Drive down Haddon Avenue past Collings Avenue and you'll pass a storefront that's been closed since Wawa pulled out. Rite Aid closed too, not long after. For a downtown that prides itself on walkability, losing both in close succession meant a real gap: no quick coffee run, no last-minute deli sandwich, no grabbing a prescription on the way home. Plenty of residents adapted by driving over to Haddon Heights instead, where a deli called John's Friendly Market has been running on Station Avenue since the current family took it over about a year ago.
That's not a coincidence anymore. The family behind John's Friendly Market is opening a second location at 668 Haddon Avenue, in the same building Wawa left behind. And the details matter here, because this isn't a straight copy of the Haddon Heights store. There's no butcher counter this time. Instead, the Collingswood location is built around a full grill and an expanded hot food menu, with breakfast sandwiches and omelets as a stated focus alongside classic deli lunch and dinner options. Space constraints mean no indoor seating, so the model leans into takeout and quick grocery runs rather than a sit-down counter. An official opening date hasn't been announced, but the family has said they're moving through the remaining steps quickly, motivated by the delays that have already pushed the project back.
What that gap closing actually tells you is more interesting than the store itself. Collingswood didn't fill the Wawa-shaped hole with a national chain. It filled it with a family already known two towns over, adapting their format rather than franchising it. That's the pattern worth noticing this month, because the same thing is happening on a smaller scale up and down Haddon Avenue.
Saturday Still Belongs to the Market
If you've lived here more than one summer, you already know Saturday mornings have a shape. The Collingswood Farmers Market has run since May 2000, when it started with 12 farms, and it's now recognized as the longest-running farmers market in South Jersey. It runs every Saturday from May through Thanksgiving, 8 a.m. to noon, rain or shine, in the lot at 713 North Atlantic Avenue.
The ritual hasn't changed even as the vendor list has grown. Coffee from Revolution Coffee, produce tables lined up under the PATCO trestle, live music that shifts week to week, dogs on leashes weaving between strollers. Summer corn, tomatoes, and peaches are the highlight stretch of the season, and with Thanksgiving as the market's closing date, September and October are really the back half of that run rather than an afterthought. If you've been meaning to make it out before the season ends, this is the stretch, not next spring.
The market also runs an EBT token program at the Information Tent, letting shoppers swipe a card for wooden tokens usable on produce, meats, dairy, and food-producing plants. It's a detail that doesn't get much attention outside the market itself, but it's part of why the market functions less like a seasonal attraction and more like an actual grocery option for people who use it weekly.
Sunday, September 20, Belongs to Something Else Entirely
Here's where the calendar gets interesting. Saturday is farmers market territory. But the third Sunday of this month, September 20, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., downtown hands the same general footprint over to the fall edition of the Clover Market instead.
This isn't a smaller version of the Saturday market. It's a different event with a different crowd: more than 95 curated vendors selling handmade and vintage goods, plus 10 food and beverage trucks, live music, and free kids' crafts. Setup spans the North Atlantic Avenue parking lot, the former Zane Schoolhouse lot, and along Irvin Avenue, close enough to Perkins Center for the Arts that the two venues effectively share foot traffic for the day. It's a short walk from the Collingswood PATCO station, and the organizers explicitly encourage walking, biking, or carpooling over driving in.
The point isn't that Collingswood has two markets. It's that the two markets don't compete for the same day or the same instinct. One is a weekly habit built around groceries and coffee. The other is an occasional event built around browsing and discovery. Knowing which is which, and when, is the difference between planning your weekend around downtown and just showing up and hoping something's happening.
The Blocks Worth the Extra Walk
Haddon Avenue gets the map placement, but the borough itself runs a campaign called "Worth the Walk," flagging businesses just off the main strip that are easy to miss if you only ever walk the main block.
Collingsweird Apparel and Gift Shop is a good example of why that campaign exists. Tucked at 679 Haddon Avenue, behind Sara's Produce and across from Collingswood Music, it features work from more than 45 independent artists and makers, with every purchase going directly to them. It's also a sponsor of Collingswood Little League and Collingswood Youth Theatre, which is a small detail but not a meaningless one. A shop that puts its name on the back of a Little League jersey is telling you it plans to stick around, not just occupy a storefront for a season. Collingsweird also runs its own seasonal events, including a Summer Bummer Fest and a Holiday Bizarre, plus pop-up showcases timed to bigger borough events like Second Saturday and May Fair.
That's the texture that a straight business directory won't give you. The shops worth walking the extra block for aren't just inventory. They're threaded into the same civic calendar as the schools and the rec leagues.
The Arts Layer Nobody Puts on a Restaurant List
Most write-ups of downtown Collingswood stop at food and shopping, which skips over what's arguably the borough's most consistent cultural anchor. Perkins Center for the Arts, at 30 Irvin Avenue, has operated since 1977 and holds recognition from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts as a Major Arts Presenting Organization. Its year-round programming includes visual and performing arts classes, around 18 exhibitions annually, a private music instruction program, and two recurring concert series, the Lawn Chair Concert Series and the DeCafe Concert Series, both built as free or low-cost ways to catch live music without leaving the neighborhood.
Perkins sits close enough to the Clover Market's Irvin Avenue footprint that visitors on September 20 will likely pass right by it. That kind of overlap is easy to miss unless you already know the blocks, which is exactly the point. Collingswood's downtown isn't organized around one big attraction. It's organized around several small, recurring ones that happen to sit within a few minutes' walk of each other.
What September Actually Shows You
Put it together and the picture isn't a list of separate updates. It's a downtown that fills its own gaps with things that already fit its character. When a national chain left, a known family business took the space and changed the format to fit what was actually missing. When the market calendar needed a fall event that wasn't a repeat of summer Saturdays, a craft and vintage market slotted into a Sunday instead of competing for the same morning. When a shop opens a few doors off the main strip, it doesn't just sell things, it sponsors the Little League team down the block.
That's the version of Collingswood that doesn't show up in a five-bullet roundup: a place that keeps replacing what it loses with something that still sounds like itself.
If you're weighing what a neighborhood like this actually feels like day to day, beyond the market data and listing photos, that's the kind of detail worth asking a local about. You can see how Collingswood compares to nearby towns on our Collingswood neighborhood guide, or reach out directly if you want a straight answer about what a specific block or price range gets you here.
Nicholas Celfo works these South Jersey towns block by block, not just on paper. If you've got questions about Collingswood or anywhere nearby, Let's Connect.
