H Mart: Korean-themed supermarket opens in Paramus

PARAMUS — H Mart – a grocery store that stocks both staples and exotic offerings such as live sea cucumbers and abalone in tanks of water, live jumbo scallops and geoduck clams – demonstrated on Friday that Paramus is a very good location for a Korean-themed Asian supermarket.

Two hours after the store opened, there was still a line stretched around the shopping center on northbound Route 17, as shoppers waited to enter the filled-to-capacity store. 

Four Paramus police officers were directing traffic, as the parking lot in front of the store filled and cars lined up to enter the lot, and also filled the lot of the adjacent BJ's Warehouse store.

The 25,000-square-foot Paramus H Mart is more modern and upscale than the older H Marts in North Jersey, with a food hall with Korean specialties and sushi, a bakery cafe, and an industrial design intended to be more Chelsea Market than suburban supermarket. A produce department is filled with unusual fruits and vegetables, and there are prepared foods like Korean rice cakes and red bean ice pops. 

H Mart two years ago made a bet that it was the right time to move beyond eastern Bergen County, where it has stores in Fort Lee, Englewood, Leonia, Little Ferry, and Ridgefield.

"Paramus offers something super unique," said Stacey Kwon, president of H Mart. "It's so central. You have Route 17, Route 4, you can't come to New Jersey without going through Paramus."

Kwon herself is a resident of Paramus and she said that after moving to the borough in 2010 she knew she had to open a store there. She said in 2016, when the Paramus location was announced, that H Mart customers living in and around Paramus were asking for a more convenient store closer to them.

Workers were stationed at every aisle and in every department Friday cooking food on portable skillets and handing out samples.

While the majority of the shoppers in the opening day crowd were Asian, but there were plenty of non-Asian customers with a taste for Asian ingredients.

"It's like it's opening a whole new world for me," said Ruth Malakas of Paramus, who came to the store on opening day after receiving a flyer in the mail. "I tried some new foods and everything is delicious. And the workers were so willing to tell you what they are cooking and you how the foods are prepared. I'm definitely going to be a customer," she said.

H Mart, which is headquartered in Lyndhurst, is one of the fastest growing ethnic supermarket chains in the country, with more than 60 stores. 

Chuck Lanyard, president of The Goldstein Group, which represented the landlord in the deal that brought H Mart to Paramus, said he wasn't surprised the store opening drew a crowd.

"It's fascinating the see the kind of buzz that H Mart can create when it opens up a store," Lanyard said. 

Supermarket space is in such high demand, particularly in Paramus, that "supermarkets are looking for even the less traditional locations" such as the former Staples store H Mart leased, he said. "They know that if they get the right exposure that they would in a location like Paramus they have a better opportunity to succeed. Because all supermarkets are vying for the same market share. It's just who can get their bite of the apple."

More North Jersey news

SHOPPING:Midtown Authentic Wyckoff store sells pre-owned luxury handbags, accessories

BOUNCE BACK:Toys R Us may be dead, but toy makers are ready to bounce back

NEW STORE:Best Buy opens new store in Paramus, after mall switch