The Market Report

Brother's Supermarket Opened: before 2007 Owner:  Ambiris Fernandez Previous Tenants:  unknown Cooperative:  none Location:  46 Washington St, Dorchester, MA Photographed:  June 2, 2019 and November 13, 2021 The last location of Brother's Supermarket also happens to be the first to open -- roughly some time in the early 2000s, I believe, but I can't pin down an opening more specific than that. Around 2008, they opened a second location at Upham's Corner , then a third in Randolph (a suburb) in 2017 which later that year they sold to America's Food Basket, then a fourth at Fields Corner in 2020, and a fifth in Roslindale in 2023. Unfortunately, I don't know much about this particular location's history other than that the building was before 1938 and that it wasn't a chain grocery store prior to Brother's. All of the Brother's locations are quite small, but this one is the smallest at just 2700 square feet. I would bet that the entrance door f...

Brother's Supermarket Opened: 2020 Owner:  Ambiris Fernandez Previous Tenants:  Finast (early 1940s - late 1960s) > ?? > Rosa Supermarket (opened before 2007, closed 2020) Cooperative:  none Location:  430 Geneva Ave, Dorchester, MA Photographed:  November 13, 2021 Time for another Brother's Supermarket! The chain started in the Grove Hall area of Dorchester around the early 00s and later opened a second location at Upham's Corner around 2008. In 2017, they opened a third -- and much larger -- location near Brockton in Randolph , which just a couple months later they sold to America's Food Basket. In 2020, they took over this small corner supermarket which was previously Rosa Supermarket but dates back to the 40s when it was a First National Stores (or Finast). And in 2023, they took over an independent grocer in Roslindale . Geneva Avenue is diagonal, and each of the corners is built with a rounded retail or residential building for several blocks. Most...

Brother's Supermarket Opened: ca. 2008 Owner:  Ambiris Fernandez Previous Tenants:  non-grocery tenants Cooperative:  none Location:  776 Dudley St, Dorchester, MA Photographed:  June 15, 2019 Welcome to our next Brother's Supermarket! The small chain has three locations in Dorchester (this one and two others we'll see shortly), along with one in Roslindale . Here at Upham's Corner, Brother's Supermarket opened around 2008 with a small store of just 4800 square feet -- this was their second location -- which was just the right side of this store, where the Supermarket sign is now. The store was expanded into a former clothing store next door in late 2016, bringing it to its current size of just under 10,000 square feet. You can see clearly in the above picture that today's Brother's Supermarket is actually in three separate buildings, the clothing store where the Brother's sign is, the original market where the Supermarket sign is, and then a tiny slive...

Brother's Supermarket Opened:  2023 Owner:  Ambiris Fernandez Previous Tenants:  Baby Nat's Fruitland (1970s-2023) Cooperative:  none Location:  606 American Legion Hwy, Roslindale, MA Photographed:  July 6, 2024 In 2023, the owner of longtime produce market Baby Nat's Fruitland retired , selling her business to a local chain of small grocery stores called Brother's Supermarket. Brother's has three very small supermarkets in Dorchester (and briefly also owned a store in Randolph, a Boston suburb, that has since become an America's Food Basket). Brother's remodeled the store's interior -- the exterior seems still yet to receive the promised redo -- and turned the store into a full supermarket, rather than the mostly-produce slant of Baby Nat's. Brother's did a lot of work on the inside while, I believe, keeping the store open, including new flooring, fixtures, and lighting. It's still a very small store -- only around 7000 square feet -- but ...

Baby Nat's Fruitland Open: 1970s - 2023 Owner:  Darlene Etienne Previous Tenants:  unknown Cooperative:  none Location:  606 American Legion Hwy, Roslindale, MA Photographed:  July 28, 2019 and May 20, 2022 Happy Monday! Just across the street from where we saw the Roslindale Price Rite (formerly Save-A-Lot ) is this longtime independent produce market, called Baby Nat's Fruitland. It opened up shop in the 7100 square foot building in the 1970s, eventually going out of business when the owner retired in 2023. That article has a lot of great history on the store, including the origin of the name -- Darlene Natorelli, the owner's daughter (and later the owner), was nicknamed Baby Nat. The store was mostly produce, but there were also some groceries off to the left side of the building. Caribbean and Latin foods came to be a focus for the business, as demographics in the neighborhood shifted in that direction. And although Baby Nat's has closed, another ind...