Tour: SuperFresh - Havertown, Pennsylvania

Photos courtesy of Catnapped Retail Central (archived)

Welcome to Havertown! This ACME originally opened as a SuperFresh in 1998 on the site of a former Penn Fruit arch store. SuperFresh, having been originally located at 403 West Chester Pike (PA-3) (just a few blocks away from the current store). From what I can tell from the store and talking to some former employees online, this SuperFresh was quite successful as a result of its' excellent location and selection.

Havertown itself is located between Interstate 476, Pennsylvania Route 3 (PA-3), and U.S. Route 1; Northwest of Philadelphia-- just below Bryn Mawr. The majority of the town is taken up with cookie-cutter row houses; but is also home to Haverford College in the adjacent town, similarly named Haverford.

This store actually has two entrances: one facing the parking lot on Eagle Road, and another facing West Chester Pike; similar to last week's A&P in West New York, which also had two entrances.

This store has the Fresh 3.0 decor, which is the last version of the Fresh Market concept that A&P had tried out prior to its' first bankruptcy in 2009. It is imagery-based, just like Fresh 2.0, but also includes 'icons' of each department that were consistent with A&P and SuperFresh's websites at the time.

This store opened with the 90's Foodmarket decor, as indicative by the 90's Centennial facade and the uplighting below each department's icon and imagery.

Keeping with the Fresh Market format, the Fresh 3.0 format embellishes on prepared foods, deli, and service meat/seafood to maximize profitability and a sufficient customer experience. (Did I mention it promotes impulse buys?)

The Meat/Seafood section is quite large here... it takes up nearly a whole side (albeit, a short side) of this oddly laid-out store.

You may be wondering "Why is everything up against a wall here?" ...because this store isn't your typical rectangle. It actually has twenty sides to it (if you include the delivery bays). Check out this satellite capture of it and you'll see what I mean. And yes, the dairy aisle here is in one of the middle corners of the store, which I think is a very odd choice, which goes against the good shopping 'flow'.

After the dairy aisle you can see that there's a large bakery, which features a lot of cakes in the refrigerator cases in the center of the photo here, as well as the several tables they have set up.

(Also, notice the weird Dairy icon. Two ovals. Brilliant.)

Not the most attractive bagel and donut case I've seen. It appears to be a rehashed case from the 90's Foodmarket days.

I usually would say "This store tops off at nineteen aisles." ...but I'm not sure if that's the case here. I'll say nineteen for now, although I have a feeling it's twenty with that dairy aisle.

Heading towards the front end we can see a glimpse of what this store really used to look like in the SuperFresh days. Take a look at those black-framed light fixtures to the left. Yes, this store used to have a black drop-ceiling and spotlights for most of the lighting around the store. To see what this would've looked like, check out the South Street, Philadelphia SuperFresh we covered.

ACME replaced SuperFresh's self-checkouts with a few of their own Express lanes, which I think is ages better than any self-checkout nowadays for many reasons; such as theft reduction, phasing out of employees (and therefore more out of work), and even just overall human interaction. We are social beings, after all.

Thank you Catnapped Retail Central for some excellent coverage once again! 

SuperFresh of Havertown

1305 West Chester Pike
Havertown, PA 19083

SuperFresh > ACME Markets