The Acmes of Middletown Delaware

Photos courtesy of Jacob V

Location: 460 E Main St, Middletown, DE

The Middletown Acme opened in 2003 as part of a boom of newly constructed stores under the first round of Alberstsons' leadership. The new store replaced a tiny, decades old Acme in town. The Middletown store is one of only four Acmes to have been built with the Theme Park interior, also know by its official name... Grocery Palace. All of that tricked out décor has recently been sent to the dump. The store received a relatively extensive Quality Built remodel with the store layout and décor being dramatically simplified. It's interesting to see how much work Acme put into this store to make it... boring. I'll let you be the judge but I think I prefer the store before the remodel. For all the work that was done, the Theme Park floor was left unchanged aside from patching areas which were scarred from departments being relocated.

A couple supplemental exterior views from google maps which explains the odd perspectives.

The Deli is just to the left of the entrance with Produce to the rear. Huge changes were made in the front of the store where a large Floral Department and Pharmacy were freestanding departments on the sales floor.

Floral was significantly downsized and moved to this area. "Before" photos are included below following our tour of the remodeled store.

Not sure if new blue tile has been put up in the Deli or if the old tile was painted over the previous tile like it was in Willingboro.

Middletown got the stunningly beautiful Bakery display cases! The lighting, the signage, the wood veneer... there are times when Acme knocks it straight out of the park and this is one of them. This area of the Bakery was completely overhauled. Hardwood flooring from the former Wild Harvest aisle extended into the Bakery has been replaced. You can see white tile now extending out from the Charmin display.

Checkerboard flooring in aisle 6 is left over from Health and Beauty which has been moved to a new location.

I've supplemented Jacob's photos with some photos from catnapped on flickr. Between the two of them, we're getting some fanatic tours of the Delaware stores!

You can see the wood paneling remains from the original Meat and Seafood department, simply painted over now. Again, either new tile on the back walls here or it's been painted over.

No more barn above the milk!

The Dairy floor looks like something out of an Atari 2600 game!

Health and Beauty was relocated to the front corner from the grocery aisles. This area used to be, oddly enough, the Shop The World department.

Guess the state and incorporate date are officially back! Well, for the Delaware stores anyway.

The Pharmacy was moved from it's freestanding location just inside the entrance over to the previous home of Customer Service.

Have to ask... why its't "PHARMACY" centered?

Self-checkouts survived!

Signage here probably wasn't updated since the wall would be a mess once the original words were removed.

REMODEL UNDERWAY >>>

These are some fun photos from catnapped showing the remodel in progress. The new Customer Service counter being assembled.

The original Deli wall tile seen here.

A ton of work was done to the walls to remove all the previous décor.

You can see the original wall tile in this photo.

TURNING BACK TIME >>>

Now were jumping back a few years to see the store prior to the Quality Built remodel. These photos are a mix from 2011 and 2015. Some were sent in by Will from flickr. Some others are from an unknown source. I filed them away a long time ago and lost track of who sent them in.

You can see above the Deli the amount of décor that had to be removed from the walls to transition to the simple Quality Built painted walls.

Honestly, I like the Produce Department much better in the "before" photos!

Flooring here was swapped out for plain white tiles.

The Bakery was stripped bare of all its previous décor elements for the remodel...

Repeating this photo just show the significant changes made to this area.

The beverage and snack aisles weren't as tricked out here as they were in Milltown.

I'll miss the barn most of all!

It does make a lot more sense to have Health & Beauty in this corner with Shop the World moved to the grocery aisles.

The Pharmacy is now in the former Customer Service alcove.

You can see the freestanding Floral and Pharmacy Departments in these photos.

AERIAL VIEWS

Giant is just down the road. I believe Acme was first to arrive in this part of town with Giant following shortly after. Both stores were built between 2002 and 2006.