Heritage Square — Local services in South Brunswick

There wasn't much to say about this place until recently. Best Buy moved out and then Petsmart moved as well. We had the Target, Subway, and Dunkin as the anchors. Shop rite brought a very needed grocery store to the area. While the Target has groceries, face it...it's a pain to walk through the huge store just to buy an Avocado. I haven't went to the new Aldi in the plaza but I will soon.

ShopRite was a breath of fresh air since there were no grocery stores nearby. When they first opened, I went there several times a week for a quick lunch, but I was soon bored with the routine selection of the prepared foods. The hotbar was great until it got hamstrung by Covid. Don't miss out on the bargain section near the self checkout, but buyer beware. Enough said.

The selection of ethnic foods at ShopRite is somewhat disappointing to me. The hot bar serves up American Chinese. You can also get Sushi, some limited cold Indian/American food and a whole lot of cold Italian dishes (probably because it's easy to cook and reheat). There are no Hispanic dishes ready for takeout. Indeed, there are very few choices in either the canned isles or in the frozen areas for Hispanic foods.

Getting into the plaza is easy if you are heading north on Rt 1. Going south is a pain because you have a Jughead that is always full of aggregate trucks from the mine.

Getting out of the plaza is very easy, again if you are heading north. Turn right out of any of the exits and you are back on the 70 MPH track the we call Rt1.

All southbound traffic has to navigate north past the Shoprite, take a left onto another road (no signals), take another left at the signal, then "try" to merge into the turn lanes going south on Rt 1. It's a mess and I've only seen this level of stupidity in traffic control in NJ. Remember those trucks hauling the aggregate? Now they are coming down a hill fully loaded in the opposing traffic lane. I have seen many people turn in front of them and am always amazed that they lived. I'm not exaggerating on this.

To wrap up:

Pros: Good location. Much needed grocery stores. Overall services are good.

Cons: Traffic management system is poor. Limited selection of ethnic foods, except for Indian...

This is a lovely Shoprite!! My family and I don't live in the area, but for a change of Shoprite, a nice one to get groceries! The store has great selections on everything; meat, deli, artisan breads, desserts. In fact I found a sourdough boule in the bakery/bread section to create a recipe I found on-line. A very nice store, big parking lot and the staff I've encountered are so friendly; especially the young lady helping me with my boule. The only hitch, the Shop from Home parking only has four (4) spaces. Any more than that #, customers have parked nearby and moved to a S@H space when it is vacated. Dangerous! I've never seen a disagreement, but Shoprite, please maybe 2 more spaces? Other than that, a...

A smaller shopping area, it has 3 large stores, Bob's furniture, Petsmart, and Target with a Shoprite opening soon. There's also 4 small shops a Dunkin, Subway, nail salon and supercuts. It definitely has something for everyone, however the best buy moved out a couple of years ago and nothing has replaced it yet. Spirit Of Halloween will move in temporarily, but it's still another big empty store on rt. 1. Never had any problems with any employees in fact the petsmart has probably some of the nicest employees. The Dunkin also has some wonderful people...