Special Report: Met Fresh Supermarket - Philadelphia, PA

Met Fresh Supermarket
Opened: August 6, 2026

Owner: Danny Hamdan

Previous Tenants: Walgreens

Cooperative: Associated Supermarket Group

Location: 2014 S Broad St, Philadelphia, PA

Photographed: September 18, 2026

Welcome to Philly, as this impressive mural signals to us! We're here in South Philadelphia to check out a brand-new Met Fresh supermarket, and as you might be able to guess based on the trends we've seen for a few years now, this is a former drugstore. A Walgreens, to be specific, previously occupied this space of around 14,000 square feet (there's also a second floor on part of it and there might be a basement, so it's possible the store is actually a bit larger than that). This is the Hamdan family's first venture into Philadelphia, and also one of the relatively few ASG stores in Philly (or possibly the only? I'm not entirely sure). They're certainly coming in with a bang -- this store is impressive. 

And it's absolutely stocked to the gills. I didn't spend a whole lot of time here, but in all the departments, there's far more selection than you might expect from a store of this size. Produce is on the left side of the store, with a produce prep counter at the back of the aisle. Dairy lines the back wall, with frozen and the meat department on the right side of the store. Beer and wine are in the second-to-last aisle along with cheeses, and the deli, bakery, and hot food departments are in the front-right corner along with a small seating area.

This particular neighborhood doesn't really have a full-line supermarket like this, which is presumably why the Hamdans decided to open here. There are a number of larger supermarkets, including a couple ACMEs, a ShopRite, a GIANT, and two Sprouts, but they're all farther away. There's also a small food co-op just two blocks east.

New York City operators sometimes don't tend to have a lot of success in Philadelphia. Philly has a CTown and a handful of Fine Fares, but those are not particularly common the way they are up north. And even for all of Key Food's growth, they only had one location in Philadelphia that closed quickly after it opened. Most recently, Allegiance has seen success with the expansion of the Compare & Save stores.

As you can probably tell, this store was pretty extensively renovated when it became a Met Fresh. Not much from Walgreens remains that I can detect.

Beer and wine in the second-to-last aisle along with cheese, and meats in the last aisle...

There's also a small cafe area behind the hot food bar, which by Pennsylvania law allows them to sell beer and wine.

Hard to tell if they're baking in-store here (some of the NYC locations actually do). As you can see, the kitchen/prep space for the deli and hot food bar is elsewhere.

I'm really enjoying seeing these new stores from Met Fresh, and as an aside, they're livening up one of the really tired NYC-area brands. The Hamdans own about half of the Met stores overall, and have been doing a great job with these new Met Fresh locations. More to see this weekend -- check it all out here!

Saturday

• ALDI and Whole Foods each open New England locations
• Star Market renovates a Boston-area store
• Northeast Grocery rebrands a flagship store near Albany

Sunday

• New independent grocers open in the Hudson Valley and Philadelphia
• Sprouts opens new stores in New Jersey and New York
• DeCicco & Sons enters Connecticut