Price Rite Marketplace
Opened: 2020
The Price Rite of Dorchester, at Fields Corner, is one of four Price Rites in the city of Boston. Two of them -- Roxbury and Roslindale -- are owned by the Slawsby family and were previously Save-A-Lots, while the Hyde Park location is corporately owned. This Dorchester location is also owned by the Slawsbys, but was never a Save-A-Lot. It opened in 2020 shortly after the Slawsbys' company, Madison Foods, left Save-A-Lot to join Price Rite. This is actually the second supermarket the Slawsbys have operated at this location, as they also owned a Capitol Supermarket here from the mid-1990s or so through 2006, when this store closed and became an America's Food Basket. AFB operated here until their lease was up, and in 2015 they were informed they had to move out so that a Save-A-Lot owned by the Slawsbys could move in. AFB didn't actually close until 2020, though, and Price Rite opened later that year. Check out the AFB and read lots more about the building's history here.
The strip mall was constructed in the late 1960s around an existing industrial building, which you can see in the back here. You can also see this Price Rite trailer with the old logo. Around the time Price Rite opened, the whole strip mall was renovated, with a new small-format Target opening a few doors down. Inexplicably, though, the outline of the previous AFB logo on the left side of the storefront remains. Why wasn't that painted?
Inside, though, the new Price Rite looks nothing like the rundown America's Food Basket it replaced. In most cases, I'm not happy when a limited-assortment discount store takes the place of a full-line, mainstream supermarket, but here it's clear Price Rite is a big step up from AFB. The selection is smaller, but they've significantly remodeled the space and brought prices down, and as we'll see the selection is still pretty solid for a discount supermarket.
Produce is in the same place as it was when AFB was here, in the front-left corner of the store which as you can see is a little bit of an alcove because the backroom space runs along the left side of the store.
In fact, the layout remains largely the same as AFB's, with a few small changes. Dairy lines the back of the first aisle and continues down the back wall, with frozen in the back-right corner and then lining the last aisle on the right side.
I don't think this decor works particularly well -- there are too many of these department posters too close together with no real connection, and the wood texture on the refrigerators is just a little confusing -- but I will say I love this floor. It appears to be stained and polished concrete, and it looks pretty great. It doesn't look old and rundown like some polished concrete floors can, and the color is vibrant enough to be pleasant but not overwhelming.
Like AFB, the grocery aisles here are split in half front-to-back.
Frozen foods are in the last aisle on the right side of the store. Notice that Price Rite has fewer aisles than AFB, which makes sense given that the store has less selection and fewer services.
As you can see, this store is definitely somewhere between a typical discount store and a full supermarket. I think it's a good compromise for this area, which doesn't have many full supermarkets, and it allows for low prices but also a fairly large selection. And even though AFB isn't here anymore, they've recently opened a new store not too far north on Geneva Avenue. We'll see that shortly.
Front-end looking good and spacious. I'm sad the clock and old Purity Supreme signage is gone, but this looks much better.
These posters in the front windows are interesting to me, as they're clearly unique to Madison Foods. They're certainly not like anything Wakefern or corporate Price Rite has, and they're not exactly the same as what Save-A-Lot corporate was using either. They're probably done by a local ad agency. And as we can see, the store has a bit of a random assortment of shopping carts, though most are these gray and red plastic ones. I assume the Price Rite branding is a sticker over some other logo, though I'm not sure what -- maybe Save-A-Lot.
Owner: Madison Foods / Todd Slawsby
Previous Tenants: Supreme Markets (late 1960s-late 1970s) > Purity Supreme (opened ca. late 1970s) > Capitol Supermarket (closed 2006) > America's Food Basket (2006-2020)
Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.
Location: 500 Geneva Ave, Dorchester, MA
Photographed: November 13, 2021
That's all for this Price Rite, and if you missed my pictures of the America's Food Basket that preceeded it, check them out here. Tomorrow, we're off to a small store just north on Geneva Avenue!
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