Aralia Supermarket reopens with to serve a hungry community

With a former employee at the helm, an old suburban Darwin supermarket is set to re-open. Read what’s happening.

Aralia Supermarket at Nightcliff. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

A slice of old Darwin has returned to Nightcliff with the reopening of the old Aralia Supermarket.

Rebranded as Porkin’ in a failed venture after the pandemic, one-time store employee Shaun Ford has returned to his former workplace to lead the shop’s revival.

With a long history in groceries and retail, Shaun’s family also owns and operates the Eastside Mini Mart in Katherine.

Located 100 metres from Nightcliff foreshore in a walkable catchment consisting of more than 1000 houses and apartments, Aralia Supermarket is also perfectly positioned to capture a share of the foot-traffic that regularly walks the suburb’s leafy pathways.

Aralia Supermarket’s Shaun Ford. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Shaun is slowly re-establishing the shop as the local grocery while also retaining the boutique bottleshop and food lines.

He is building up for a launch and rebrand in coming weeks.

“I was in this business from 2017 through Covid before it became (Porkin’),” Shaun said.

“Porkin’ was doing great food out the front and had some really interesting groceries and a good selection of things so we’re going to keep that going. I think the community wants great quality food, wine and good groceries.

“But I’m going to bring it back a little bit more towards the convenience store, mini-grocery store so we’ll have some beautiful fresh fruit and vegetable, fresh bread, meat, eggs, pasta, toilet paper, cleaning products that you need to duck down the shops for.

“If you’re baking cookies and you’ve run out of butter and sugar so you want to grab that instead of going to one of the big players.

Shaun Ford outside the Aralia supermarket. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

“We’ll be a grocer but we’re going to have the deli things in there as well as fresh fruit and vegetables you can buy by the kilo. We’ll have yoghurt pots, fruit salads, freshly baked bread, olive oils, tinned tomatoes, pasta, frozen vegies in the freezer, beautiful wine and craft beers.

“It’s trying to go to that middle ground where we’re not quite a supermarket, we’re not quite a deli, we’re not quite a restaurant and we’re not quite a cafe.

“I kind of think being a grocer lands in that area very well. People in Melbourne run businesses that do a little bit of everything including food, they produce their own salads and make their own sandwiches but they’ll also sell toilet paper, olive oil or cleaning wipes if they’re needed.”

Open from 7am to 6pm weekdays and 8am to 3pm on Saturdays, Shaun is planning to rebrand the business as the Cliffside Grocers in coming weeks.

Sunday trading will resume as trade picks up.

Shaun said the revised business was completely separate from Porkin’, with reports staff under the former venture were owed thousands in unpaid superannuation.

“They aren’t involved in the business anymore,” he said,

The Aralia Street supermarket was built in 1978 by Skevos and Despina Politis.

Originally published as Aralia Supermarket reopens with to serve a hungry community