Stop & Shop - Bedford, MA

Stop & Shop
Opened: early 1990s

Owner: Ahold Delhaize

Previous Tenants: unknown

Cooperative: none

Location: 337 Great Rd, Bedford, MA

Photographed: March 5, 2025 and October 13, 2025

Welcome to Bedford, MA! It's probably not a town you've ever heard of, but it's actually a notable town because it's home to the Hanscom Air Force Base (and its on-base commissary). A number of other related industries are also in the area. In addition to the commissary, where I sadly am not able to go as a civilian, Bedford has two supermarkets. The larger one is this Stop & Shop, at about 63,000 square feet.

It opened in the early 1990s as a Super Stop & Shop and appears to have only been renovated once, shortly after Stop & Shop introduced the fruit-slice logo. While I'm not totally certain on this timeline, it looks like this store opened as a replacement for the Purity Supreme location they acquired (which is now Whole Foods, tomorrow's store tour).

The layout is standard for a Stop & Shop of this era, with the grand aisle on the right side. Floral is in the front-right corner with deli on the right-side wall and produce opposite. Meat/seafood and dairy are on the back wall, with frozen and HABA on the left side. Bakery and pharmacy are in the front-left corner.

Possibly because the commissary is an infamously bad supermarket, and this is its main competition, this store is rather rundown and felt a little dead. It was quite clean, but the building hasn't been maintained great and it had a lot of empty space. As you'll see in these pictures, there were almost no other customers when I visited on a weekday late afternoon.

In some stores, these department signs were backlit. I don't know if they previously were here and the lights have since burnt out or been turned off, or if they were never lit, but the wall decor felt very dark here. In fact, the lighting felt low throughout the store and some brighter lighting could probably make it feel less dingy.

A look across the back wall, where the seafood department is still open and fully stocked. I was surprised to find that since so many Stop & Shop locations have had their seafood counters closed.

No lights burnt out in the grocery aisles, though, which helps with the brightness!

Dairy on the back wall, again with a somewhat dim department sign.

Some maintenance issues make themselves known in the nonfoods aisle, with some leaks clearly going on here. I saw a couple of stained ceiling tiles throughout, so maybe this store just needs a new roof.

Frozen foods on the left side of the store.

And bakery and deli are in the front-left corner.

And now a look across the front-end, back towards the grand aisle...

Now here's a brief return from early October of this year, showing that the exterior had been painted and the new logo was going up, although it doesn't look like an interior remodel is also happening.

The entire strip mall, which has a similar exterior design, has been painted gray to match. Interesting that the temporary signage, posted to the side of the main facade, has the 2008-2018 logo rather than the current one.

Tomorrow, we're headed to the other supermarket in town!