America's Food Basket
Everything is denser and closer together in cities, of course, in part because so many people are living so close together and in part because so many people are on foot, not driving -- especially older cities in the northeast like Boston or New York. So it's not all that unusual to see multiple supermarkets very close together in urban areas, especially when they're smaller-scale stores. That's the case here near the intersection of Bowdoin Street and Geneva Avenue in Dorchester, where in just six blocks there are three supermarkets. Two of them are America's Food Baskets, and you can see the other one here. The third is a newly-opened food cooperative in a new-build building, which you can tour here.
This tiny AFB of just 5600 square feet dates back to at least the early 1940s, when a First National Stores (Finast) operated here, per Groceteria -- my source for most of the Boston chain store history I'm writing about here. It appears Finast closed by the late 1960s, and I don't know what was here after that, but by 2007, an independent called Caribbean Market opened and then converted or sold to Shop Smart, a Krasdale brand, around 2009 through around 2012. AFB came in around 2012.
I've photographed the store twice, once when I lived in Boston in 2019 and again when I returned in 2021. You'll see each photo labeled with the date above it. The store got a very minor renovation (if you can even call it that) with new flooring and some fresh paint) between my two visits. The new America's Food Basket at 130 Bowdoin opened in 2024, but this one hasn't closed and it's unclear if they plan to indefinitely keep both operating even though they're just a couple hundred yards apart.
The store is small but packed with stuff. Produce is in the front-right corner and continues down part of the first aisle, with meats and part of the dairy department in the back half of the first aisle. Dairy lines the back wall with frozen foods in the last aisle on the left side. There's a very small deli in the front-left corner.
Hold the phones: here we see another major change made between 2019 and 2021, which is that in 2021 the red delicious apples were on the left with golden delicious in the middle and galas on the right. During my 2019 visit, the red delicious were on the right and the galas were on the left.
Joking aside, even though the store hasn't gotten a major remodel, it's still in good shape and seems to do what it needs to do. I love the ceiling, which has recently been painted, but is very possibly original to the store.
It doesn't look like the cases were replaced in the remodel between my visits, but it also looks like some -- like produce and meat -- might not have even been that old, possibly having been installed when AFB moved in. I have no idea what the interiors of the previous tenants might have looked like, or whether there was anything different at all. If you look carefully, you can see that there have also been aisle markers added. Previously, I assume they simply decided they weren't needed -- there are only four aisles here, including the meat/produce aisle and the frozen foods aisle.
Just next door, there's a Brother's Wine & Spirits store that's affiliated with the local Brother's Supermarket chain. It's a bit of a surprise to me, therefore, that this store was never a Brother's.
No space is wasted in the compact grocery aisles, but they don't feel overly claustrophobic.
As you can see, the flooring really needed to be replaced by 2019. Good to see they made that investment, even if it's a small one.
And it's hard to tell for sure, but it looks like these are actually new freezers. They could be refurbished or brought in secondhand from elsewhere. My first thought was that they just painted the existing freezers, but if you look carefully at the bottom bumper panel and the shelving inside, you can tell they're not the same fixtures (or, at least, they're refurbished if they are the same ones).
Looking towards the back of the store...
An unfortunate picture of the deli from 2019, and also unfortunate that I don't seem to have gotten a 2021 picture. I don't remember anything changing, though. This and the small customer service counter are in the front-left corner with four registers in the middle.
You can see that, even with the recent fixing up, this is still a very old-school store. Still, it's taken care of well, and it's nice to seee updates even in a store that's fast approaching 100 years in business, under various owners of course.
Opened: ca. 2012
Owner: Edwin Polanco
Previous Tenants: Finast (early 1940s-late 1960s) > ?? > Caribbean Market (closed ca. 2009) > Shop Smart Supermarket (ca. 2009-ca. 2012)
Cooperative: America's Food Basket
Location: 217 Bowdoin St, Dorchester, MA
Photographed: June 15, 2019 and November 13, 2021
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Dairy begins in the first aisle and continues across the back wall of the store. There's some backroom space to the right at the back of the store since the building is an L-shape, meaning that the sales floor appears to be only around 4500 square feet. That's extremely small for a full supermarket, and you'd be hard-pressed to not consider this a full supermarket since it has an extensive selection even though it's tiny.
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