Acme closing another NJ grocery store in weeks

Aside from a quick trip inside the Acme grocery store at Ortley Plaza in Seaside Heights in roughly 2018, I haven’t been to any other Acmes in many years. I think there was one at Rahway on Elizabeth Avenue when I was a kid, but it may have been an A&P, one of their big rivals back then.

So to me, I feel like Acme is homesick. They were once the number one grocery chain in the Delaware Valley, but by 2013 they had fallen to third place.

While the Acme locations have been closing, there are still plenty around. There are currently 162 Acme stores in total, 47 of them in New Jersey. However, it was just announced that the number will drop next month to 161 and 46 respectively.

The ACME in Middlesex is scheduled to close permanently on February 3 according to NJ.com. No specific reason was given for the closure, although last year the chain lost its Morris Plains location for lack of agreement on a lease extension. That place had been there for forty years.

The chain has a very long history. Here’s an ad from 44 years ago, in 1977. Look at these stylish blue jackets!

And the chain has been around much longer than that. Acme has been with us for over 130 years. Two Irish immigrants, Robert Crawford and Samuel Robinson, opened the first store in South Philadelphia in 1891. From there, the chain grew through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Connecticut. However, I’m not sure when those blue jackets appeared.

Opinions expressed in the above post are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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