Price Rite Marketplace
Opened: October 1, 2025
Here in Waterbury, CT, Wakefern has just opened up its latest Price Rite location. As you might be able to guess from the outside, it's carved out of a former Kmart, a space that was Ollie's Bargain Outlet after Kmart closed (and Ollie's has since moved up the street). The 34,000 square foot space has now been renovated and reopened as the latest Price Rite.
Price Rite is Wakefern's discount banner, and they haven't done a lot of store openings lately. In fact, in the last five years or so, they've mostly closed stores. This one is particularly interesting, though, because it's just next door to a ShopRite that recently closed and became a Stop & Shop (that space itself was originally a Price Chopper). It's possible that Wakefern thought the ShopRite was unsustainable, but that they still wanted a grocery store in this area. Still, the ShopRite was independently owned; the new Price Rite is corporately owned by Wakefern directly.
This Price Rite is much smaller than the 70,000+ square foot ShopRite/Stop & Shop, but is still very close to a full supermarket, definitely much more so than the average ALDI, for instance. The store is oriented with its front-end along the right side wall, so produce lines the front of the store with baked goods and meat/seafood on the left side. Dairy is at the back, with frozen in the back-right corner, and grocery aisles run side to side.
This is a bit of a different format, and a new decor package, compared to the other Price Rites. As far as I know, this is the only Price Rite with this decor -- an interesting mix of sleek, well-done signage and signage that looks like the rejects from a high-school graphic design class. The signage and decor doesn't so much matter, though, because they seem to have hit on a formula that really works for this Price Rite -- somewhere in between a hard discount store and a full-service supermarket.
One look at this store's produce department will tell you it's very different from the average ALDI or LIDL. Sure, Price Rite is more expensive than them, too. Waterbury does have two ALDIs. But this store is probably double their size, with a lot more selection and a lot more specialty items. There's a wide selection of international foods here, for instance, which ALDI doesn't have much of at all.
No in-store bakery, of course, and no service departments.
But there are two full aisles of international foods, including Latin American, Caribbean, Asian, Italian, and Polish. That's a much bigger selection than a store like ALDI -- heck, a much bigger selection than some Stop & Shops -- but also a step forward for Price Rite compared to their older locations.
Waterbury also has a Save-A-Lot in part of a former Shaw's. That store is fairly similar to this one, but smaller. There's also a handful of other supermarkets, including a new Food Universe that just opened. But Waterbury is a city of 115,000, so there's plenty of room for several supermarkets.
You can get a sense of the international department here, which also includes dedicated frozen and dairy cases for international foods.
Notice that this section is merchandised much more like Waterbury's Compare Foods than an ALDI. I'm sure that's an intentional choice -- Price Rite will never beat ALDI on price, so they have to find another way to get an edge.
The regular grocery aisles feel more like a typical discount grocery store, though.
It's an interesting combination of types of shelving, something that I don't usually see in discount stores like this.
The store seemed very busy when I visited, but one visit isn't necessarily a good judgment on how it's doing bigger picture.
You can see some of the various signs here, with of course varying levels of attractiveness. These signs with the yellow stripe at the top are around the store and look completely amateurish, but again it really doesn't matter if they get the product mix and pricing right.
Dairy on the back wall. Obviously, beauty was not the main concern when building out this store, nor should it be.
But these signs seem particularly cheap-feeling. On the other hand, maybe that's intentional, so that you get the sense of the lower-priced store through a less design-intensive appearance.
Frozen foods line the back part of the right-side wall. Other signs seemed particularly well-done, such as the low price signs hanging over this area. In the picture below, you can see an example of the "Price Rite Deals," the sales advertised in the weekly circular (and that branding is also used on the price tags). If you go back a few pictures, you can see the other two in that series, "Price Rite Every Day" (everyday low prices) and "Special Buy" (limited-time closeout deals, while supplies last). That took some good thought and planning, and feels much more professional than the generic low prices signs.
A look at the front-end, with a few self-checkouts up at the front.
Owner: Wakefern Food
Previous Tenants: Kmart > Ollie's Bargain Outlet
Cooperative: Wakefern Food
Location: 881 Wolcott St, Waterbury, CT
Photographed: October 9, 2025
It's interesting to see Wakefern evolving the Price Rite format after what felt like several years of stagnation. So far, I like what I see! Here's the rest of this weekend's posts to check out...
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