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The 25,000 square foot, pitched-roof Acme in Chesterown, Maryland, will soon be expanded to 41,500 square feet! The fate of the pitched-roof interior is unknown but the roof will be covered over from the outside with a brand new facade. A rendering of the exterior upgrades can be seen by clicking here. An article with a few additional details can be found on MyEasterShoreMD.com by clicking here. The store is currently not featured on the blog but a few pictures are available over on flickr.


Acme has signed a long-term lease extension at the Lawrenceville Shopping Center in New Jersey. It appears there are still no plans for the store to expand into the former CVS next door. Reports mention the lease renewal is for 42,000 square feet which seems to be the current e size of the store. The entire shopping center will soon undergo a facelift which will include improvements to the facade, signage and parking lot. We'll have to wait and see if Acme will renovate their space as improvements happen to the rest of the complex. The store was last renovated in the late 90's with the Chalkboard Marketplace package. It's definitely due for an update. You can check out the store by clicking here.

A very interesting editorial by Mark Hamstra of SupermarketNews speculates that Alberstons is as interested in acquiring Safeway's management team as they are in acquiring the stores themselves. It is a fascinating read. He concludes the piece with…

"And although Safeway has left the Philadelphia area through its sale of its Genuardi’s banner, Albertsons’ Acme stores could eventually merge with Safeway’s presence in the Baltimore-Washington region. With Chicago closed down, Safeway Eastern is now the company’s smallest division with about 127 locations, but would nearly double that if it were to join forces with the 110-store Acme chain."

Jump over to the editorial by clicking here.




Acme has kicked off new low-price message in this week's circular. Gone is the "Card-Free Savings" message, replaced with "Acme getting BETTER every day". As I've mentioned before, I don't shop at Acme on regular basis as there are no stores in my area. Keeping an eye on the price situation is a little challenging for me. I do make a point now to do some shopping when I am out on my road trips because the sale prices have gotten really good. When Acme runs a special on coffee k-cups, you cannot find a lower price anywhere. Another example of a big price drop has been with Chobani greek yogurt. Acme used to feature it frequently as a "10 for $10" special. Lately they've had it on sale for 88¢. I do check the circular weekly and have notice that Alberstons has brought back a lot of Acme's fun, kitschy sales which were standard in the 80's and 90's. A few weeks ago they had a "loose change" sale where all the featured sale items were priced by the number of quarters required to purchase the items. At the very least, Acme is making efforts to differentiate itself from many of its competitors. Something that SuperValu flat out refused to do.

Here's a look at some screen grabs from this week circular. (The red color is not rendering properly on Acme's website which is why it's looking a little funky here.) You can view this week's circular by clicking here.






I really wish they would redesign their BOGO logo. It is awful. At the very least, grab the one used by Shaw's and Alberstons. It's about a million times better. Click here for a look.