426 Essex St, Salem, MA

Original Grocery Tenant: Elm Farm Food Stores

Address: 426 Essex St, Salem, MA

Opened: by 1965

Closed: by 1970

Later Tenants: Giant Value Discount Foods (open by 1970, closed 1988 or 1989) > Crosby's Marketplace (open by 1989, closed 2000 or 2001) > CVS (2002- )

Photographed: May 20, 2025

Just west of downtown Salem, Elm Farm Food Stores opened this 15,000 square foot supermarket in the early 1960s, no later than 1965. By 1970, it had become a Giant Value Discount Foods, which then became a Crosby's Marketplace in 1988 or 1989. Crosby's stuck around here until late 2000 or 2001, and a new CVS opened up in the space in 2002. Now, a couple interesting things here. First off, the Elm Farm to Giant Value progression is actually a familiar one: a supermarket in Boston's Mission Hill was originally an Elm Farms, later a Giant Value. It looks like both of those might have been cooperatives or franchises, so it's possible ownership didn't change during that transition -- maybe a few Elm Farms operators decided to switch to Giant Value, or maybe the whole group even rebranded. If we're going crazy with theories here, it's even possible that the store had been owned by Crosby's well before being branded with that name. Could the Crosby family have been the owner of this store as an Elm Farms and a Giant Value? Even with all my extensive searching, I couldn't find the answer to that. Crosby's, though, still has a store in Salem.

It's a former centennial A&P about 3/4 of a mile southeast of here. That store was an A&P through at least 1978, and Crosby's was open there no later than 1999. So it's possibly the two stores overlapped for years, or maybe just very briefly. But they were definitely open at the same time, as Crosby's ads from 1999 and 2000 list both locations. Maybe someone who knows this area well can chime in and enlighten us all! In the meantime, enjoy the weekend, and see you next week for a look at downtown Salem.