America's Food Basket - Dorchester, MA (Bowdoin South)

America's Food Basket
Opened: 2024

Owner: Edwin Polanco

Previous Tenants: Walgreens

Cooperative: America's Food Basket

Location: 130 Bowdoin St, Dorchester, MA

Photographed: July 6, 2024

Whether you call it an America's Food-greens or a Walbasket, which I personally think has a better ring to it, a retail nerd like me can't miss this store's history from the outside. While I don't know the history of the building very far back (it appears to date all the way back to at least the 1930s), Walgreens opened up here between 2001 and 2003 and installed this facade -- a city street-appropriate version of their standard model at the time. Walgreens closed in either late 2019 or early 2020, and it wasn't until 2024 that America's Food Basket opened up here.

It's rumored -- although I haven't been able to confirm this for certain -- that when Walgreens closed here, Brockton-based Vicente's attempted to move into the space but that deal fell apart. They're now working on moving into a former Walgreens in Roxbury, just a mile northwest. In what appears to be a move to replace the closed Fields Corner store half a mile south on Geneva Avenue, America's Food Basket took the opportunity and opened up in the former drugstore. At just 15,000 square feet, it's quite a bit smaller than the Fields Corner location, but nearly three times the size of the tiny store just a couple blocks north. (As promised, we're touring three stores today, so be sure to check out that other AFB along with the Dorchester Food Co-Op between these two AFBs!)

The facade might be left over from Walgreens, but that's truly where the resemblance ends. Inside, the space has been extensively renovated and the Walgreens leftovers are minimal. Maybe some eagle-eyed blog readers can chime in with remnants you catch but I've missed. The store is set up behind a small row of storefronts on Bowdoin Street, so there's what amounts to a foyer with an exit hallway and a part of the produce department in that corner, but the main supermarket is behind those storefronts. Aisles run side to side with the front end facing the parking lot, so consider the wall facing the parking lot the front wall. Produce lines the right side, with meat on the back wall. Frozen and dairy are on the left side, with deli and bakery in the front-left corner. There's no service butcher or seafood counters here, but they're still cutting meat in-store.

Once you get out of the foyer -- which itself is larger than the tiny AFB's entire produce department -- the store opens up to a rather attractive produce department in an extra-wide first aisle. The track lighting is new, of course, but I'm not sure if the tube fluorescent lighting is left over from Walgreens.

And the produce was looking really good! I visited in July 2024, about two months after the grand opening in May.

You can see that they make the most of the space they have here, with every produce display having multiple levels!

The result is that the produce selection is very extensive, comparable to a much larger store. You can feel the store is small in the dry goods selection, because even though this is quite a bit larger than the tiny store up the street, it's still a fraction of the size of the nearby Stop & Shop 2/3 of a mile northwest. We'll be touring that store shortly, and even that store is on the smaller side for Stop & Shop at just 45,000 square feet.

It looked like all the fixtures were new here for this store's opening. Nothing looked secondhand, and obviously nothing was left over from the previous tenant here since AFB's setup is so vastly different from how Walgreens would've had the store.

I like the polished concrete floor here, and generally it looks really good. But there's some rough patches here along the back aisle. Of course, it's been patched and smoothed so that it's not a noticeable bump or hole, but it's still visible.

The grocery aisles are extensive and well-appointed, with an impressive (but still smaller, just based on size constraints) selection. Notice, too, that the shelves are taller than your average supermarket's shelves.

This is the standard decor that's going into most of the newer America's Food Basket stores, and you can see it in the newer Brockton store here. I recently photographed, but won't post for a while, a store in Brooklyn with the same decor package.

The freezer cases look brand-new. They're on the left side of the store in the second-to-last aisle.

There's still only seven aisles here, including the produce aisle. The tiny store just up the street has four. Certainly less than your average Shaw's or Stop & Shop.

Deli, bakery, and hot food in the front-left corner. I'm not entirely sure whether this store has an in-store bakery, although most AFBs don't (but a handful do). Notice the offices above and the angled ceiling to accommodate the windows. Is that a Walgreens feature or something AFB added? I'm not familiar enough with Walgreens stores to know if they typically had office setups like this. I don't see a whole lot of pictures of the Walgreens' interior online, and it's hard to tell from pictures like this.

Customer service is also in this corner under the offices, and the registers line the rest of the front wall facing the parking lot. In the below picture, you can get a slight glimpse of the entrance/exit doors -- which remain from Walgreens -- and the produce foyer/corner.

And looking in the other direction across the front-end.

I think this is a great reuse of a former Walgreens, and of course I'm excited to see that other Vicente's when it opens. Don't miss today's other posts of the tiny AFB and the Dorchester Food Co-Op, and tomorrow we're off to Grove Hall!