The Kings supermarket chain has had a store in my hometown of West Caldwell, New Jersey for years, but when it announced it was closing, it came as something of a shock. I figured it made sense, as the Kings is an upscale grocery store that appeals to bourgeois suburbanites, and given the bad state of the economy, I figured business must have slowed at the West Caldwell Kings dramatically.
It turns out the store lost its lease, not its customers. Kings obviously didn't want to close its West Caldwell store, but it apparently couldn't keep the lease it had with the development company that ran the shopping center it was located in. Rumor has it - and I'm reporting it as a rumor, because I have no facts to go on - that the shopping center wants a bigger market to replace Kings and add to its square footage the vacant drug store next door. This would be ironic, as the West Caldwell Kings was noticeably bigger than other Kings stores in Essex County, New Jersey. (It had once been a Stop & Shop, a chain that's still around.)
In the meantime, another supermarket in town, the local ShopRite a few blocks away from Kings, is courting Kings customers to apply for a discount card with them. This is kind of amusing, as ShopRite is much more middlebrow than Kings is.
I'll miss Kings, even though we mostly shop at ShopRite. It was expensive, but it had good meat, and a nice café near the bakery department, and it was a sedate, calming place to shop in. The other Kings stores near where I live are too far out of our way.
With the closure of Kings, the cucumber magnolia tree in town that is New Jersey's oldest is now West Caldwell's most significant landmark. :-D
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The landlord had nothing to do with it. That space was originally Stop & Shop until the chain left the NJ/NY market in 1981. Stop & Shop kept the lease and sublet the space to Kings. Several years ago, Kings forget to renew the sublease, so Stop & Shop told them to vacate. Kings sued, Kings lost, Kings is gone.
The old Walgreens space was also subleased from Stop & Shop, which owned the Medi-Mart that was originally there. The new Stop & Shop is breaking through the wall and will include that space as well.
Thanks for clearing all of that up, like I said, I was only reporting the rumor. Your input is greatly appreciated.
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