The Market Report

Price Rite Marketplace Opened: 2020 Owner:  Todd Slawsby / Madison Foods Previous Tenants:  Save-A-Lot (converted 2020) Cooperative:  Wakefern Food Corp. Location:  650 American Legion Hwy, Roslindale, MA Photographed:  May 20, 2022 Beginning in 2020, Save-A-Lot underwent a reorganization. It switched the chain from a retailer with some locations franchised to exclusively a wholesaler with all stores franchised . During that transition, a lot of stores were closed or sold , leading to a much more significant variation in Save-A-Lot stores. Others left Save-A-Lot entirely but kept their stores, just under a new name. That's what happened with the Save-A-Lot stores here in Boston, all three of which transitioned to Price Rite in 2020. (We also saw that in Brockton , as all four stores share an owner.) Madison Foods joined the Wakefern Food cooperative in 2020, a cooperative best known for its ShopRite stores . (In the Save-A-Lot franchise model, independent own...

Save-A-Lot Open:  before 1992 - 2020 Owner:  Todd Slawsby / Madison Foods Previous Tenants:  unknown Cooperative:  none Location:  650 American Legion Hwy, Roslindale, MA Photographed:  July 28, 2019 There's a lot for us to see at the corner of American Legion Highway and Canterbury Street in Roslindale. We begin with this Save-A-Lot, which has been in business since at least the early 90s but no earlier than 1981, and which in 2020 switched to Price Rite when owner Madison Foods left Save-A-Lot and joined the Wakefern Food cooperative (just like in Brockton ). While it's hard to tell for sure, my best guess is that this Save-A-Lot carved about 25-30,000 square feet out of a former department store. In fact, this strip mall originally had a supermarket at the other end -- an A&P approximately where these stores are today -- from the late 50s through about 1980. As you can see, the store setup inside is very similar to Brockton, although in these pictur...

Stop & Shop Opened:  ca. 2009; previously late 1960s on this property Owner:  Ahold Delhaize Previous Tenants:  unknown Cooperative:  none Location:  950 American Legion Hwy, Roslindale, MA Photographed:  June 8, 2019 Time for another Stop & Shop! Boston, more or less the hometown for both Star Market and Stop & Shop, has one of each in almost every neighborhood. Here in Roslindale, a Stop & Shop has been in this strip mall on American Legion Highway since the late 1960s, but around 2009, the store was rebuilt just next to the original building . It's still a rather small Stop & Shop, totaling just under 40,000 square feet, but it's a very nice one and still feels very new. Many of the Boston Stop & Shops are both smaller and nicer than the average store in the chain. This one has a familiar setup, with prepared foods, deli, and bakery lining the left side wall. Meat and seafood are on the back wall, with dairy and frozen on the ri...

I hope you've enjoyed seeing the stores in Mattapan and Hyde Park over the last several days! Here's a map of all the stores we've seen in the area. Click on each one to jump to that store tour. Coming Up Next We're headed to the northwest to visit Roslindale and West Roxbury, which are on the outer edges of Boston. They're both more suburban than Mattapan and Hyde Park -- which are already pretty suburban -- and West Roxbury is a bit higher income. It feels more like the suburban towns that surround it on three sides (Brookline, Needham, and Dedham) than a city neighborhood. We'll spend about two weeks here, seeing everything from tiny former grocery stores built into houses much like we did in Worcester, to large, big-chain supermarkets. Tomorrow we're starting just a couple blocks north of the AFB we saw in Hyde Park yesterday!

America's Food Basket Opened: 1997 Owner:  Edwin Polanco Previous Tenants:  Finast (late 1950s-ca. early 1980s) > Flanagan's (ca. 1980s-late 1990s) Cooperative:  America's Food Basket Location:  942 Hyde Park Ave, Hyde Park, MA Photographed:  June 8, 2019 Welcome to our final Hyde Park store! This building goes back to the 1950s when it was built as a Finast, which closed around the early 80s. Local chain Flanagan's moved in, occupying the space until the late 1990s. In 1997, a location of America's Food Basket moved in. The supermarket was originally about 17,000 square feet, and appears to have eventually been expanded to its present 20,000 square feet or so. It's also possible that one of the past supermarkets here was larger than AFB is, and the space next door currently occupied by CVS would've been part of the supermarket, too (that would bring the total to around 33,000 square feet). Inside, you can tell it's an old-school supermarket building...