Stop & Shop
Opened: early 1990s
Happy new year and welcome to the Malden Stop & Shop! This is our second and final stop here in Malden, after visiting Super 88 yesterday. This large, 75,000 square foot store is right downtown in Malden, and was constructed in the early 1990s. I don't know if it replaced an older Stop & Shop location in town.
A note on this tour: the majority of these pictures come from a January 2025 visit, but some come from back in July 2019. Generally, the darker and blurrier ones are older, because of the much better cell-phone camera I have now, but it doesn't matter because not much has changed in the last six years.
This store appears to have been renovated shortly before I visited in 2019, and going by pictures posted to Google Maps it was remodeled in early 2018 or so. Here's a look at the interior previously. It looks like it probably opened with a Super Stop & Shop decor package -- not sure which one -- then in the mid-00s was remodeled to the Taste & Time decor package that you can see in the above link. Then, it got the decor it currently has around early 2018.
The store is set up generally much like any other 90s-era Super Stop & Shop, with the grand aisle on the right side. Floral is in the front-right corner with deli and prepared foods on the right-side wall. Seafood, meat, and dairy line the back wall, with HABA and frozen on the left side. Bakery, pharmacy, and a Dunkin' Donuts are in the front-left corner.
In this area you can see above between floral and deli, there's currently a section for international (mostly Latin and Caribbean) produce. I assume that originally would've been a natural foods department, given that's the standard spot for it in stores of this era, but it was actually removed before the 2018 remodel.
This is a very smart use of the space, and a much expanded international produce department compared to what most Stop & Shops offer.
Interesting that this sign generally fits with the back and white category signs seen throughout the store, but it's not quite the same style.
Prepared foods and deli are behind international produce on the right-side wall.
As you can see here, I duplicated some of the shots between 2019 and 2025. Not a bad thing, though.
These pictures make the store seem much more empty than it was. In fact, when I visited both times it was quite busy. It's right in the center of town, and all but across the street from the Malden train station.
Cheese and deli at the back. As far as I know, this store has yet to receive the latest decor package, but it's by no means neglected. In fact, it was in very good shape when I was here earlier this year.
Looking back up towards the front of the grand aisle...
The meat and seafood counters here are definitely larger than what many Stop & Shops have, again a sign that the store is doing well.
This decor package, which I've taken to calling wooden fruit slice (or something like that) because of the wood-texture panels with the fruit-slice logo, was the first to integrate natural foods into the grocery aisles. Since the 90s at least, Stop & Shop had been putting natural foods in a separate department. Because of that, there was specific, bright green signage calling out the natural foods in this decor package that wasn't used in earlier stores. This particular design isn't used anymore, but Stop & Shop has kept the callouts for natural foods in the grocery aisles.
I'm scratching my head a bit at the European sign over the Caribbean and Latin sodas here in the international aisle, but regardless, there is an expanded international foods department. There's clearly more of an effort here to merchandise the store to appeal to a diverse population here in Malden.
Beer and wine take up a few of the grocery aisles, with their own register at the front. These aisles are blocked off from the rest of the store.
Dairy in the back-left corner of the store. The dairy department also continues down the last aisle.
Jumping over to the front wall, we can see the Dunkin' and the bakery in the front-left corner.
This gray geometric pattern interests me, as I don't think I've seen it in any other stores with this decor package. So many of the Stop & Shop decor packages of the last 20 years or so have been, well, boring and it's nice to see some textures on the walls, even if it's only for one aisle. We saw a similar situation in Milford, which was constructed with this decor.
I suppose color would be too much to ask for. As you can clearly see throughout, it's a very gray store.
And actually, that makes the Dunkin' awning pop all the more! Same goes for the bright green natural foods signage.
Pharmacy is the final department on our circuit before we reach the registers...
It's somewhat unusual to have such a large, suburban-style supermarket right downtown in a crowded New England city, but it looks like it replaced a large industrial complex or something like that, judging by HistoricAerials.com.
On neither one of my visits was the sun cooperating for exterior photos, but you still can get the idea.
Owner: Ahold Delhaize
Previous Tenants: none
Cooperative: none
Location: 99 Charles St, Malden, MA
Photographed: July 6, 2019 and January 10, 2025
And across the back wall, with the meat and seafood counters visible to the right.
And that's all for this Stop & Shop. I'll see you in Chelsea tomorrow!
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