The Market Report

Price Chopper Opened: 2006 Previous Tenants:  none Location:  251 Kennedy Dr, Putnam, CT Photographed:  September 25, 2020 On a beautiful September Friday back in 2020, I decided I wanted to take a good long walk. I had the day off and it was sunny and gorgeous, why not? I love walking, and didn't have a car when I lived in Worcester so I walked everywhere. Well, that Friday I woke up around 5:30 to get my things ready and hopped on a bus to Webster, Massachusetts, about 14 miles south of Worcester. The fun began when I got to Webster. I headed south, towards Putnam, and walked for hours and hours until I reached the small Connecticut town. After stopping by this store and the Putnam Supermarket a couple blocks away, grabbing an Italian sub for lunch (or a grinder, depending on who you ask), and wandering briefly around an antique store, it was back off to Webster. The whole pilgrimage was over 26 miles -- the most I've ever walked in a day -- but hey, now we get to tou...

Putnam Supermarket Owner: Jay Sinha Opened:  2010 under current ownership; unknown previously Cooperative:  none Location:  162 Providence St, Putnam, CT Photographed:  September 25, 2020 Welcome to Putnam, Connecticut! The quaint town of 10,000 people is such a quintessential small town that it's been used as the setting for Hallmark movies (which frequently feature Hartford, Providence, and Worcester -- all of which are within about 40 miles away -- as the big bad city). There are two supermarkets in the downtown area, plus a Stop & Shop about two miles outside of town. (Speaking of, I posted an update on the NJ/NY Stop & Shops here last night.) One of the two is the longtime independent Putnam Supermarket, not a member of any cooperative but supplied by New Hampshire's C&S Wholesale Grocers (which originated in Worcester, by the way). I haven't been able to place when the store opened, and Historic Aerials isn't much help either, showing that it was...

Original Grocery Tenant: Red & White Food Stores Address: 46 Tolland Green, Tolland, CT Opened:  unknown Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  Tolland Red & White Gift Shop Photographed:  November 27, 2022 The small town of Tolland, CT -- 18 miles northeast of Hartford and 12 miles south of Massachusetts -- today has a very attractive-looking Big Y , but once was served by the Tolland Red & White. Red & White , for those who are not familiar, is a very loose group of small independent grocers, once a larger cooperative with locations across the US and Canada but now really just a brand distributed by The Federated Group from the Chicago area. It's not uncommon to see small convenience stores, bodegas, and greengrocers in the New York City area selling Red & White products, but those come from Federated via the Jetro wholesaler in New York, through their FoodBase program . On the town green in Tolland, a roughly 1000 square foot store retains the name...

ShopRite of Tri-City Plaza Owner:  Rich Cohen Opened:  2020 Previous Tenants:  Ames > Price Chopper (2004-2019) Cooperative:  Wakefern Food Corp. Location:  35 Talcottville Rd, Vernon, CT Photographed:  November 21, 2021 Welcome to Vernon, Connecticut! The town of 30,000 people is about 10 miles outside Hartford and home to two Stop & Shops, an ALDI, and this ShopRite. This store opened in 2020 in part of a former Price Chopper (which itself was originally an Ames). The Price Chopper was a behemoth of a store at over 100,000 square feet, and the ShopRite is significantly smaller (but still quite large) at 75,000 square feet. They took the right 3/4 of the store, and the left 1/4 is now a Home Sense. The store is owned by the Cohen family, which also owns two other Connecticut ShopRites under their company Waverly Markets , in Manchester and East Hartford . The store reopened in early 2020, just days before the major coronavirus shutdowns started. W...