The Market Report

America's Food Basket Opened: 2017 Owner:  Edwin Polanco Previous Tenants:  Stuarts department store > Rite Aid Cooperative:  America's Food Basket Location:  73 Winthrop Ave, Lawrence, MA Photographed:  May 14, 2023 I mentioned that my coverage of the Lawrence/Haverhill area is unfortunately thin, so today's store tour is the only tour I have in this area. Still, it's a very interesting store. I've posted several America's Food Basket stores in the Boston area, and they're affiliated with the Long Island-based cooperative of the same name. (Stores affiliated with that group in Pennsylvania, New York, and Florida are mostly branded Ideal Food Basket .) They only have one location north of Boston, though, and that's this store in Lawrence. We're a little under 10 miles northeast of Lowell , to help you position yourself, and about 25 miles northwest of Boston. This store is on the larger side for AFB, coming in right around 20,000 square feet. I...

Supreme Food Opened: 2014 Owner:  Gilcia Garcia Previous Tenants:  assorted non-grocery tenants > Perfect Supermarket Cooperative:  Krasdale Foods Location:  201 N Common St, Lynn, MA Photographed:  August 3, 2019 Yesterday I posted the Market Basket here in Lynn, the city's largest supermarket. And just four years before that store opened, this much smaller, independent grocer opened up shop. A video store called Video Craze until around 2010, 201 North Common Street became a supermarket in 2011 or 2012 when Perfect Supermarket opened up here. Perhaps customers didn't agree that the store was perfect or maybe they simply decided to rebrand, but Perfect closed or sold in 2014. And in that year, Supreme Food opened up in the spot. Note that this is not related to the chain Supremo Food Markets in NJ and PA, which uses the Supreme brand on some of their stores. Perfect Supermarket was affiliated with Krasdale Foods, and Supreme was briefly associated with Am...

America's Food Basket Opened: November 2025 Owner:  unknown Previous Tenants:  Bohack (1960s-early 1970s) > Key Food (open by 1977, closed after 1992) > Rite Aid (closed 2023) Cooperative:  America's Food Basket Location:  4102 Church Ave, Brooklyn, NY Photographed:  December 1, 2025 It's time to return to the America's Food Basket at 4102 Chuch Ave in East Flatbush, which has just opened! I'm unclear exactly when -- it's a very soft opening, with the official grand opening still coming soon. The store was most recently a Rite Aid, but before that was a Bohack supermarket back in the 1960s, later becoming a Key Food. The building is about 10,000 square feet, but AFB has added around another 2500 square feet to the right side of the building by expanding into the parking lot. That section is now the produce department and the seafood department. It's about double the size of the Associated (formerly a Shop Fair ) right across the street. When I visite...

America's Food Basket Opening: TBA Owner:  unknown Previous Tenants:  Bohack (1960s-early 1970s) > Key Food (open by 1977, closed after 1992) > Rite Aid (closed 2023) Cooperative:  America's Food Basket Location:  4102 Church Ave, Brooklyn, NY Photographed:  September 19, 2025 Once again, a closed Rite Aid will become a supermarket. Here in East Flatbush, the 10,000 square foot building does have a long history as a supermarket. It appears to have been built as a Bohack back in the early 1960s, which became a Key Food by 1977. Key Food stayed here until at least 1992, but eventually the building became a Rite Aid. Rite Aid closed in 2023, and now, the space is soon to reopen as an America's Food Basket. AFB, like so many other grocery operators, is finding former drugstores to be very useful. I just posted a store of theirs in a former Walgreens in Boston , and in the Bronx, they've taken over a former Rite Aid under the brand Ogden Market Center . Meanwh...