Original Grocery Tenant: A&P
Address: 201 Main St, Gloucester, MA
Gloucester has several big-chain supermarkets, but these days they're all outside the quaint downtown (mainly because of space constraints). A large Market Basket and Stop & Shop are to the northeast of town, and a slightly smaller Shaw's is just to the east of them -- that's tomorrow's stop. But right on Main Street is this somewhat unusual-looking, roughly 18,000 square foot Walgreens. The front looks not that different from most Walgreens, but the side gives us a clue as to the history of the building. Recognize this? Yes, that's the side of the A&P centennial facade. A search on Newspapers.com confirmed that, but unfortunately I wasn't able to get anything too specific from there or elsewhere on the store's timeframe.
Opened: 1960s
Closed: between 1978 and 2003
Later Tenants: Walgreens (open by 2007)
Photographed: August 22, 2025
It was definitely open in 1978, and was constructed in the 1960s. But the best I could do for the closure is between 1978 and 2003. On Cape Cod, A&P lasted until 2003; in other tourist destinations in Massachusetts, they existed into the 90s (far longer than elsewhere in the state). Now, come back tomorrow for a look at the Shaw's just outside of town!
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