H Mart
Welcome to the oldest H Mart in the immediate Boston area! And having opened just 11 years ago, it's not that old. (An older store is in Burlington, farther outside the city.) Since this store's opening, H Mart has also opened up shop in Quincy, Brookline, and Somerville.
This was one of the very early stores I photographed in the Boston area -- way back in the fall of 2018, which is practically ancient history -- and this was also my first time seeing a Paris Baguette. Clearly, I was fascinated.
To be fair, the baked goods were quite nice. Paris Baguette is an outside chain of Korean bakeries that has locations in many H Marts and similar stores, but also lots of freestanding locations.
The seating area is behind the Paris Baguette.
As you can see, and as usual, this H Mart's food court is quite popular.
Here was my lunch -- a miso ramen with pork, I believe. I remember it being delicious, but hey, that was what, seven years ago? I still like that Ito En iced tea just as much as I did then, though. If you don't already know this about me, I love my iced tea. I drink way too much. But it's so delicious. I also drink a lot of hot tea. In fact, in a previous apartment, I had a dedicated tea shelf where my roommate and I combined our extensive tea collections, probably totalling two dozen kinds.
Enough about my beverage habits. Let's get into the supermarket!
You can see the decor here is a bit different from the newer decor, which was introduced just a year or two after this store opened, I believe. It's similar to the decor used in some of H Mart's New York City stores, which I believe are under separate ownership.
Prior to H Mart's presence here, a smaller part of the building was occupied by Harvest Co-Op Market. They were here until 2012, when they moved diagonally across the street. That store is one of two other posts today, which you can see here and here.
But Harvest Co-Op was only a fraction of the size that the current H Mart is.
I like the brick and wood textures on the walls behind the department signage, which is lit. Generally, this is a very attractive store, and it looks like it's held up well over the last few years.
Packaged prepared foods are behind produce on the right-side wall of the store, with seafood in the back-right corner.
I'm not sure if this decor package made it into any other locations. Most of the stores in the New York-New Jersey area, which I'm most familiar with, are either newer or older.
Meat at the back of the store, and you can see the service seafood department on the right side below.
There aren't that many grocery shopping options here at Central Square, so it seems like H Mart was also making an effort to bring in some other general mainstream American groceries. There's a Whole Foods just north, which we'll see on Monday.
Frozen foods in the last aisle.
And the registers are between the grocery aisles and the food court, which you can see beyond the Thank You sign below.
These photos came from a visit earlier this month, so they're much more recent than the rest of the photos in this post.
This section has a lot of nice natural light from the large windows facing Essex Street, the cross street. This was a newly-built section, in a new building with apartments above.
This also allowed H Mart to greatly expand the nonfoods selection here, freeing up some space in the grocery aisles.
This is also where the small health and beauty selection is, along with paper and cleaning.
And kitchenwares in the last aisle...
Opened: 2014
Owner: Il Yeon Kwon
Previous Tenants: Harvest Co-Op Market
Cooperative: none
Location: 581 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA
Photographed: October 5, 2018 and November 1, 2025
This store backs up to a municipal parking lot, where there's another entrance to the supermarket. The front-end crosses the store here, with the food court nearer to Massachusetts Avenue in the front of the store, to the left in the above photo, and the main supermarket is in the back of the building, to the right in the above photo.
The supermarket is just shy of 20,000 square feet, though a recent remodel brought it up to around 24,000 square feet. More on that remodel later. You enter off of Massachusetts Avenue, the main drag through this part of Cambridge, to a food court with a Paris Baguette and several food vendors. The supermarket is behind that, with produce in the front-right corner and dairy facing in the first aisle, meat on the back wall, seafood in the back-right corner, and frozen foods in the last aisle on the left side.
Looking up towards the front of the store...
A renovation that wrapped up within the last few years has expanded out the side of the store, adding nonfoods, a small liquor store, and kitchenwares in a new storefront facing the side street.
Before we leave Central Square, don't miss the former Harvest Co-Op location and the recently-closed Daily Table store. Enjoy the weekend, and on Monday, we'll check out the Whole Foods to the north!
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