Star Market - Dorchester, MA

Star Market
Opened: 2014

Owner: Albertsons Companies

Previous Tenants: Star Market (1997-early 00s) > Shaw's (early 00s-2014)

Cooperative: none

Location: 45 Morrissey Blvd, Dorchester, MA

Photographed: July 21, 2019

Welcome to Dorchester's Star Market, a large, 63,000 square foot supermarket in the northeastern corner of the neighborhood, and just across the street from the campus of UMass Boston. The store was constructed in 1997 as a Star Market, later becoming a Shaw's in the early 2000s and switching back to Star Market in 2014. This store had its 15 minutes of fame in the movie Spotlight, when it's briefly visible in the background. The Boston Globe's headquarters were previously next door, although they moved downtown. If you watch the movie on Amazon Prime, a trivia note on that scene mentions that the store is shown as a Star Market but would've been a Shaw's at the time. I really have no way of knowing without a doubt, but I don't think that's true. The store was a Star Market from opening until at least 2002 (per a city report), and most of the movie takes place in 2001. This article about a labor dispute at the store also clearly identifies it as a Star Market in the summer of 2002. (By the way, both Shaw's and Star Market are now union.) My best guess is that the store converted to Shaw's in 2003 or later, but no later than 2007.

A rough layout of this store comes to us courtesy of this fire exit plan. You enter in the bottom-left corner, with a Starbucks to your right and produce in the front-left corner. The rest of the grand aisle continues behind produce, with prepared foods and deli on the right side and bakery at the back. Service meat and seafood are next to bakery with packaged meats along the rest of the back wall. Pharmacy is in the first aisle with HABA in the first few aisles. Dairy and frozen are on the right side, and a liquor store is in the front-right corner.

This is certainly one of the nicest supermarkets in Boston, and all indications suggest it's a high-volume store.

Like everyone else, Star Market reduced their prepared foods selections during the coronavirus, but they still have more than the average Albertsons Companies store. I don't know the status of all the various services at this store, but the handful of Boston Star Markets I visited post-COVID retained more prepared foods offerings than comparable Shaw's or ACMEs.

Pharmacy is on the other side of the island you can see above.

Deli is behind the prepared foods counters, with bakery at the back of the grand aisle.

I don't know what decor package this store would've opened with, but I assume it was remodeled to the decor package we saw in Quincy during the conversion to Shaw's. On the other hand, the conversion was so soon after it opened that they might not have done anything. I can't find any pictures of the inside of the store prior to this remodel.

Looking up towards the front of the grand aisle...

Bakery and seafood/butcher at the back of the grand aisle. You can also see the beginning of the dairy department on the far right side.

HABA and pharmacy are in the first grocery aisle.

Customer service is on the front wall between the Starbucks and the front-end.

Back over on the back wall, we have the service seafood and butcher department, then packaged meat. If I had to guess, I'd say most of the refrigeration here is original and repainted in the 2014 renovation.

But like West Roxbury, the flooring is newer than the rest of the decor. Here's a 2017 picture with the old flooring but this decor.

Orson the Polar Bear greets us in the seltzer department, reminding us that Polar is from Worcester (where an inflatable Orson stands atop the factory, waving at passing cars on the highway).

I really like this dark blue tile (it looks like it may just be a texture printed on large panels rather than actual tiles here). I do generally find this decor package very attractive, and they clearly went all-out for this store.

Liquor and frozen foods in the front-right corner. I love the windows, too.

Frozen foods on the front wall of the store, with windows both real and fake.

And a look across the front-end looking back towards the grand aisle...

...and in the other direction. Notice the restroom sign left over from Shaw's.

I also had never seen this type of carts before, at any other Star Market or other Albertsons Companies store for that matter. Apparently they were relatively short-lived, because as of last summer, the store's cart fleet appeared to be dark green Shaw's carts.

Now that we've covered southern Dorchester and the eastern/coastal part, we're going to circle inland to Upham's Corner just west (then back west and south to complete the circle). Tomorrow, come back to tour a small supermarket at Upham's Corner!