We’ve been meaning to check out the Pennington Quality Market in Pennington, NJ for quite a while.

Why? Because it’s part of a unique supermarket “chain” (for lack of better words) that exists in NJ.

We mention this “chain” every week in our Supermarket Roundup VLOG – which is located directly on Route 22 in Whitehouse, NJ – and that is Bishops Supermarket.

It’s part of the IGA food co-op, which comprises of a multitude of independently owned and operated LOCAL supermarket businesses.

Often, we like to support Bishop’s in Whitehouse, because they’re just truly local people providing a service. A very small market with obvious limitations based on their physical footprint.

Pennington Market is a pretty good place to shop!

For one – and this isn’t necessarily fair to Bishop’s – but the Pennington Market (IGA) was profoundly bigger and nicer.

It was truly a “full-fledged” supermarket on par with one of the smaller ShopRite locations out there.

The Pennington Market had a truly “small town vibe” inside, filled with friendly employees as well as apparently happy customers as well. The bonus with a genuine local business like this is that they often have career employees. For instance, the store manager and butcher have been there for nearly three decades!

Everything seemed “personal” if you know what I mean.

If we lived in close proximity to the Pennington Market – we’d shop there often.

Good selection – okay prices

Our brief observations were as follows.

Much bigger selection and diversity of products compared to the only other IGA store we’ve visited. Understandable based on square footage.

They carried excellent products not really available elsewhere (Bell & Evan’s frozen chicken among many).

Some prices were a bit higher (cheese for instance). But these smaller operations don’t have the economy of scale that larger behemoths do. They also feature a full-service flower shop that is also a big hit with locals.

It seemed very busy – with highly loyal customers. That is a good sign, and glad to see area citizens show support with their wallets.

Overall – like we said, if we were local to this area – we’d support these guys big time. Unfortunately – we’re a lot closer to Route 22 – and this would be something we can only do when we trip combine or visit places like Grounds for Sculpture, etc.

But if you live in the Princeton, Ewing, or Hopewell area – I sure hope you patronize them often. We need places like this to survive if we don’t want just Walmarts and Targets feeding us!

About the author

NJroute22

NJroute22 (site admin) is an avid traveler along NJ Route 22 (and almost all of central New Jersey!) Family man, pet lover, and property owner who has a natural curiosity for everything around.