Market Basket - North Andover, MA

Market Basket
Opened: August 22, 2025

Owner: DeMoulas family

Previous Tenants: Kohl's
Cooperative: none
Location: 350 Winthrop Ave, North Andover, MA
Photographed: August 20, 2025 and August 22, 2025

Today's final post is something really exciting: a before-and-after at a brand-new Market Basket! The cult-favorite (and currently embattled) supermarket chain replaced its North And over location last week, with the longtime previous store closing on Thursday the 21st and the brand-new, massive location opening first thing Friday morning. At over 90,000 square feet, occupying a former Kohl's, the new North Andover store makes the previous store of roughly 55,000 square feet look like a mini mart. And heck, 55,000 square feet isn't even that small.

Here's a look at the original North Andover Market Basket, built in the 1980s, which recently closed. More on that store soon.

I visited the old store on Wednesday, August 20, and the new one on opening day, Friday, August 22. As you can tell from the parking lot, the new store is, well, popular -- just as you'd expect for the namesake of the saying "basket 'til casket" -- and yes, that's a real thing people say.

The chain's current (and very messy) corporate leadership dispute was nowhere to be seen at the grand opening here in North Andover. I'd seen a few scattered social media posts advocating boycotts or protests of this new store, in support of the beloved and recently-suspended CEO, but it doesn't seem that anything significant actually materialized.

Inside, the new store is hardly state-of-the-art -- cosmetically, it looks exactly like the old store -- but it's huge and deluxe, with all the trimmings of a modern Market Basket.

Market's Cafe is in the front-left corner, which is what we're looking at here. Bakery and prepared foods are also in this corner. Opposite, on the far side of the store, dairy is in the first aisle with seafood and deli at the back. Meats line the back wall with produce and frozen on the left side in the last aisles. It's a very standard Market Basket layout, though we'll see a few slight modifications.

You'd hardly know this is a brand-new store. It could be from the 70s. Or it could've opened just a week ago.

This store definitely feels a bit more spread-out than other Market Baskets, as it's on the larger side (though far from their largest store). For instance, dairy is in aisles 1 and 2 here (along with cold cuts in aisle 2).

The cheese island is between aisles 1 and 2 in the back-right, it seems to accommodate a larger selection of frozen seafood at the back. Normally, this would be in front of the deli counter.

Instead, this case running in front of deli and seafood has an expanded selection of Portuguese and Latin American seafood. Market Basket isn't great with international foods, but they're definitely working hard on it for this location.

Deli and seafood service counters at the back. Again, other than the fact that everything is spotless and shiny, you'd hardly know this is a brand-new store. And that, in a way, is the charm of Market Basket.

Looking across the back wall of the store in the meat department. One modern touch is the butcher counter, which has only been put in stores in the last 10 years or so.

The grocery aisles are spotless and wide, and again you can see the expanded international foods selection for this location.

Service butcher at the back, which is looking good.

As you can probably tell, the store was absolutely packed for grand opening day.

Market Basket has long moved into closed department stores when they had an older and smaller store in the same mall, so even if this store is brand-new, the general idea is something they've done many times over.

Frozen foods in the last few grocery aisles...

And the produce department on the far left side of the store.

As usual, ice cream is on the outside of the produce department. It's not too far away from the rest of frozen foods, but not close either. (I assume it's placed here to group it with desserts in the bakery, but Market Basket is full of these weird layout quirks.)

And the bakery department is home to the best donuts ever! Looking good.

Service bakery and prepared foods are in the front left corner next to the cafe.

Market's Bakery and Market's Kitchen are two of the only departments to get signage, as you can see, another quirk of the idiosyncratic and old-school chain.

A look across the front end...

And that's all for opening day! Don't worry, though, there's lots more to see.

I visited on Wednesday and then again on Friday. These rainy pictures come from the new store on Wednesday, just before it opened.

Quite the difference in the parking lot compared to opening day, huh?

You can see the old store, built in the early 1980s or so, to the left of the new one.

It seemed that people might have been trying to get into the new store before it opened, prompting this sign...

Now for an extensive look at the old store!

Market Basket
Open: ca. early 1980s - August 21, 2025

Owner: DeMoulas family

Previous Tenants: none
Cooperative: none
Location: 350 Winthrop Ave, North Andover, MA
Photographed: August 20, 2025

When I visited the day before the old store closed, the location was winding down (although there weren't any store closing sales or anything, since it was just moving next door).

And I've never seen a Market Basket so deserted. The location had a few people wandering around, but there wasn't a whole lot left on the shelves so there wasn't a lot to buy.

Many of the registers had been closed, too, but the service departments appeared to be all still open.

Trust me, you'll never see a Market Basket looking like this!

The layout in the old store was very similar to that of the new store, just reversed. Dairy was on the left side, with seafood and deli at the back left corner. Meats on the back wall, then produce and frozen on the right side. Bakery and a much smaller prepared foods department were in the front right corner.

It appears the old store was expanded at some point, resulting in this extension on the left side.

Yep, the store was getting ready to close...

I wonder if unsold things from the old store were simply brought next door when the old store closed.

But as you can see, cosmetically exactly the same as the new store.

More evidence of the expansion: there's a dairy case to the left of the deli and seafood counters. Normally, those would basically be flush against the outside wall, as they are in the new store. You can also see the more typical cheese Island arrangement here.

Looking across the back wall...

Sushi was here with seafood and deli, but the rest of prepared foods were literally in the opposite corner of the store. Now, sushi is with prepared foods.

Normally, when I visit a closing store, there's a feeling of sadness of something ended. There was some of that here, but also some excitement in the air. This was just the beginning, not the end.

You can see that the fixtures and signage in the old store look all but identical to those in the old store. Market Basket is unusual in that way -- they don't upgrade even when they have the opportunity.