Closing Time: Merchandise, Memories Must Go at Pathmark

Everything must go, including the shelving.

As previously, the Pathmark grocery store located on Route 35 will be shutting its doors for good on Friday, April 15.

One of 32 Pathmark stores slated for closing due to a "beyond hope" of financial/restorative redemption, the Middletown store's closure will mark the end of a month of sudden change for those directly involved with the store: the employees and longtime shoppers.

Middletown resident and longtime customer Margaret Sinilikoff is upset with the impending shuttering of the store. “The senior citizens building that’s here (Daniel Towers on New Monmouth Road) ... I’ve taken those people shopping, and to the doctors and to the bank, but a lot of them were still able to come over here with their little carts to get a couple things, have a good walk and some time out," she said. "Now they don’t have that. What are they going to do?”   

On a recent visit, a handful of employees manned the aisles, hanging signs alerting customers of price reductions and consolidating merchandise on the shelves. Empty sections of refrigerator space, the absence of magazines and tabloids by the registers, and the thinning supply of perishables are stark indications of what happens when stock goes out the door and is not replaced.

The employees are reticent about talking of the situation. With a still hobbled economy and job market, they say they do not want to make waves and jeopardize their last few guaranteed weeks of paychecks.

They have been given an employment option by the main corporate entity, The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P), of Montville, that few, if any, can accept.  Having held out hope that they could be relocated to other stores under the company’s banner, the locations offered are all far away and out of the county, in towns such as Jersey City, South Orange and Newark.

A&P purchased Pathmark in 2007. Before that, the grocery chain had bordered bankruptcy another time in 2000.

An employee, who asked not to be named, muttered that "they (corporate bosses) don’t want to encourage us to stay,"anyway. Middletown Patch made several requests for a comment from A&P regarding updates on the relocation offer and/or employee separation compesation packages.

No one in corporate has responded to any of our several requests for comment. No township officials or real estate agents have given any indication of what is to replace the store.

Several curiosity seekers have stopped in to look around. A shopper who would only identify herself as Nicole from Hazlet was unimpressed. “Yeah, we wanted to see the prices," she said. "But the prices at ShopRite are much cheaper (than Pathmark), even with their sale.”

The usually overflowing seasonal goods aisle has a small selection of Easter candy and other similar items left — nowhere near the normal stock usually filling the shelves. Breads are on sale for 10 percent off and dairy items are marked at 2o percent discounts.

A sign indicates the items will be marked 30 percent off at the register. Everything in the store is marked down, with turkeys currently the biggest draw at 50 percent off according to a sign on the door, and the discounts are slated to go higher as the days creep closer to April 15.

The clearance will include all merchandise in the store. The shelving and equipment will be part of an online auction moderated by Grafe Auctions, a company that specializes in commercial equipment and real estate auctions.

In the early 1980's, the location had VHS videocassettes for rent, a small selection of vinyl record albums were sold, and Mr. T brand cereal, and a line of canned and boxed goods in plain white packaging were also on the racks. The conceit was that the lack of colorful labeling allowed a lower cost to the consumer.

Signs in the store's windows assure pharmacy customers that, unless other arrangements are made, their prescription records will be transferred automatically to the A&P store in Holmdel.

As an alternative, two large signs in the windows of neighboring Sun Ray Drugs invite the customers who used Pathmark’s prescription department to transfer prescriptions to the store. That holds a particular poetry for those who remember the shopping center that now houses Pathmark and SunRay from back in the 1970’s.

Where Sun Ray is now once was the Neisner’s department store. The building the Pathmark occupies was once split into two, originally housing Grant’s department store and, ironically, the original Sun Ray Drugs location.

In a textbook case of serendipity, Stop & Shop, located on the southbound side of Route 35, is now, on the cusp of Pathmark's closing, celebrating a grand re-opening after an extensive remodeling project. The remodel began in early January, long before the announcement of Pathmark’s closure.

The site formerly housed the Grand Union grocery store, before Shop&Stop. In previous years, the shopping center was also home to the classic Two Guys department store and, later, Bradlees, both having been in the space Kohl’s now occupies.

Pathmark was many people's go-to discount supermarket store for many years. Just about any no frills daily and/or longterm housewares gadget, emergency staple or food item could be gathered and purchased in one trip.

What will eventually reside there remains to be seen, whether it continues as a large alternative grocery store or is sublet into smaller subdivided space leases hosting other services.

Melancholy afforded to the passing of a grocery store may be misplaced for some, but it seems very much like another chapter’s end for many in the township. Margaret Sinilikoff will not soon forget the store. “I’m very upset," she said on one of her last trips to Pathmark. "I’ve been coming here for years, but what can you do about it?”