Wanamassa Foodtown Closing; Liquor Store Will Be Expanded
By DON STINE
The Wanamassa Foodtown on Sunset Avenue in Ocean Township will be closing its doors Sat., Sept. 29 much to the dismay of shoppers.
Joseph Azzolina, president of Food Circus Super Markets Inc., based in Middletown, said the store is closing because its sales volume is too low and too many larger, competing stores have opened in the area.
Food Circus owns 10 food stores – seven in Monmouth County, two in Ocean County and one in Middlesex County.
Economically its just not feasible to keep the store open. I feel bad about it but there are just too many food stores in the area and people just dont want to shop in the smaller stores anymore. The area is saturated with food stores and the market is a changing concept and we have to change with it, he said.
Azzolina cited stores such as Wegmans, Costco, and Wal-Mart as part of the problem.
I dont mind losing a bit of money but we have been losing a lot of money lately, he said.
Azzolina said the liquor store, which is a separate company, will remain open and be expanded. He said the one-week notice of the stores closing was so the liquor store can be expanded in time for the upcoming holiday season.
We may have a convenience store at the building later but we are still developing these plans and its something we are not ready to announce yet, he said.
Azzolina said his company does not own the 20,000-square-foot store but leases it. The store opened in 1970.
We are hoping people will go to our Oakhurst Foodtown (at Route 35 and Deal Road) which is larger and has more variety, he said.
Azzolina said all employees are in a union and will not lose their jobs but be transferred to another store, probably the Oakhurst store.
We are short of help there anyway and can absorb the employees, he said.
Area shoppers at the Wanamassa Foodtown said they are dismayed and upset about the closing and will now most likely have to cross major highways in the area to go shopping.
Its very sad. Its the closing of a landmark store in the neighborhood. It was always very convenient and quick to go there. And most of the time you could always find what you wanted, said Wanamassa resident Marie Rice.
Rice said she has been shopping at the Foodtown since it opened and said she feels partly responsible for its closing- as should other area residents.
Its shame. Wegmans and other stores come to the area and they are so large and glitzy and everybody heads there. I think its our fault for not supporting our local market. I know I have shopped at Wegmans and I dont think we have been as loyal as we should have been. We have all been guilty and now it is coming back to bite us, she said.
This will not only be an inconvenience to the shoppers but a real hardship for some of the workers. I know a lot of senior citizens also walk or are bussed to the Foodtown to do their shopping, she said.
Wanamassa resident Barbara Gould, who has bad knees, spinal problems, and osteoporosis, said she is also a long-time Foodtown shopper who will greatly miss the store.
I have been going there for so many years. Its convenient and I know where everything is. I can make out my shopping list by the aisle and do a whole weeks shopping in about half an hour. The other food stores in the area are too far away and too big for me to walk through. This means I will not be able to go shopping by myself anymore, she said.
Im really up the creek. In my situation I am not going to get any better physically, she said.
Gould said she always appreciated the close handicapped parking spaces to the store and the fact the employees would help her put groceries in her car.
I feel sorry for the many people who work there also. They really are like a family that shoppers got to know over the years. Its a nice neighborhood market where people will talk to you- unlike the newer stores.
Gould, a former Board of Education member, said the store would even announce to shoppers when the public schools were closing because of snow.
Eileen Chapman, who lives in Asbury Park, said she had been shopping at the store since the early 1970s
There is a place for larger food stores but I think there is also a place for smaller stores. This store closing seems to be like the example of smaller, retail shops leaving the downtowns to go to larger commercial centers and, actually, I think that is changing. There is a trend now of people coming back to the smaller stores with better service and I am disappointed that Foodtown cant try to wait this out and see if this trend builds up, she said.
Chapman said she believes many people dont like walking around the larger stores
The Wanamassa Foodtown was the only store that made shopping work for me. I could run through the aisles and be home quickly. If I ran out of something I needed while preparing a meal I could run to the store and be back in 10 minutes. Thats something you just cant do in these larger food stores, she said.
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