The Market Report

River Bend Farm Market Opened: unknown Owner: Paul Bedortha Previous Tenants:  unknown Cooperative: Associated Grocers of New England Location: 625 VT-30, Townshend, VT Photographed: August 12, 2021 Another AGNE store (it seems that the majority of independent grocers of northern New England are members of the AGNE cooperative) here in the very small town of Townshend, Vermont. This one is the River Bend Farm Market, definitely somewhere between a true farm market and a full supermarket. I spotted plenty of local and fresh produce, locally made products, and homemade baked goods, but there's also a full line of groceries. I wasn't able to find much on the history here, but the building was constructed sometime around the late 1990s or 2000. Produce is on the right side in the first aisle, with deli/bakery at the end of the first aisle. Meats and a large service butcher counter line the back wall, with frozen and dairy on the left side in the last aisle. This building clea...

Londonderry Village Market Opened: 2019 Owner:  Associated Grocers of New England Previous Tenants:  Clark's Quality Foods IGA (1975-2019) Cooperative: Associated Grocers of New England Location: 5700 VT-100, Londonderry, VT Photographed: August 10, 2021 Down the road from Mike & Tammy's is Londonderry's full service supermarket. From 1975 until the store's sale in 2019, this 25,000 square foot supermarket was Clark's IGA . When Clark's owners retired, they sold the store to Associated Grocers of New England. This is now one of a handful of corporate-owned stores that the cooperative runs, along with some other Village Market stores in Vermont and others like Vista Foods . This is the first of several Village Market stores that I'll be posting. It doesn't look like AGNE did much renovation when they moved in, and truthfully the store doesn't really need it. It's not brand-new but a very nice small-town grocer. Produce and bakery are on t...

Smitty's Chester Market Opened:  2020 Owner: Garrison Smith Previous Tenants:  general store (1847-1993) > Lisai's Market (1993-2020) Cooperative: Associated Grocers of New England Location: 526 Depot St, Chester, VT Photographed:  August 10, 2021 There's something quintessentially New England about an old-school general store, operating continuously since 1847, right next to the train tracks. That's what we're seeing here at Smitty's Chester Market in the small town of Chester, Vermont, though over the years the store has been expanded to a small supermarket of around 7500 square feet. It was various general stores for the first century and a half or so of its life, becoming Lisai's Market in 1993 joining an older location in Bellows Falls . Lisai's sold the store to its current owners in 2020. And although the inside is a fully-functioning small supermarket, it still retains a lot of its history. You can get a clear sense of that (plus the layout...