America's Food Basket
Opened: 2013
Impressive mural aside, when we look at this America's Food Basket, we can tell the building is very old. As a matter of fact, it goes back to the 1950s when it was a location of the local chain Supreme Markets. In the early 1970s, it became an IGA Foodliner, then the Farmers Warehouse Market, which occupied the space until 2013.
The building is also a very unusual shape, since it's essentially a rectangle but the front wall is diagonal to accommodate the diagonal path of Cummins Highway. As you can see somewhat in the below picture, the front-right corner of the store is actually a very narrow angle.
You can see the orange AFB logo on the left, which is not really the chain's logo but instead based on the prior NSA Supermarkets logo. NSA was the Neighborhood Supermarket Association, which was formed around 2005 and in 2012 rebranded as America's Food Basket. Incidentally, several of the Boston stores operating under NSA were branded Americas' Food Basket, which (with a slight apostrophe change) ultimately became the name of the whole group. The cooperative now also represents Ideal Food Basket stores in New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida. AFB stores are in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and Georgia.
Inside, the store looks a lot like it did when it was Farmers Warehouse Market. There have been some new fixtures and a handful of new signs, but the bones are unchanged. The produce sign you see here was originally in the Lawrence location when it opened in 2017 and matched the other handwritten chalkboard-style signs, but for reasons I don't understand was moved here shortly thereafter. Lawrence, a very nice store, no longer has a produce sign. We'll tour Lawrence once we get up in that area!
Although you enter and exit in the front-left corner, the produce department is in the front right corner of the store (you can see the angle of the store in this area). Dairy is in the back of the last aisle on the right side, with meat and frozen on the back wall. Both continue down the last aisle on the left side, which is technically the first aisle.
Here's a look across the front-end from the produce department.
The produce department got the most upgrades when AFB moved in. The rest of the store was still looking like Farmers Warehouse Market when I visited, which is not a good thing. I don't know if it's gotten any more renovations since, but it was definitely in need of some work.
You can see that the store is clean and generally well-stocked, but the bones are very old. Most of the refrigeration and flooring is in bad need of replacement. On the other hand, the ceiling looks like it had just gotten a fresh coat of paint and the lighting was relatively new, and generally in good shape.
But the rest of the fixtures are very old. The dairy department is at the back of the first aisle.
AFB stores use Essential Everyday and Wild Harvest items from UNFI, previously Supervalu.
The meat department is on the back wall, and here you can really get a sense of the store's age. This is probably the AFB in the worst shape in Boston, so the good news is they get better from here.
Cold cuts, packaged meats, and frozen line the last aisle.
Even though you can tell the store is old, you can also see it's been kept very clean.
At the front of the last aisle is a diagonal customer service counter, which seems unnecessarily large. I don't know if previously there was another service here. This store doesn't have any service departments.
And because of that, aisle 1 doesn't quite make it to the front of the store. Aisle 2 is the first grocery aisle near the entrance.
And a look across the front-end. If my 2019 visit was any indication, the aging building wasn't exactly keeping customers away. On the other hand, there's not a whole lot of competition in the immediate area.
Owner: Edwin Polanco
Previous Tenants: Supreme Markets (1950s-early 1970s) > IGA Foodliner (1970s) > Farmers Warehouse Market (1970s-2013)
Cooperative: America's Food Basket
Location: 926 Cummins Hwy, Mattapan, MA
Photographed: June 15, 2019
Welcome to Mattapan, home to a 20,000 square foot America's Food Basket supermarket and a much smaller, recently-closed nonprofit grocer called Daily Table. That's our other tour today, which you can see here!
Speaking of competition, we're off tomorrow to visit a discount store just west into Hyde Park. Come back to check it out!
Maybe someone who was in the space before had other services, thinking something like photo or video related that was common at one time but isn't now.
ReplyDeleteThat would explain having the extra-large service counter.
Another possibility (not sure what they do now) would be for taking back bottles, which often utilized a counter space in the days before the reverse vending machines were around. They were usually in areas near the service desk for easy access (though some hid them in a back area), but most were within the store (where many places now have a separate door into that space so the bottles don't have to be brought through the store itself).