Stop & Shop - Boston, MA (South Boston)

Stop & Shop
Opened: ca. late 1990s

Owner: Ahold Delhaize

Previous Tenants: First National / Finast (ca. 1950-late 1970s) > Flanagan's (late 1980s- ca. 1990s)

Cooperative: none

Location: 713 E Broadway, Boston, MA

Photographed: June 29, 2019

Just across the street from yesterday's former A&P is this Stop & Shop -- one of the rather few, small-format street front stores left in the Stop & Shop fleet. (There are a handful of others, including Jersey City and Westfield, both of which were previously Mayfair Foodtowns.) This one was built around 1950 as a Finast, which closed in the late 1970s. I don't know what was here directly after Finast, but Flanagan's moved in from their location across the street by the end of the following decade. Around the 1990s, it became a Stop & Shop.

The store is around 19,000 square feet. The entrance and exit are in the front-left corner, and the store is oriented to face the street with parking on the side and back.

Unlike those New Jersey stores, this one has been kept up really well over the years. It even got a pretty deluxe version of the yellow and purple remodel around 2010. You can also see some local touches, with historical black-and-white photos posted in a few places around the store.

On the left side of the store are produce and meat in the first aisle, with deli and bakery on the back wall. Frozen and dairy are in the last aisle on the right side.

I don't believe this store has been redone since I visited. You can see it was in very good shape despite being small and a rather old building, but there's not really another place to build a new Stop & Shop around here, and nowhere to expand the store without taking over all of the parking lot.

As you can see, the store is packed with merchandise and fixtures. Even though it's small, it's the largest grocery store in Southie, and one of only two full supermarkets in the neighborhood.

Check out that cheese case! This is definitely a nice Stop & Shop. It was in much better shape than I was expecting given how small it is.

And you know it's a small store when you've got rice across from toothpaste!

I assume the layout is left over from a previous tenant, since it's not particularly close to how Stop & Shop stores are typically set up, but it's hard to tell.

Notice that even the back lighting on the department signs was all working! Definitely a well-maintained store. As I've said, I think the Boston stores are the best-run in the chain.

On Monday, we're going to tour Southie's other supermarket, which is about a mile west on Broadway. Have a great weekend and come back to see some news posts!