Stop & Shop
Opened: 1996
We continue our streak of smaller-than-average and nicer-than-average Stop & Shops in the southern part of Boston, much like the stores we've already seen in Hyde Park and Roslindale. This Stop & Shop -- which is just a quarter mile from the water (although, to be fair, it's the Neponset River, which is separated from the Massachusetts Bay by a peninsula) -- is only 45,000 square feet. It was built in the 1950s, originally an Elm Farms Food, later becoming a Finast by the late 60s and then a Stop & Shop in 1996 when Ahold acquired the chain. Around 2005, the store got a major renovation and expansion to its present size and layout, but it doesn't look like the building was actually demolished and replaced.
It was almost definitely renovated with the Taste & Time decor package at the time of its expansion, and renovated to the current one we see here around the time Hyde Park was built.
You can tell this was a renovated store, not a new build, with this decor package because it's a bit less deluxe than what we saw in Hyde Park. The curved drop ceiling over the produce department is a dead giveaway for the older store setup, and the department signs are simpler and not backlit the way they are in the more deluxe stores.
The grand aisle is on the left side, with bakery, prepared foods, deli, and seafood lining the left side and produce opposite. Meat and dairy line the back wall, with frozen roughly in the middle of the store and the rest of dairy on the right side. HABA is in a corner in the front-right of the store.
There was also previously a Stop & Shop at 757 Gallivan Blvd in Dorchester, about 2/3 of a mile south, which likely closed around the time this store switched from Finast (or maybe when this one was rebuilt into a new Super Stop & Shop). Until recently, a Stop & Shop sign still adorned the roof of that building -- now it's just a billboard for Stop & Shop delivery -- and it's likely they own that property, meaning they use it to direct people to this store. What's funny is that store closed prior to 2008, when the fruit-slice logo you see on this store was introduced, and that new logo was even added to the Gallivan Boulevard sign. So it's not simply a remnant of when Stop & Shop was there.
It looks like this store has since received a renovation to the latest decor package. You can see the white and gray walls and just a hint of the script signage in this picture.
One of the best features of the later Super Stop & Shop builds -- let's say 2001 to 2012, roughly -- was the skylights.
Frozen foods run roughly up the middle of the store. This is a rather unusual place for them, and I'm betting it's a holdover from the old store's layout. There are now 18 aisles in total.
Dairy runs up the outside wall in the last aisle.
And Nature's Promise, the natural foods department, was previously also in the last aisle. By the time I got here, the natural food department was gone and replaced with candy. Sounds about right.
The natural foods were moved up into this front corner, which appears to have previously been a party or maybe seasonal department (I'm going by what appears to be wrapping paper in that picture). Very strange that the signage was never updated.
Floral is next to that on the front wall.
And a look across the front-end...
Opened: 1996
Owner: Ahold Delhaize
Previous Tenants: Elm Farm Food Co. (late 1950s-late 1960s) > Finast (late 1960s-1996)
Cooperative: none
Location: 545 Freeport St, Dorchester, MA
Photographed: July 27, 2019
From here, we're headed just up the block for a small independent grocer tomorrow!
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