Save-A-Lot - Waterville, ME

Save-A-Lot
Open: 2012-2023

Owner: employee owned

Previous Tenants: Ames

Later Tenants: vacant

Cooperative: none

Location: 20 Concourse W, Waterville, ME

Photographed: August 12, 2019

Save-A-Lot has had some well-publicized struggles in recent years, and part of the shift was switching all of the corporate-owned stores to independent franchise ownership. But beyond that, even some independently-owned stores have faced hard times, and that's been the case here in Waterville. A new, roughly 20,000 square foot Save-A-Lot opened downtown in 2012 in part of a former Ames department store, but closed a little over a decade later.

This one was employee-owned by a local group that also runs Food City supermarkets in New England. I visited in 2019, and it was still looking fairly new despite the fact that it would close four years later.

Produce was in the front-right corner with sale items in the rest of the first aisle. Meat and cold cuts were on the back wall (they did cut meat in-store here and there was even a little butcher window), with dairy and frozen in the last aisle on the left side.

You can see the similarities between this store's decor and the decor at the former Save-A-Lot in Brewer, which got only a few signs switched out by a subsequent tenant.

Prior to Save-A-Lot's reorganization and new store prototype, this was one of the nicer Save-A-Lots I'd been to. As you can see, it was quite clean and had a pleasant feeling inside.

Waterville still has two Hannafords and a Shaw's, but both are outside the central downtown area.

I don't know if there was previously a supermarket in this strip mall. What is now a Goodwill and Dollar General to the left of the former Ames was previously a Brooks pharmacy, but it's possible before that it was a grocery store.

A look at the bright front-end, helped by the large windows and high ceiling...

That wraps up our look at the Waterville Save-A-Lot, and now it's off to one of the Hannafords in town!