The Market Report

Best Supermarket Owner: unknown Opened:  2018 under current ownership Cooperative:  Krasdale Foods Location:  877 Main St, Main South, Worcester, MA Photographed:  November 16, 2018; August 31, 2020; September 13, 2020; November 7, 2020; and October 1, 2022 Welcome back to Best Supermarket in Main South! We actually saw this store once before , right after it went through a somewhat strange transition from a Chinese grocery store to essentially a large bodega affiliated with America's Food Basket and using the Essential Everyday brand, but without ever officially being part of the group. Before that, it was Supermarket 999 and even before, Family 88 Supermarket . It looks from city directories like before it was Family 88, it was called Chinatown Supermarket. After reopening under Latino owners, Best switched to Krasdale shortly after joining America's Food Basket. The store has been rearranged a few times, but it's basically a small store of about 3000 square fee...

As you probably can't tell from that picture, there's a Best Market somewhere in the back of this mall. I have very little to say about it except that this store was previously a Waldbaum's, and the chain has been acquired by LIDL, which is slowly converting all of the locations to LIDL stores. This particular Best Market looks pretty nice, as we can see in an interior photo on Google Maps. You can also tour the now-closed Best Market in Hartsdale, NY, just outside White Plains, here . The Great Neck location is located at 40 Great Neck Rd. But we didn't come to Great Neck for its Best Market, we came for the store we're going to see tomorrow... Photographed December 2018

Here's a little something to tide everyone over until The Market Report returns on January 1st! A few more random grocery bags from my own collection, following up on my first post on The Market Report. A pre-2002 ShopRite bag. Go fresh, go local with these Pathmark bags. Not sure on a year, but probably close to the final bankruptcy. I feel like I've posted this White Rose bag before, but you're gonna see it again anyway... And this one will be memorabilia soon enough, with LIDL's takeover of Long Island-based Best Market: Not a supermarket bag, but an old retail bag nonetheless: From the Elizabeth location. This one goes out to my friends at A&P Preservation . The 1990s Bravo logo makes an appearance on this bag. Not sure where it's from. And we're finishing up with this bag from Kings. I believe I posted this one previously but now we get to see both sides... Over and out for now. Happy holidays! Come back to The Market Re...

Today's Snapshot is a quick look at this Best Market location in Harlem. Not a huge fan of Best Market myself, but I do prefer it to LIDL, which has acquired the chain and is converting the existing locations to their own banner. I found this store to be overpriced and generally bland, and the prepared food I bought here (a cheese steak wrap) was rather disappointing. Anyway, the location is at 2187 Frederick Douglass Blvd, Manhattan. Photographed July 2016

Today's post is brought to us by Market Report contributor Steve! We're heading down to Holmdel, NJ, an inland town at the very northern tip of the Jersey Shore. Holmdel was also the location of a now-closed A&P Fresh Market, which Acme Style covered here . This store is, at this time, still a Best Market (in fact, the only Best Market in New Jersey), although Lidl's recent acquisition of the chain means that it will soon be converted to the no-frills discount format of Lidl. I still question the wisdom of the Lidl-Best Market purchase, as the stores' formats are so radically different. Best Market focuses on huge selections of produce and deli products, while Lidl has a very small produce department and no deli. We'll just have to wait and see how this one plays out. Although I went to this store myself long ago, I did not photograph it. But our contributor brings something new to The Market Report...an internal panorama! Click on the image to expand i...

Store Closings Best Market in Hartsdale, NY is gone. It closed a few days ago, according to an anonymous commenter. Acme Market in Bergenfield, NJ is closing by November 6th, 2017. It's a former Pathmark that was very high volume, but the volume dropped when Acme took over. Styertowne on Flickr pointed out that both of Acme's closed A&P takeover stores have been closed very quietly, one-by-one, with no major announcements, which is interesting. It's not out of the question that more Acme takeover stores will be closing soon.

UPDATE 9/10/17: An anonymous commenter has informed us that the store closed a few days ago. No surprise there! Another this week from the Rockland/Westchester area! This time we're taking a look at a store immediately outside of White Plains in the suburb of Hartsdale, NY. This Best Market has an interesting location... Yes, the Dalewoods Shopping Center contains both a Best Market (gourmet warehouse) and an Hmart (Korean superstore). The Hmart is a former Pathmark and will unfortunately not be covered on this blog, due to the fact that the store was CRAZY busy! I couldn't even get one good picture inside, and forget about my idea of eating lunch in the food court. Best Market was...empty. Best Market is also significantly smaller than Hmart. And despite the fact that Hmart has a Korean focus, this location also had a large organic produce selection, a deli, a bakery, and plenty of American and Latin groceries. Best Market is stuck with lower turnover, higher prices...