The Market Report

Having seen the independent grocers of the area, let's check out some of the former grocery stores in the southern part of the city! 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't mean that John Smith opened up shop in 1926 and ...

Like we've been seeing with former grocers , Worcester has a lot of small independent grocers and corner stores and the like. We're going to take a look at a few of them in the southern part of the city, in the neighborhoods we've seen for the past few days! And because (especially in cities) I have a lot of these small stores that would be really quick posts, from now on I'm going to condense some of them into posts like this. 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 ...

Price Rite Marketplace Opened: ca. 2009 Previous Tenants:  none Location:  542 Southbridge St, South Worcester, Worcester, MA Photographed:  September 23, 2018 and September 6, 2019 There's no longer an A&P, a Warehouse Economy Outlet, or a Goretti's at College Square , but just three blocks north on Southbridge Street, a new-build Price Rite opened around 2009. The somewhat abnormally-shaped store is around 35,000 square feet, built on a former industrial site constrained by other buildings around it and train tracks. (Directly behind this store is one of the Providence & Worcester Railroad's yards.) While the store isn't that old, having been built around 15 years ago, it was renovated in 2018 to match the new Price Rite Marketplace format. Price Rite is Wakefern Food's (ShopRite) discount store banner, so it's always been a discount store and still is, but I would say the rebrand cleaned up the stores quite a bit with a more streamlined look. Here...