The Market Report

It's time for one more roundup of former grocers in northeastern Worcester! This is where my coverage starts to become much more spotty, so we're only going to see about a dozen stores along Lincoln Street between Lincoln Square and the 290 overpass to the south, and Brittan Square and the other 290 overpass to the north. A note on historical sources:  To get past stores in each location, I've consulted Worcester city directories going back to the 1910s. Here in the city, I'm drawing from  1916, 1922, 1927, 1931, 1937, 1943, 1959, 1952, 1957, 1962, 1969, 1973, 1979, 1985, 1991, 2000, 2009, and 2017.  Also of note: this is far from an exhaustive listing of all grocery stores that have been in this area, although I'll probably eventually post the full thing, this is just what I've been able to photograph. Reading the captions:  A caption such as the following...          |  John Smith (1926-1937) > Joe Jones (1955-1982) ...means that Jo...

Now it's on to the former grocery stores of Main Middle, Tatnuck, Newton Square, and the other neighborhoods around this area! We'll wander through some of the neighborhoods but spend a lot of time around Tatnuck Square on Pleasant Street, around Billings Square, and a bit in Main Middle -- although I have not photographed the multitudes of former grocers along Pleasant Street in Main Middle and a few other hotspots. So remember, this is not nearly a full listing. A note on historical sources:  To get past stores in each location, I've consulted Worcester city directories going back to the 1910s. Here in the city, I'm drawing from  1916, 1922, 1927, 1931, 1937, 1943, 1959, 1952, 1957, 1962, 1969, 1973, 1979, 1985, 1991, 2000, 2009, and 2017.  Also of note: this is far from an exhaustive listing of all grocery stores that have been in this area, although I'll probably eventually post the full thing, this is just what I've been able to photograph. Reading the cap...

Original Grocery Tenant: Whitman's Super Market Address: 393 Chandler St, Tatnuck, Worcester, MA Opened:  bet. 1957 and 1962 Closed:  bet. 1985 and 1991 Later Tenants:  Brooks Pharmacy > Rite Aid > Rocky's Ace Hardware Photographed:  April 14, 2019 and November 18, 2020 Just east of Billings Square between Main Middle and Tatnuck is this 15,000 square foot store, constructed around 1960 as Whitman's Supermarket. Worcester city directories list Whitman's up until the mid-1980s, when it becomes Whitman's Big D (I'm not totally sure how to interpret that; whether that means certain Big D locations were franchised or possibly the Big D chain took over Whitman's but kept the name). By the early 1990s, the store closed. It subsequently became a Brooks Pharmacy, then a Rite Aid in 2007 or 2008. Rite Aid closed in 2018, and Rocky's Ace Hardware (a local chain) moved from a smaller spot in Tatnuck into this space. (Next door, 411 Chandler , was home to an...

Original Grocery Tenant: Living Earth Market Address: 232 Chandler St, Main Middle, Worcester, MA Opened:  1971 Closed:  2019 Later Tenants:  vacant Photographed:  August 31, 2018 and March 20, 2021 For a few decades, a natural food store called Living Earth Market stood at the corner of Park and Chandler in Main Middle. The grocer was just under 7,000 square feet, and was the only natural food store in Worcester. I visited the store back in 2018, but unfortunately didn't take any pictures other than that first one. The rest all come from 2021, after it had closed. I won't go too deeply into the history here, but make sure you read this profile on the store from the Telegram & Gazette when it closed. You can also see quite a few pictures on the Yelp page . In 2022, a restaurant owner purchased the property . Long before Living Earth was here, though, the property was a Community Stores location back in the 1920s and 30s, then was taken over by Harry Provost by...

Yesterday we saw the independent grocers of eastern Worcester -- some going back decades -- and now it's time to see a few buildings that once were grocery stores but no longer are. A note on historical sources:  To get past stores in each location, I've consulted Worcester city directories going back to the 1910s. Here in the city, I'm drawing from  1916, 1922, 1927, 1931, 1937, 1943, 1959, 1952, 1957, 1962, 1969, 1973, 1979, 1985, 1991, 2000, 2009, and 2017.  Also of note: this is far from an exhaustive listing of all grocery stores that have been in this area, although I'll probably eventually post the full thing, this is just what I've been able to photograph. Reading the captions:  A caption such as the following...          |  John Smith (1926-1937) > Joe Jones (1955-1982) ...means that John Smith appears in the directories in 1926 and 1937, and Joe Jones appears in all directories I consulted between 1955 and 1982. That doesn'...

