Compare & Save Supermarket
I don't have any inside insight, but from my estimation, Allegiance Retail Services -- the cooperative behind Foodtown and Pathmark -- has had a bumpy couple of years. Their member Morton Williams was acquired by Wakefern, cutting around 15 stores from their network, followed by member Adam Shapiro switching to Key Food (that was another three stores). A brand-new Hudson Valley Freshtown closed in under a year after opening, while Food Circus has retreated to just two stores after closing stores in Port Monmouth and Red Bank. Meanwhile, the launch of Pathmark Daily feels more like a last-ditch retool to save a struggling store than a true launch of a new brand. Despite all of that, there's been a really significant, somewhat surprising bright spot for Allegiance: Philadelphia.
Okay, let's turn back the clock a little bit to understand what's happening here. Around 2015, Carlos Batista opened a small supermarket called Compare & Save (no relation to Compare Foods nor Stop & Compare) on Wyoming Ave here in Philly. It was supplied by Krasdale. In 2019, Compare & Save opened a second, larger location at Harrowgate, also supplied by Krasdale. A few years later, the Harrowgate location switched to being supplied by Allegiance, and in 2025, rebranded as Foodtown. In the last few months, Batista has opened two brand-new Compare & Save locations, both supplied by Allegiance, though the original one remains Krasdale-supplied. Allegiance's predecessor, called just Foodtown (this was before they had so many different banners) never really got any traction in the Philly area, so the expansion of Compare & Save is really notable. And this is well outside of their comfort zone: the nearest other Allegiance store is a Foodtown in Sea Girt at the Jersey Shore, around 60 miles away.
Let's start with the newer of the two new Compare & Save stores. This one dates back to the Penn Fruit days, and in fact you can actually see the arched roof peeking out from behind the newer facade in some of the exterior photos. Via Joshaustin610, this store became a Drug Emporium in the 1980s, Eckerd in 2005, and then Rite Aid, which closed recently. This store is in the range of 20,000 square feet.
There's a lot of pictures here in this post, so I've made them a little smaller. Click on any to enlarge them. So we enter on the left side of the store to produce in the first aisle, with deli and hot food in the back-left corner. Service meat is in the back-left also, and service seafood in the back-right with packaged meat in between. Dairy/frozen are on the right side.
The look of this store is really old-school, and if you told me this decor was straight out of the 1980s, I would believe it. But to me, it didn't feel painfully dated but just kind of gave the store the feeling it's always been here, in a kind of pleasant way. You can seee that most of the fixtures are either new or refurbished, given that this space was not a supermarket for many years.
This particular location felt well-used, too, with a number of shoppers doing a full cart worth of shopping when I visited. It's practically across the street from a Save-A-Lot that felt absolutely empty. Not sure if that location does more business at other times, but it was clear Compare & Save got the higher traffic when I was at both.
Obviously, they're not comparable stores. The Save-A-Lot is a hard discount store, with no service departments and limited fresh options. This store has basically all the regular fresh groceries you'd find in a larger supermarket, except bakery (they don't bake in-store at any of the Compare & Save locations). It's all just scaled down. In other words, execution here seems really good -- the owners have given this store every chance of succeding. We'll see how it's run longer term, though.
Location might matter here, too. This is the only full-service supermarket on this particular stretch of Castor Avenue, a business thoroughfare, though it's between two much larger supermarkets, a ShopRite and an ACME.
Now, let's check out the other new Compare & Save...
Okay, so although there's a new Compare & Save sign here, we can definitely see some history behind it. And that would be two generations of Save-A-Lot signs, as this store was a Save-A-Lot until 2025 (and it even got a remodel that year before closing). Before Save-A-Lot, the store was an A&P. It measures around 18,000 square feet.
This one is also in a neighborhood with not too many supermarket options, but here there's a much larger independent called 7 Brothers in a former ACME about 1/3 of a mile west. 7 Brothers is around 40,000 square feet and a very well-run store, so it's formidable competition. A ShopRite is a bit farther away.
Despite the fact that this store opened just about a month before the Castor Avenue store, it has a completely different decor package. No idea why. It doesn't appear to be left over from Save-A-Lot, since it's nothing like any Save-A-Lot decor I know, and has signage for full-service counters they definitely didn't have. Here's a look inside the Save-A-Lot.
The layout of this one is slightly different. Produce is in the first aisle on the left side of the store, with service butcher at the back. Packaged meats are on the back wall, and service seafood in the back-right corner. Deli is in the front-right corner here.
These stores aren't particularly aesthetically pleasing, but that's also clearly not the focus here. They don't have to be beautiful if they're run well and stock what people are looking for. This one was less busy when I stopped by, so I don't know if this gets the same traffic as the Castor Avenue location.
I wonder if there's a hint of Allegiance's strategy here. Most of their New York-area competition doesn't have much presence in Philadelphia (Key Food has two member stores in Camden and one in Bristol, PA, but none other in the Philly area, for instance), so maybe there's an opportunity for Allegiance to establish itself here. It's certainly interesting that they've been willing to expand so quickly after entering the city, and it seems to be going at least pretty well so far.
On the other hand, of course it's simply possible that Allegiance's corporate strategy isn't particularly focused on Philly but Batista just saw a series of opportunities here and took them. Regardless, it'll be interesting to see how this develops. That's all for now, but keep an eye out for more news posts coming soon and the beginning of our New Hampshire visit on Monday!
Opened: May 15, 2026
Owner: Carlos Batista
Previous Tenants: Penn Fruit > Rite Aid
Cooperative: Allegiance Retail Services
Location: 6515 Castor Ave, Philadelphia, PA
Photographed: June 5, 2026
Compare & Save Supermarket
Opened: March 2026
Owner: Carlos Batista
Previous Tenants: A&P > Save-A-Lot
Cooperative: Allegiance Retail Services
Location: 5201 Rising Sun Ave, Philadelphia, PA
Photographed: March 27, 2026
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