Star Market - Boston, MA (Longwood)

Star Market
Opened: 2015

Owner: Albertsons Companies

Previous Tenants: Star Market (early 1970s-early 2000s) > Shaw's (early 2000s-2015)

Cooperative: none

Location: 33 Kilmarnock St, Boston, MA

Photographed: April 18, 2019; July 5, 2019; and July 27, 2019

Yikes. You can tell this is a 1970s store for sure! Nothing like some drab gray cinderblock for a beautiful supermarket exterior. This low and flat store did in fact open up as a new-build Star Market in the early 1970s, spanning a long and thin space of 30,000 square feet. The store is oriented to face the street, which you can see in the below picture, but there's a parking lot on the right side, which is in the first picture.

Like so many other Star Markets, this one became a Shaw's under Sainsbury's ownership in the early 2000s and stayed Shaw's up until 2015, when it converted back to Star Market. The store also got a renovation at that time, and it was actually a rather extensive remodel. More on that shortly.

It's unlikely this store's exterior is going to be updated anytime soon. In fact, the store will probably be closing soon -- a replacement is under construction at the Landmark Center just a block or so west. This property will be redeveloped. You can see the store in the early stages of construction here. The new Star Market will be larger, almost twice the size of the existing location.

The property has a couple of very old-school signs around, such as this enter sign below -- possibly original, since it has a bit of a 70s look to it.

This sign, which has since been removed, is probably 90s-era and was standing proudly all through the Shaw's era. It looks like a parking lot next door was previously used for overflow supermarket parking.

Let's head into the supermarket itself! Floral is in the front-right corner, at the front of the grand aisle, with the deli and prepared foods departments on the right-side wall and produce facing. Bakery is at the back of the grand aisle, with dairy on the rest of the back wall. Frozen foods and the wine/beer aisle are on the left side of the store, and in the front-left corner is a Starbucks and what was previously a natural foods and bulk foods department -- which I assume has been removed. Meat and seafood counters (along with packaged items) are in the last aisle. It's a bit of an unusual layout.

I don't know what decor package this store previously had, but it currently has the standard Star Market decor.

It previously had the early-00s Shaw's decor (see Webster Square), which would explain why the service counters are set up to be somewhat out on the sales floor rather than under a soffit or drop ceiling. The flooring is also probably left over from that era.

Bakery in the back-right corner of the store...

...and looking back up towards the entrance, which you can see next to the deli.

Dairy lines the back wall.

This is a perfectly fine, but not particularly impressive, Star Market. It feels very average, unlike the beautiful store at the Prudential Center nearby. My bet is that the new Star Market will be more like the North Station one.

Incidentally, this supermarket is just blocks from Fenway Park. This neighborhood could be referred to either as Longwood or Fenway, or sometimes both, and it's just south of Kenmore Square.

This area was all new when the store converted back from Shaw's to Star Market. There's an entrance and exit here, out onto Boylston Street, which runs along the front of the store. That and the Starbucks, along with the beer and wine department, were added in the 2015 renovation.

Natural foods, which I assume have been integrated into the grocery aisles by now. You can also see the bulk department.

The liquor aisle was undergoing a big reset when I photographed the store, meaning that a lot of the shelves were empty. Here's what it would look like otherwise.

Frozen foods, if I remember correctly, are in the second-to-last aisle. These cases were probably new in the 2015 remodel.

New dairy cases it looks like, too.

And meat and seafood are in the last aisle. The service counter is roughly in the middle of the aisle.

Unfortunately, our tour will have to end there since I don't seem to have a picture of the front-end. But it's a nice store, albeit not a very interesting one, and I'm excited to see what the new store brings. We're almost done with this part of Boston, but there's still one more supermarket to visit on the other end of Longwood. That'll be tomorrow's store tour, so come back to check it out!