Star Market - Allston, MA

Star Market

Opened: ca. 2008

Owner: Albertsons Companies

Previous Tenants: Star Market (1994-early 00s) > Shaw's (early 00s-ca. 2008)

Cooperative: none

Location: 1065 Commonwealth Ave, Allston, MA

Photographed: July 20, 2019 and July 27, 2019

Welcome to the largest Star Market in Boston! Not the largest supermarket in Boston, that honor would go to the South Bay Stop & Shop, at 76,000 square feet. But at 65,000 square feet, this Star Market is larger than you could shake a stick at. The sprawling building was very obviously not originally a supermarket, and in fact it was originally a Chevrolet dealership, which it remained until the early 1990s. Star Market opened in 1994, converted to Shaw's in the early 00s, and then back to Star Market around 2008 -- a bit before most of the stores did.

Since this building takes up an entire city block, the parking lot is actually behind it. Like the Newtonville location, though, there's a parcel pick-up system. Similar to that store, you can't take carts out to the parking lot, so if you have a car, store employees send your order to the lower level on a conveyor belt system and you drive into a driveway under the supermarket, where you can put your groceries in the car.

There's an entrance and exit each at the front and back. The front faces Commonwealth Avenue and the back faces the parking lot and Gardner Street.

Heading back over to the front wall. The store is oriented to face the side street, Alcorn Street, so the front-end runs along that side of the building. The grand aisle is on the left side, against Commonwealth Avenue.

A few Shaw's remnants remain around these stores, even though they were only Shaw's for a couple years. Here, competing signs -- one in Premium Fresh & Healthy font -- tell us to go inside both Shaw's and Star Market for the liquor store.

Let's take a look inside this sprawling store! Below, we're looking from the front to the back along the side street and front-end. A Starbucks, customer service counter, and the parcel conveyor belt system are on this side of the store.

Because of the area's large Jewish community (the Boston area's only kosher supermarket is in Brookline, not quite half a mile south of here), the bakery department is fully kosher.

The grand aisle is here on the left side of the store, with bakery and the liquor store in the front-left corner. Produce lines the right side, with deli, cheese, and prepared foods on the left side. Meat and seafood are at the back, with packaged meat continuing across the back wall of the store. Frozen is roughly in the middle of the store, with dairy in the back-right corner. The grocery aisles are split front-to-back with a middle dividing aisle, and the last few aisles only are the front half to make way for backroom space. The pharmacy is also in that back corner.

The design of the grand aisle is really well-done, with a section of the ceiling exposed and accented with (decorative) wooden beams. It makes for a very cool effect in person, and I wish more of the store looked like this.

Prepared foods and deli counters line the left side of the grand aisle. These counters back up to Commonwealth Avenue.

Produce is opposite those departments.

A large cheese island sits between the deli/prepared foods departments and produce.

For a rather large store, the seafood department feels very small. Consider Chestnut Hill, which is a smaller (but much more upscale) location.

Bulk foods opposite the cheese department. As I've mentioned on other Star Market posts, I don't know if this section survived the coronavirus.

Looking across the back wall of the store with the meat department at the back.

Here's a look across the middle of the store from the frozen foods aisles. You can see where the last several aisles get shorter and only have the front half.