Stop & Shop
Welcome to the Allston Stop & Shop! Now, let's be clear: this store doesn't exactly exist anymore. Sure, there's still an Allston Stop & Shop, and in the summer of 2024, it moved just across the street to a new-build location as this property is being redeveloped. See here. It's a prime location next to the Boston Landing train station, so it only makes sense that a massive, suburban-style supermarket with a massive, suburban-style parking lot isn't the best use of this space.
Let's tour the old store, which wasn't even that old when it closed. It opened in 1992, then was likely redone in the mid-00s. At nearly 70,000 square feet, it's quite large.
It had the Taste & Time decor package by the time that I visited, but that's newer than this store is, so I would bet it was renovated around 2005. The grand aisle was on the left side of the store, with produce on the inside, and floral, greeting cards, and deli on the left side. Seafood, meat, and dairy were on the back wall, with frozen and HABA on the right side. Bakery and a Dunkin' Donuts were in the front-right corner.
This feels like a very strange place to put greeting cards (although it makes sense that they're next to flowers), and since this section didn't have a department sign above it, I wonder if it was originally natural foods. That's what this section was typically used for in stores of this era.
Deli and prepared foods behind it. This is a no-frills version of this decor package. You can see the full version in Coram, which closed last year.
No service seafood by the time I visited -- the new store does have service seafood -- but notice that the prep space was still there, so I'm sure there was previously service seafood.
Looking across the back wall with the meat and dairy departments...
This store was in pretty decent shape when it closed (aging, but only cosmetically), but the new store is much nicer and feels like a better fit for this area. I don't know how the new store is doing -- at the time of writing, the new store had only 44 reviews on Google Maps averaging 3.3 stars. That's not good, but that's hardly a good representation of the general public's reaction. I haven't been back since my original visit last summer.
As you can see, they kept the old store very clean and I have no doubt the new one is being kept up very well, too.
With the larger footprint of this store, it still had some remnants of its original Super Stop & Shop expanded general merchandise section, such as this very large book and magazine department.
HABA in the last couple aisles. There was no pharmacy, and I'm not sure if there ever was one.
Milk in the back-right corner...
Frozen and dairy in the last aisle.
The bakery was in the front-right corner.
This is one of a handful of Stop & Shops with Dunkin' Donuts inside. That's more common in the Massachusetts area, although there are some in the New York metro area that have Starbucks inside.
This space, used for snacks and seasonal items when I visited, might have originally been a pharmacy. Sometimes Stop & Shop stores have banks here, but in Allston, there was a bank branch on the front wall next to customer service, beyond the registers.
A look across the front-end...
I'm not completely sure whether this building has been demolished yet, but Stop & Shop vacated the space in the summer of 2024 when the new location opened.
As you can see, it was quite a nice building outside and certainly didn't need to be demolished for any practical or structural reasons. It's just about how the property could be better used.
A look inside, through the front windows. It looks like basically everything remained, although I believe they were later auctioned off. Plenty of the fixtures were certainly reusable.
And a look at the new store...
The new Stop & Shop looks nothing like the old one -- inside or out. Tour it here!
Open: 1992-2024
Owner: Ahold Delhaize
Previous Tenants: none
Cooperative: none
Location: 60 Everett St, Allston, MA
Photographed: July 27, 2019 and July 6, 2024
This store competes with a Star Market just a couple blocks north, which we're going to tour tomorrow. Come back to check it out!
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