The Market Report

And that's a wrap on Downtown Boston, the South End, and Chinatown! Most of the time we spent here was in Chinatown , but we also made stops in the South End and at Downtown Boston's only supermarket. Here's a look at all of those stores on a map! Coming Up Next As we continue our journey to the northern part of Boston, we are making stops in the neighborhoods just north of downtown, in the West End and North End. Both are dense, urban neighborhoods, but very historic and also generally affluent. The North End is particularly known for its Italian community ( and its great food! ), and the West End has some government and private office buildings along with Mass General Hospital's expansive complex. Just south of the West End is historic Beacon Hill , where we'll be seeing just one store (so for the purposes of this blog, I'm considering Beacon Hill and the West End as one). For what it's worth, I also have non-supermarket photographs of lots of these neig...

C-Mart Supermarket Open:  2004-2020 Owner:  Quxiang Lin Previous Tenants:  unknown Later Tenants:  vacant Cooperative:  none Location:  109 Lincoln St, Boston, MA Photographed:  July 20, 2019 and July 21, 2019 Today, there are two C-Mart supermarkets -- one on the border of Chinatown and the South End here in Boston, and another down in Quincy . But this store on Lincoln Street was their original location, with their second location being in what's now Jia Ho on Washington Street. This one is slightly smaller than the Herald Street location, at just about 13,000 square feet. It's on the ground floor of this somewhat strange mixed-use building, with offices and parking on higher levels. The store opened in 2004, then closed in 2020 for reasons that aren't quite clear. One of the strange parts of the store I noticed while walking around the outside: one of the signs, on the side of the building near the entrance to the parking garage, identified the s...

Jia Ho Supermarket Opened: 2014 Owner:  Qian Wang Previous Tenants:  C-Mart Supermarket (closed 2013) Cooperative:  none Location:  692 Washington St, Boston, MA Photographed:  July 13, 2019 and July 21, 2019 There are a number of theaters in downtown Boston and the surrounding area, and although Washington Street's Globe Theater ( later the Center Theater ) is no longer doing vaudeville shows, there is still a compelling reason to visit the building. Two, actually. One of them is easily visible from the street: the Empire Garden restaurant, whose main dining room occupies the former theater . (The theater, which later became a movie theater, eventually became a Chinese-language movie theater . It survived as the last one in Boston until 1995, when it closed and the owner converted the space to the existing dim sum restaurant.) The other reason to visit the building is much harder to see at first glance, but a careful look reveals the Jia Ho Supermarket on the ...

Original Grocery Tenant: A&P Address:  400 Tremont St, Boston, MA Opened:  late 1960s Closed:  ca. 1980s Later Tenants:  Wollaston's Market (1994-2001) > CVS (closed ca. 2023) Photographed:  July 27, 2019 One final store on the border between the South End and Chinatown before we really get into the main part of Chinatown and downtown! This roughly 15,000 square foot CVS was constructed as an A&P in the late 1960s and closed around the 1980s, later becoming an independent called Wollaston's Market which opened in 1994 and closed in 2001. I don't know if there was another tenant here between CVS and Wollaston's. CVS closed around 2023. The store has an entrance in the back, facing the parking lot, and another facing the street in the front, which you can see below. There remain two Wollaston's Market locations, both actually on the campus of Northeastern University . As such, they're much more of the campus convenience store and deli than a supermark...

C-Mart Supermarket Opened: 2009 Owner:  Quxiang Lin Previous Tenants:  Super 88 (1993-2009) Cooperative:  none Location:  50 Herald St, Boston, MA Photographed:  July 27, 2019 The second store right on the border between Chinatown and the South End -- the first was yesterday's Whole Foods -- is a 17,000 square foot C-Mart. This isn't the first C-Mart I've posted, we actually saw one back in Quincy , but it appears this was their second or third location. The first (or first two) was just north, and we'll be seeing that soon. The store is oriented to face the parking lot (south side), with Washington Street running along its right (east) side. Incidentally, this store's address is actually on Herald Street, which runs along the back (north side) of the building. Refrigerated and frozen items line the outside walls of the store, with service meat and seafood counters in the front-left corner. C-Mart opened here in 2009, replacing a closed Super 88 Market. We've...