Wegmans
Opened: 2014
Take a look at that clock tower... what does it say? Time for Chestnut Hill's other supermarket! (Trust me. It was there, it was just in really really small lettering.)
Happy Monday and welcome back to Chestnut Hill. On Friday, we toured the impressive Star Market in Chestnut Hill, about six miles outside downtown Boston. Now it's time for a look at another relatively recently built store just down the street from the Star Market. This is one of a couple Wegmans locations in the Boston area, along with other locations in Burlington, Westwood (south of Boston), and Medford (north of Boston). The chain also has a location in Northborough, near Worcester, and previously operated an unusual store at the Natick Mall.
This is also a bit of a nontraditional Wegmans, and is condensed to a smaller-than-usual space. In fact, the supermarket is just 70,000 square feet, which is small for Wegmans. There's an additional 10,000 square foot liquor store in one of the levels above the supermarket, which is at the bottom of this mall facing away from the main highway. Incidentally, that highway is Boylston Street or Route 9, which goes out west of here to the Worcester suburbs, crosses through Worcester, and then continues west. We've seen stores in all those areas on route 9!
But inside, it feels a lot like a typical Wegmans, just a little smaller. The grand aisle is on the right side of the store, with prepared foods, bakery, deli, meat, and seafood on the right side and produce in what amounts to the second aisle. Floral and cheese are at the back of the produce department, with dairy on the back wall and frozen in the back-left of the store. Nonfoods are at the far left side, with pharmacy in the front-left corner.
Note that these pictures were taken pre-COVID in 2019, so there's still a lot of self-service prepared foods bars here, and options in general that disappeared during the pandemic. Some newer Wegmans have brought back food service selections in different ways, but almost every supermarket that had some form of food service pre-COVID has reduced or eliminated it since.
One of the ways this store feels different from a normal Wegmans is the lower ceiling. Compare this store to Burlington, linked above, for instance. Here it's a necessity because it's on the ground floor of a multi-floor development.
Given how extensive the perimeter is here -- as is typical for a Wegmans -- I have to assume the nearby Star Market was rebuilt in anticipation of this store's opening.
Around the time this store opened, Wegmans was also in negotiations to occupy a large space in the Landmark Center in Longwood in Boston. But those plans fell apart around 2017, and a revised plan has Star Market occupying that space, moving from their existing Longwood store a block away. There, I have to wonder if Star Market pulled some strings to keep Wegmans out of their home turf.
This appears to be a very high-volume store, as most Wegmans are, and it appears to be higher volume than the nearby Star Market -- but both seem to do just fine.
An extensive seafood department here includes an island of fish on ice and fillets in a service counter on the perimeter. This is a standard Wegmans setup, but it's nice to see they've been able to keep all of their services in a smaller-than-usual location like this.
In fact, I sometimes find Wegmans stores too big and would love stores around this size.
One thing that Wegmans is very good at is lighting. Their stores have good, targeted but not overwhelming lighting. It allows a large store to still feel personal and premium even though it's not that different in size from a Walmart.
Cheese is at the back of the grand aisle(s), between meat/seafood and produce.
Looking up towards the front of the produce department...
Another nice feature here is the "produce butcher," where produce is prepared to-order and for packaged convenience items out on the sales floor. It helps remind customers that the things they're buying are fresh-prepared.
Looking towards the back of the produce department...
Wegmans does run some of the consistently most beautiful mainstream supermarkets out there. The decor isn't even that extensive, but they deploy signage and carefully designed and curated displays to create the impression of a premium store.
Floral at the back of the produce department...
And dairy lines the back wall of the store. Including a model train, of course!
I believe all of the grocery aisles here have this more warehouse-style shelving, which isn't common for Wegmans. Typically, only the last few aisles will have it for nonfoods and large packages of items.
HABA and natural foods in the first aisles. Notice the warehouse-type shelving here, too. That's the one thing that makes the store feel less premium, but I think the idea is to emphasize value in the grocery aisles and specialty selections on the perimeter.
Beverages here along the back wall.
Frozen foods are in the back-left corner of the store. The aisles are divided in half front-to-back here, which we've seen in a couple stores in this area.
It's so interesting to me how Wegmans is able to walk the line of having a premium-positioned perimeter and a value-focused center store. Clearly, the emphasis here is on savings, but the service departments feel very different. In fact, the center-store is almost run like a larger-scale ALDI or LIDL -- emphasis on private label, limited sales and digital coupons but emphasis on everyday low prices.
Even despite that, though, there are some more premium features in the grocery aisles, such as this selection of loose leaf teas. Of course, I haven't been back to this store since 2019, so I don't know how many of these specialty features are still here. This feels like something that might have been cut in that time.
Pharmacy in the front-left corner...
...and the registers are at the front, with a cafe beyond them. I like the lighting here, too.
Owner: Wegman family
Previous Tenants: none
Cooperative: none
Location: 200 Boylston St, Chestnut Hill, MA
Photographed: August 2, 2019
This mall was newly built in 2014, but it was on the property of an older Stop & Shop, later Omni Foods.
And the Mediterranean bar -- possibly removed during the coronavirus -- is next to the cheese counter.
That's all for Chestnut Hill, a very small town between Brookline and Newton. And tomorrow, we're headed just to the southwest for a look at a store in Needham to the south of Newton, and after that we'll turn our attention to Newton for a week or two!
Comments
Post a Comment