Original Grocery Tenant: Fairway Beef Address: 48 Grafton St, Green Island, Worcester, MA Opened:  1946 Closed:  2021 Later Tenants:  none Photographed:  November 4, 2018 and October 11, 2021 It's quite the feat that two brothers, George and Jack Siegel, ran this butcher shop/grocery store for decades after their father started the business in 1946. The store finally closed in 2021 after running essentially the same for most of its life. That article also indicates that this area was once Worcester's meatpacking and sale district, but Fairway Beef was the last remaining business. Also in this neighborhood was the original home of C&S Wholesale Grocers, which eventually moved to the north to Brattleboro, VT and later their current home of Keene, NH. The store was around 6500 square feet and eventually is set to be redeveloped . The old-school sale sign facing Grafton Street outlived the store, actually. It remained up (barely) even well after the store closed. ...

Now it's time for all the former grocery stores in and around downtown Worcester, and nearly all are on Main Street or a block or two away. In the central downtown area, so many of the buildings are new that none of the original grocery stores are left. To the north and south a few blocks, though, there's a lot to see. A note on historical sources:  To get past stores in each location, I've consulted Worcester city directories going back to the 1910s. Here in the city, I'm drawing from  1916, 1922, 1927, 1931, 1937, 1943, 1959, 1952, 1957, 1962, 1969, 1973, 1979, 1985, 1991, 2000, 2009, and 2017.  Also of note: this is far from an exhaustive listing of all grocery stores that have been in this area, although I'll probably eventually post the full thing, this is just what I've been able to photograph. Reading the captions:  A caption such as the following...          |  John Smith (1926-1937) > Joe Jones (1955-1982) ...means that John ...

Original Grocery Tenant: Worcester Market Address: 627 Main St, Downtown, Worcester, MA Opened:  before 1916 Closed:  ca. 1930s Later Tenants:  Brockelman Brothers Worcester Market (open by 1937, closed by 1957) > Stop & Shop (open by 1957, closed by 1969) Photographed:  November 4, 2018 and April 1, 2022 Right in the middle of downtown Worcester is the 25,000 square foot (per floor) Worcester Market building. It's a huge, hulking, and actually very beautiful building that was home to a very early market dating back to 1914 when the building was built. Originally called the Worcester Market (which you can see in the inscription on the top of the building), it was eventually rolled into the Brockelman Brothers chain, which had other stores on Front Street just off the common and at Lincoln Square. What's interesting about this building, though, is that it actually remained a supermarket well into the 1960s -- Stop & Shop acquired the space by 1957, then c...

Get ready for a long one today. Webster Square and Main South are primarily residential, older neighborhoods where there are a LOT of former grocery stores. Many of them are now other small businesses or residences. This is also where I lived, so it was closest to my home base and therefore the easiest to get to. But it's a long post, so I won't be offended if you skip it and come back tomorrow to check out downtown Worcester. But here we go! A note on historical sources:  To get past stores in each location, I've consulted Worcester city directories going back to the 1910s. Here in the city, I'm drawing from  1916, 1922, 1927, 1931, 1937, 1943, 1959, 1952, 1957, 1962, 1969, 1973, 1979, 1985, 1991, 2000, 2009, and 2017.  Also of note: this is far from an exhaustive listing of all grocery stores that have been in this area, although I'll probably eventually post the full thing, this is just what I've been able to photograph. Reading the captions:  A caption such ...

Original Grocery Tenant: Stop & Shop Address: 50 Mill St, Webster Square, Worcester, MA Opened:  between 1952 and 1957 Closed:  between 1985 and 1991 Later Tenants:  subdivided / Save-A-Lot next door (open in 2007, closed by 2011) Photographed:  April 12, 2019; May 13, 2022; and October 22, 2022 Two posts in one today! This small strip mall at Webster Square, the Mill Street Plaza, is at Mill and Park and was constructed with a Stop & Shop anchor in the 1950s. That distinctive arched-roof prototype was only used on a few stores, including one in the Dorchester section of Boston . There's another one somewhere in Western Mass -- I think in a Springfield suburb -- that's still standing, but for the life of me I can't remember where. Does anyone have ideas? Although it's hidden behind the newer facade, the arched-roof store is still there. And actually, the Telegram & Gazette has a picture from just before Stop & Shop opened in their archives! Here we...

Original Grocery Tenant: Big D Supermarket Address: 195 Mill St, Webster Square, Worcester, MA Opened:  1960s Closed:  1995 Later Tenants:  Price Chopper (1995-2001) Photographed:  October 28, 2018 and October 9, 2020 To most people in Worcester, the hulking 30,000 square foot carcass of the former Big D Supermarket on Mill Street near Coes Reservoir is nothing but an eyesore. I think it's a cool part of the city's supermarket history. This store was constructed by Big D at some point in the 1960s, and it was open by 1969. (Using Historic Aerials, we can narrow it down further: open by 1966 but nothing there in 1960.) As a side note, according to the city directories, it seems that Big D was short for Big Discount . They were also related, it seems, to several other chains including Wonder Market. I wonder (ha) if there was ever a relation to the Wonder Market in Glen Rock, NJ , such as a long-gone cooperative or something. At the same time, it's possible Wonder Ma...