Stop & Shop
Opened: 2015
Previous Tenants: Waldbaum's
Location: 999 Montauk Hwy, Shirley, NY
Post Author: Alexweb8
Surely, this was not originally a Stop & Shop. Surely, it's the Shirley store...
...and don't call me Shirley.
This Stop & Shop is quite fresh. If your A&P detector is going off, that only means it's working. This is the old Shirley Waldbaum's store. And by "old," we mean 1990. This was not a popular time for A&P to be building stores on Long Island. That said, there were a few, and they are certainly not without their quirks. After acquiring the Waldbaum's chain in 1986, our friends in Montvale decided that the Waldbaum's name resonated well enough with Lawn Guylanders--despite the lack of consensus regarding its pronunciation--that no newly opened stores would carry the A&P name.
For better or worse, the integration of Waldbaum's into the Tea Company family was slow-going. At the time that the Shirley store opened, the chain still retained a glimmer of independence, and this was reflected in the store design. (Sorry, no Waldbaum's Futurestores.)
The Shirley Waldbaums, along with the rest of the South Port Shopping Center, opened in 1990 on the site of the former Shirley Drive-In. The interior originally featured Waldbaum's "leaf decor" featuring the italicized lowercase department names. It received a remodel in the early 2000s.
After A&P's acquisition of Pathmark, the now-redundant Shirley Waldbaum's was sold to Stop & Shop, and it couldn't have come at a less fortunate time--the piss era, when the folks at Royal Ahold were happy as pigs in shit to plaster the interior with yellow and purple decor. Don't ask me why.
It's 2019, and we are finally flushing the toilet on this atrocity. Like the majority of Stop & Shops on Long Island, this store is receiving upgrades as part of the chain's current effort to reinvent the brand.
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| Waldbaum's had a thing for curves in their interiors. |
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| A slightly different variant of the new aisle markers from what we've been seeing |
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| Those curves..... |
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| Newly installed faux-slate flooring |
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| A surviving Waldbaum's relic...2000s Killion checkstands. Nice woodgrains. |
Self checkouts have not been replaced yet, but with the way things have been going, it's probably only a matter of time before these IBM 600-series units make way for a corral of Toshibas.
Before we leave, a quick reminder to recycle from your friendly neighborhood A&P frog and turtle:
"This is Bob Barker reminding you to help control the pet population -- have your [frogs and turtles] spayed or neutered."
I'm not surprised the store got remodeled - a large portion of S&S on LI are getting a remodel with the new old logo. I am surprised that this store got the hot bar, smoothies, and managed to fit the bullpen selfscans in the store. This store feels pretty small considering most of their stores opened/rebuilt in the 2000's here.
ReplyDeleteThe next closest store, Medford, is getting hot garbage in comparison, unless they spring a surprise in. No hot bar, no real prepared food improvements. Hey, at least it kept Starbucks, a rarity in S&S nowadays. Medford feels really small despite being big. The usage of space during the last remodel declined heavily from when it first opened in 2005 (replacing a late 80's Finast/Edwards/S&S)