By Sunayana Prabhu
TINTON FALLS – Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace is all set to open its first location in Monmouth County next month, on Shrewsbury Avenue in Tinton Falls.
“We are very excited about coming to Tinton Falls and Shrewsbury,” said Philip DelPrete, president and chairman of Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace. This will be the company’s third New Jersey location; it has stores in Ramsey and Morris Plains.
Hiring is underway at the supermarket for a grand opening slated for Friday, April 21. The specialty grocer is located at 990 Shrewsbury Ave., near Route 35, in a 56,000-square-foot leased building previously occupied by Acme and A&P.
With plans for Netflix Film studios underway on Fort Monmouth, many new developments and businesses are expected to sprout up along Route 35 to meet the demands of the neighborhood. German grocer Lidl opened its doors on Route 35 in Eatontown in 2018 and in 2022 Amazon created a buzz by launching Amazon Fresh, a high-tech grocery store with no checkout lines; the retail giant has not yet announced opening dates for its store on Wykoff Road.
The fact that Uncle Giuseppe’s will be accessible to new developments just down the road is exciting said DelPrete, but he is confident the location would be perfect for the neighborhood anyway, noting that the concept of Uncle Giuseppe’s is to bring old-time charm to an increasingly modernized world. Bringing back that charm is “important to us,” DelPrete said, even if “everybody seems to be going the other way.”
DelPrete said the store will not have self-checkouts. “We don’t believe in that,” he said. He also explained how the store brings each of the separate specialties – “your old-time meat store, the old-time fruit store, the old-time bakery, the old-time deli, the old-time butcher – all under one roof.”
The Italian supermarket promises gourmet specialty offerings but “not with the specialty prices,” DelPrete said. The shopping experience is geared toward community, from its setting to its food.
The new location has an Italian theme with Roman columns, an atrium and pictures of Italy throughout the store. The specialty grocer will also showcase its famous viewing rooms where customers can watch pasta and mozzarella being made fresh daily.
Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Farmingdale, New York.
It has 11 stores, eight located in New York (East Meadow, Smithtown, Port Washington, Port Jefferson Station, Massapequa, Melville, North Babylon and Yorktown Heights), and now three in New Jersey.
The article originally appeared in the March 30 – April 5, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
