Stew Leonard’s Breaks Ground on 2nd New Jersey Supermarket
East Coast grocer Stew Leonard’s broke ground on its new store, in Clifton, N.J., on Oct. 11. The location marks its second for the Garden State and eighth overall. Located in the Styertowne Shopping Center on Allwood Road, the new supermarket will open by next summer.
During the groundbreaking event, Stew Leonard Jr., CEO and son of the founder of the supermarket chain, who died in April, said, “We like Clifton’s diverse and dense population.”
The supermarket anchor store will take up 56,000 square feet of the 210,000-square-foot Styertowne Shopping Center, which is owned by George Jacobs, according to Northjersey.com. It will integrate the current Stew Leonard’s Wine & Spirits store now located at Clifton’s Promenade Shops, on Route 3.
The current liquor store, owned and operated by members of the Leonard family, is an independently operated and licensed store, and will, when integrated, become part of the growing regional chain of supermarkets.
The Clifton store will reportedly bring 500 jobs to North Jersey.
Dubbed “the Disneyland of Dairy Stores” because of its country-fair atmosphere, with costumed characters and animated entertainment throughout its stores, Stew Leonard’s has also been designated the “world's largest dairy store” by the Guinness Book of World Records.
Referencing the Leonard family’s roots in the dairy industry, the independent grocer recently launched its first-ever podcast, “LegenDAIRY.” The podcast is co-hosted by cousins Chase Leonard and Andrew Hollis, grandchildren of the store founder and recipients of this year’s GenNext Awards from Progressive Grocer. Each episode delves into the entrepreneurial backstories that enabled Stew Leonard’s to go from a single store founded in 1969 to a nearly $600 million business with seven stores in three states.
Family-owned and -operated Stew Leonard’s has seven stores in Norwalk, Danbury and Newington, Conn.; East Meadow, Farmingdale and Yonkers, N.Y.; and Paramus, N.J. Norwalk, Conn.-based Stew Leonard’s was named one of Progressive Grocer’s Top 10 Regional Grocers in 2023.
