The Market Report

Original Grocery Tenant: Stop & Shop Address: 1230 VFW Pkwy, West Roxbury, MA Opened:  1960s Closed:  between 2002 and 2011 Later Tenants:  Savers Photographed:  July 4, 2019 Just around the corner from the Star Market we saw last week in West Roxbury is this Savers, a thrift store that opened around 2010. It took the spot of a former Stop & Shop supermarket, and it actually has quite a few remnants left. You can't see it from the facade, but the building actually is pitched-roof, or at least the center part is. I'm not totally sure how much of the building Stop & Shop took up -- it's a small strip mall, and I believe Savers' footprint is smaller than the supermarket's was -- but my best estimate was that, through expansions, the original 14,000 square foot store became around 48,000 square feet by the time of its closure in the mid- to late-00s (the most specific I can get is between 2002 and 2011). Some shopping carts that I have to assume remain fr...

Star Market Opened: ca. 2015 Owner:  Albertsons Companies Previous Tenants:  Star Market (1970s-ca. 2000) > Shaw's (ca. 2000-ca. 2015) Cooperative:  none Location:  75 Spring St, West Roxbury, MA Photographed:  July 4, 2019 From yesterday's Roche Brothers , we're moving across West Roxbury -- about three-quarters of a mile -- to the Star Market, the other big supermarket in the neighborhood. This store has the look of a 90s-build American Stores location -- see a 90s ACME like this -- and it's true that American Stores was responsible for the store's current appearance. But it actually predates American Stores' ownership of Star Market, having opened in the 1970s as a Star Market, then receiving a major remodel between 1995 and 2001. It looks like the store expanded into a neighboring storefront, increasing its size from its original 28,000 square feet to its present 55,000 square feet. Around 2000, the store was converted to Shaw's, then back to Star M...

Roche Bros. Opened: 2002 Owner:  Michael Bozzuto Previous Tenants:  unknown Cooperative:  none Location:  1800 Centre St, West Roxbury, MA Photographed: July 28, 2019 Welcome to our next Roche Brothers, a gourmet supermarket of just under 50,000 square feet. We're in the far southwestern part of Boston here, just half a mile away from the city limits. (This store is approximately where the X in W. Roxbury is on the map above.) It was constructed as a new-build store in 2002, then extensively renovated around 2018. I visited in the summer of 2019, and it was my mission that summer to photograph every supermarket in the city of Boston. Well, I succeeded, and this was the last supermarket in the city that I visited. You can already tell it's going to be a nice store from the outside. Although the outside hasn't been changed since its opening, it still looks upscale and inviting. It's set back from the main street of West Roxbury, Centre Street, and although it was a ne...