Brother's Supermarket - Dorchester, MA (Fields Corner)

Brother's Supermarket
Opened: 2020

Owner: Ambiris Fernandez

Previous Tenants: Finast (early 1940s - late 1960s) > ?? > Rosa Supermarket (opened before 2007, closed 2020)

Cooperative: none

Location: 430 Geneva Ave, Dorchester, MA

Photographed: November 13, 2021

Time for another Brother's Supermarket! The chain started in the Grove Hall area of Dorchester around the early 00s and later opened a second location at Upham's Corner around 2008. In 2017, they opened a third -- and much larger -- location near Brockton in Randolph, which just a couple months later they sold to America's Food Basket. In 2020, they took over this small corner supermarket which was previously Rosa Supermarket but dates back to the 40s when it was a First National Stores (or Finast). And in 2023, they took over an independent grocer in Roslindale.

Geneva Avenue is diagonal, and each of the corners is built with a rounded retail or residential building for several blocks. Most of that construction happened well before Finast was here in the early 20th century, but it may have been an independent grocer that Finast acquired. Today, Brother's is small but fully stocked in just 3000 square feet.

I think it's a safe bet that this has been a grocery store continuously since Finast was here, and possibly before. Brother's has done some minor updates such as installing a new floor and some new fixtures, but it still feels like an old grocery store. Regardless, today it's clean and well-stocked. Produce lines the left-side wall of the store with butcher at the back and dairy/frozen in the last aisle. I don't remember for sure, but I believe there are four aisles here.

Several of these corner stores are food stores, and we'll see a couple more in the independent grocers roundup I'll post once we're done touring all the stores here in Dorchester.

This is definitely somewhere between a supermarket and a convenience store, as you can see. I believe there's a deli where the man in black clothes is standing, but I don't remember for certain.

Another seven blocks north on Geneva Avenue is the corner of Bowdoin Street, which has three supermarkets in just seven blocks. We're going to see all three tomorrow, so get ready!