Pennington Market Set for Grilling Season

ROSEANNE HARPER

PENNINGTON, N.J. — Even as snow still falls from the trees and rooftops, and flurries are predicted, Pennington Quality Market is reminding customers that grilling season is just around the corner.

After a cold winter during which the meat department concentrated on stew meat and roasts, this week's ad circular is featuring bone-in New York strip loin steaks for $5.99 per pound, and ground lean sirloin for $2.49. That represents savings of $5 and $1.80, respectively.

That's purposeful, to remind customers that it's time to uncover their grills, officials said.

“We don't put out a lot of steaks in the middle of winter,” Chris Rellstab, Pennington Quality Market's meat manager, told SN. “Customers are looking for pot roasts. We sell a lot of chuck roasts, bottom round roasts.”

With March here, the upscale supermarket has changed the look of its meat case. Heaped-up kabobs and more steaks are aimed at getting customers in a grilling mood.

“This is a good month. Daylight saving time starts on the 14th, the first day of spring is coming up, and then we also have corned beef week,” Rellstab said.

In the March 14 ad circular, kabobs and steaks will have front-page priority. And Boar's Head corned beef will have a prominent place, too.

Soon excitement as well as spring will be in the air, Rellstab said, because Pennington Quality Market will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in April.

“The whole month of April, we'll have a lot going on. Different things.”

While grilling will always be associated with summer, a growing number of Americans are now grilling year-round. Fifty-three percent of respondents to Weber grill's 2009 annual GrillWatch Survey said that they use their outdoor grills throughout the year.