Fresh Grocer on 40th and Walnut is scheduled to close March 31st

[FindingZen]

Originally Posted by selhars

A Wegman's in UC would be GREAT!
Free parking (like TJ's or WFs) -- and I'd be a regular.
I love Wegman's.


There's not a square block some developer could tear down in or near UC somewhere.
Heck, how about somewhere near 41st-44th and Market/Powelton?

The problem is that there are established businesses and, especially on Powelton, homes along much of that stretch. Perhaps the Rite Aid at the nexus of 44th, Market and Powelton could be enticed to move - another Rite Aid is just a few blocks southwest - but even that would be a tight fit.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by FKD19124

The Fresh Grocer up off of city ave is pretty good. Sorry to hear the other one didn't work out.

The one closing at 40th and Walnut was there for 20 years though.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by rowhomecity

From the last thing I read Acme was going in its place.

Here is the article. https://www.thedp.com/article/2020/0...cme-penn-lease

Acme is definitely better than Fresh Grocer. Fresh Grocer is gross imo.

People love to rat on Acme. If you shop their sale items, it really is not that expensive. They also pay their employees fair wages as they are a union organized store which I think is a positive.

They have gotten much more competitive with sale items. A strategy they adopted about 3 years ago. I think few have acknowledged it.

I think grocery workers deserve fair wages too, and in general, I also support unions.

But ShopRite stores - and Fresh Grocer has been part of the ShopRite cooperative for going on four years now - are also unionized, and I'm sorry, but both their regular prices and their specials are cheaper - Wakefern-affiliated supermarkets are the low price leaders in the markets where they operate.

I shop at the Fresh Grocer of La Salle regularly, and while the store could be neater and the staff a little more attentive, it's a decent supermarket. About the only thing I would hope for is that Jeff Brown buys out the Burns family, but that's not likely.

(Brown's Super Stores Inc. operates three of the eight Fresh Grocer locations: Cedarbrook Plaza in Wyncote, Wynnefield Heights and 69th Street below Marshall Road in Upper Darby. All the others are operated by Ron Burns and his family. Frankly, I think one reason the Burns stores are perceived as less appealing is because of their pale-and-dark-green color schemes, which I find less, um, palatable than the earth tones and reds (and nicer graphics) found in the Brown-run stores.)

I've priced out Acme's "Buy 1 Get 2 Free" sparerib specials, and the cost per pound remains higher than the $1.88 I pay at Fresh Grocer when they put spareribs on sale. And it runs like that whenever I compare specials.

I used to shop at Acme all the time when I lived in Wash West; back then, during the first Albertson's ownership, the chain was very price-competitive. It is no longer, IMO, and I know others have made the same observation - including one of my Phillymag colleagues:

Acme Was Once the Dominant Supermarket in Philly. What Went Wrong? | Philadelphia Magazine

Shifting gears: I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a Wegmans to open within the city limits. Even though the chain's store in a former Brooklyn Navy Yard building demonstrates that they are now amenable to working within urban confines, they still want large-footprint sites, and those remain pretty scarce in Philadelphia. And FWIW, even though Wegmans treats its employees well - the company routinely tops "best places to work" surveys - the chain isn't unionized.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by kyb01

The one closing at 40th and Walnut was there for 20 years though.

It's the ur-Fresh Grocer, the store Penn asked the owner of the Drexeline supermarket in Drexel Hill to create. (That store was rebadged as a Fresh Grocer too eventually, as was a store Ron Burns operated in the Beverly Hills shopping center in Upper Darby that he later closed. When Ron Burns bought into Wakefern, he sold Wakefern the Fresh Grocer trademark and rebadged the Drexel Hill store as a ShopRite.)

And had the owner simply been a little more diligent about re-upping the lease, he might still be in business there.

But if the new Acme resembles the remodeled 10th and South or 180 W. Girard Ave. stores in any way, it will be more attractive than that Fresh Grocer.