The Market Report

bfresh Open: 2015-2019 Owner:  Ahold Delhaize Previous Tenants:  Staples (closed 2015) Later Tenants:  CVS (2020- ) Cooperative:  none Location:  214 Harvard Ave, Allston, MA Photographed:  June 21, 2019 Welcome to bfresh! Yes, the chain called itself that (not Bfresh, or bFresh, or B-Fresh, or...) and the brand was introduced right here in Allston in 2015. It was a specialty, small-format fresh supermarket run by Stop & Shop in a division called Fresh Formats, which also briefly ran Everything Fresh  in Philadelphia. This roughly 13,000 square foot former Staples was given an extensive renovation to open as a fresh-focused supermarket, and Stop & Shop clearly thought the bfresh format had promise. Unfortunately, customers didn't exactly feel the same way. A much smaller, 8600 square foot store opened in Fairfield, CT in November 2015, closing just months later in April 2016. August 2016 brought a location to Brighton at 470 Washington Stree...

Whole Foods Market Opened: 2003 Owner:  Amazon Previous Tenants:  Stop & Shop (late 1950s-ca. early 1990s) > Bread & Circus (opened by 1994, converted to Whole Foods in 2003) Cooperative:  none Location:  15 Washington St, Brighton, MA Photographed:  July 20, 2019 As natural food store chain Bread & Circus expanded in the 1990s in the Boston area, their main targets for store acquisition were recently-closed chain supermarkets. Several of those were former Stop & Shop locations. So far, we've seen Stop & Shop-turned-Bread & Circus locations in Back Bay  and the West End , and now here's another: the Brighton Whole Foods was built in the late 1950s as a Stop & Shop, closing by the early 1990s and becoming a Bread & Circus no later than 1994. Whole Foods owned Bread & Circus from 1992 on, but kept the name until all the stores were rebranded Whole Foods in 2003. This collection of signs made me chuckle. Parking this way...

Babushka Deli Opened: 1992 Owner:  unknown Previous Tenants:  unknown Cooperative:  none Location:  62 Washington St, Brighton, MA Photographed:  July 20, 2019 Welcome to the Babushka Deli of Brighton! This small store of around 3000 square feet -- which was expanded around 2010 from a much smaller storefront by adding the former dry cleaner space to the right in the above picture -- is a convenience store and Russian grocer, with aisles of imported grocery and a deli/bakery with smoked fish , sausages, and cheeses . This area's Eastern European community extends through Newton and Brookline into Brighton, and in fact we're less than a mile from the Bazaar on Beacon Street . We're also just diagonally across the street from a big-chain supermarket, which is today's other post here . Tomorrow we're headed just north to a recently-closed supermarket in Allston!

Chansky's Super Market Opened: 1985 under current ownership; ca. 1950s previously Owner:  Doug Labb Previous Tenants:  M. Winer/Elm Farm Food Co. (opened late 1930s, converted to Elm Farm ca. mid-1940s, closed by mid-1950s) Cooperative:  none Location:  161 Sunderland Rd, Brighton, MA Photographed:  July 20, 2019 A grocery store has been here at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Sutherland Road in Brighton for nearly 100 years. By the late 1930s, this 1500 square foot space was a location of M. Winer, a chain grocer in the Boston area that eventually rebranded as Elm Farm Food Co. It looks like that chain either expanded or became a cooperative with multiple owners across New England, but here in Brighton, the Sutherland Road location became Chansky's Super Market by the mid-1950s or so, which it's stayed ever since despite changing ownership at least once. It's also been expanded to its present 3300 square feet, including a small smoke shop next to the gr...

These Boston suburbs have had a lot to see over the last couple weeks! We've seen all the stores in Chestnut Hill and Newton, but only one of the stores in Needham. The stores I haven't posted (or photographed) are in gray, and notice that the former Stop & Shop in Newton is also on the map. Take a look at all of them in the map below! Coming Up Next It's time for the final group of stores within Boston! We've now covered the whole city except for Allston and Brighton on the far northwestern side of the city. As I've mentioned, there are a couple neighborhoods of Boston that were annexed from other towns outside the city over the years, and Allston and Brighton are geographically separated from the rest of the city for that reason. We're just northwest of Brookline , and east of the Newton stores we saw more recently. We'll tour Brighton first, starting in the southwestern corner near the Brookline border, then up into Allston. The northern part of All...