OLD TAPPAN, N.J.—An anchor store in Old Tappan’s Bi-State Plaza—which opened less than four years ago—was planning to close down by mid-July, according to an employee and social media posts.
Foodtown of Old Tappan, 216 Old Tappan Road, which replaced the former A&P in 2015, was holding a 25 percent off clearance sale on the entire supermarket, which was initially announced on Facebook July 6.
“Business is good today because of the sale…but [store] traffic is not good here,” said a longtime employee July 11, who answered the phone and confirmed the supermarket was planning to close on July 18 or thereabouts, as she said she had been told by the owner.
The employee, who said she had worked for the former A&P, too, said it seemed more people used the supermarket as a convenience store and not a supermarket, generally only buying a few items when they shopped there.
She attributed its demise to a lack of shoppers, exacerbated by a lack of bus stops and no nearby major highways from which shoppers could gain store access.
“We’ve tried really hard to make it in this community,” said the longtime employee. “But this is such a large space to fill. The owner tried a lot of things (sales, promotions, specials, contests) to try to keep us open and draw more customers, but things did not work out,” she added.
The Foodtown owner is listed as John Estevez, and in a separate 2016 published report, Estevez and his family were reported to have continuously operated supermarkets in the metropolitan area since 1972, including then nine currently operating supermarkets.
“A lot of customers here know us and they’ll miss us,” said the employee.
She said with three nearby ShopRite supermarkets in Norwood, Hillsdale and Emerson, competition is intense for shoppers.
“And this is the anchor of the shopping center here. What are you going to do? We certainly tried our best to make it and it wasn’t enough,” said the longtime employee.