Critic's Review
A new Fresh Market opened just north of Oakland Park Blvd. If you're not a stock trader, you might not know that The Fresh Market was bought out by a private equity firm (Apollo Global Management), so there have been a lot of changes in the stores. This store was obviously planned before the takeover.
If you shop at the Fresh Market location downtown you might have noticed that they've started to do more sales and that they have less staff. They've started cutting hours; lines are longer and the free coffee is often empty. However the lower prices make it a more plausible alternative to Publix. Produce at Fresh Market is better and prices are now often lower than Publix.
Apollo used a strategy of cutting prices and improving prepared food offering to make a huge profit on west coast chain Sprouts.
The first thing you notice about this store is that there is nobody here. At 3pm the place was dead empty and cashiers were standing around with nothing to do. This store is larger than the downtown store, which a very well kept produce department.
The deli is in the middle of the big open room.
The meat counter is about the same as the downtown store.
They have a larger dry goods and dairy section than downtown.
And the wine section is twice the size of the downtown store.
Conclusion
I think they've built too many supermarkets in Fort Lauderdale to serve the Summer population, because I've noticed a decrease in supermarket traffic in the past few months. Of course it is the summer, so there are a lot less people around. But it seems different from previous years. This store isn't as "cozy" as the downtown store; the downtown store feels more intimate. I also didn't see any free coffee here. They may have it somewhere but I didn't find it.
Fresh Market definitely miscalculated their popularity in building this store; my guess is that the only people who come here are people who used to go to the other location but live closer to this one. But with Publix's prices going up and Fresh Market's going down, the MUCH better experience at Fresh Market should steal some customers over time.
If' you haven't been to Fresh Market in a year; check it out again. I hardly ever go to Publix anymore.