering. This prototype was prior to the iconic Acme produce alcove, so this department is kind of just out in the open.
Fresh meat and seafood are located in the right corner. The backsplash, which is also found in the deli, is another Industrial Circus leftover.
Lancaster meats and the corner deli are in their usual places along the back wall.
A look down aisle 6, the location of frozen foods in the store. You'll never guess which decor that tile is from.
HABA in aisle 12, which ends by the pharmacy.
Dairy rounds out the food departments, located in the last aisle on the left wall. The dairy aisle here is wider than most I've seen in an Acme.
Pharmacy and greeting cards are in the front left corner. I wonder why they bothered to hang an empty aisle marker.
Customer service faces the checkouts along the front end.
Other Images of Interest
Street View Images
2016
The exterior is looking the same here as it does today other than the apple-filled windows. To see the store in 2006 before the current signage was added, click here.
Nearby competition
0.4 miles away: Walmart Supercenter of Mays Landing
This is an Airport store that opened in October 1994 and was expanded into a Supercenter in October 2012. We've toured this store in this past, and you can click here to see that post.
2.7 miles away: ShopRite of English Creek
Next week, we'll be touring the English Creek ShopRite located down the road in Egg Harbor Township. It's owned by Village Super Markets and is pretty much completely unchanged inside and out since opening in 1987.
And that concludes our tour of the Mays Landing Acme! This was a nice and clean store, and I like the look of the decor, but for some reason it feels much older than it actually is. It also seemed pretty significantly less busy than the ShopRite, although the stores have coexisted for almost 34 years now so I doubt that means much. See you at ShopRite next week! Sincerely, The Retail Connection.
That was neat seeing the remnant from the old Acme oval logo sign in the 2006 photo you linked to - I'm surprised that lasted on the building for so long. It seems strange seeing the oval logo on a building like this, so this must have been one of the last few stores to open before the block letter logo rolled out.
ReplyDeleteThe Industrial Circus flooring actually matches Quality Built well too. It's not a perfect match but the muted colors of Quality Built and the floor tiles mesh well so the mismatch doesn't jump out as significantly.
Thanks for commenting! (Side note: your comment is the 100th comment on this blog!)
DeleteIt's definitely strange to see the remnant of that logo on such a new store. I believe the current logo was first launched around 1992, but didn't fully replace the oval one until around 1997. There were a few stores in northeast PA that got the current logo before the Insalaco's sale in 1995, which is really weird to think about.
I agree that the flooring matches quite well. Quality Built goes with pretty much anything. I think the worst match is the College Square store, which has Quality Built with 90s Pathmark tiled flooring in the grand aisle. The worst Acme decor mix ever has to be the 80's Remodel checkered flooring with the plain Santa Fe remodel, which was seen in the University Plaza and Westtown stores. That was a horrible clash.
I'm very excited to see the English Creek ShopRite! I am a Village enthusiast myself and, of course, the store was originally owned by Starns -- it's hard to miss on the outside, which to this day says Starns:
ReplyDeletehttps://maps.app.goo.gl/oEdy6FkSRnidsGQY6
I love the old logo and can't wait to see the inside!
Oh, also two small things: it looks like English Creek actually opened March 8, 1988, and a correction to myself, Village bought Starn's in 1986 so that store was Village-owned from the beginning.
DeleteThanks! The ShopRite is awesomely 80s and I'm considering it the NJ Grand Finale for this year.
DeleteThanks for the opening date! Ironically enough, I was just reading an article from the Press of Atlantic City called "Looking back at shopping centers and malls in South Jersey", which had some great classic retail photos including one of the English Creek Jamesway (now Ollie's). Apparently, that store opened on September 17, 1987, so it must've been before ShopRite.
Also, I did know this store opened as a Village store despite the Starn's signage. I'm guessing it was developed by Starn's before they were acquired by Village, but I don't know why they kept the signage if it was never actually a Starn's store.