The Market Report

Believe it or not, everybody, we've seen every supermarket in Boston except for one! I hope you've enjoyed our trip around the city, and of course, we're not yet done with the greater Boston area -- we have plenty of time still to spend in the northern suburbs and the north shore of MA -- but our last few days in Allston and Brighton have finished up our look at the city's grocery stores. Here's a look at our visits from these neighborhoods! Coming Up Next Cambridge and Somerville are the next two suburbs north of Boston, and they're really cities in their own right. Cambridge has a population near 120,000, and Somerville -- the more suburban one -- has over 80,000 people. And those people are densely packed into just over 10 square miles. Cambridge is home to both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), while Tufts University's campus is partially in Somerville. You've probably heard the stereotypical Boston "pahk t...

Trader Joe's Opened: 2017 Owner:  Aldi Nord Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  none Location:  199 N Harvard St, Allston, MA Photographed:  July 27, 2019 Welcome to Lower Allston, which (as I mentioned on the preview post for this neighborhood ) is paradoxically the northern part of Allston. This Trader Joe's is also our final store post in the city of Boston! This Trader Joe's opened in 2017 in a newly-built mixed use development. It's 13,000 square feet. Inside, the store feels a lot like any other Trader Joe's, with the produce department on the right side, meats in the back-right corner, cheese/deli at the back, frozen in the middle, and nonfoods on the left side. I was a bit surprised to see that the store has a somewhat low ceiling (and I think the low-hanging lights and unusually large number of pipes and ducts running across the ceiling doesn't help). You get the feeling of a basement store , although you're on the ground floor here, not below s...

Stop & Shop Open:  1992-2024 Owner:  Ahold Delhaize Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  none Location:  60 Everett St, Allston, MA Photographed:  July 27, 2019 and July 6, 2024 Welcome to the Allston Stop & Shop! Now, let's be clear: this store doesn't exactly exist anymore. Sure, there's still an Allston Stop & Shop, and in the summer of 2024, it moved just across the street to a new-build location as this property is being redeveloped. See here . It's a prime location next to the Boston Landing train station, so it only makes sense that a massive, suburban-style supermarket with a massive, suburban-style parking lot isn't the best use of this space. Let's tour the old store, which wasn't even that old when it closed. It opened in 1992, then was likely redone in the mid-00s. At nearly 70,000 square feet, it's quite large. It had the Taste & Time decor package by the time that I visited, but that's newer than this store is, so I wo...

Bazaar on Beacon Street Opened: unknown Owner:  Sabina Roytman Previous Tenants:  unknown Cooperative:  none Location:  424 Cambridge St, Allston, MA Photographed:  July 27, 2019 Welcome to our next location of Bazaar Supermarkets, whose Newton and Brookline locations we've checked out previously. The Eastern European stores have imported groceries, delis, bakeries, and prepared foods, and this 7,000 square foot location is smaller than the Newton store but a bit bigger than Brookline. This store has an entrance on either side, one facing the parking lot in the back and one facing the street in the front. Produce, deli, and bakery make up the store's grand aisle, with a few grocery aisles next to that. This store doesn't have the sprawling prepared foods department that Newton does, but there's still a large selection of fresh items in the small space. The space is L-shaped, as it appears to be a combination of two different buildings. The grocery aisles are ...