The Market Report

Kam Man Foods Opened: 2003 Owner:  Wan Wu Previous Tenants:  unknown Cooperative:  none Location:  219 Quincy Ave, Quincy, MA Photographed:  August 4, 2019 Quincy now has several large Asian supermarkets, but the first one was this Kam Man Foods, which opened in 2003. The store is nearly 85,000 square feet, and although there are some smaller shops inside that take up some space, it's still the largest Asian supermarket in New England. Kam Man also claims to be the oldest Chinese supermarket on the east coast, having been founded in New York City's Chinatown in 1972. Here's an archived article about the store from 2005. You enter through an indoor mall walkway -- in fact, I believe the space was previously a department store before becoming home to Kam Man -- and you can see the entrance to the supermarket below under the Market Entrance sign. As we'll see, Kam Man is closer to a Chinese American Walmart than a regular Asian supermarket. There's a lot here bey...

Kam Man Foods (aka Kam Man Market in some locations) is a five-store chain based in Edison, NJ that specializes in Chinese and other eastern Asian foods. According to Wikipedia, its name in Chinese translates to Golden Door. The original location is in Chinatown in Manhattan, while newer locations have opened in Edison and East Hanover, NJ, as well as Boston and Quincy , MA. The Boston location has since closed. The store here in East Hanover is located in a mall that was also once home to a nearly 100,000-square-foot Pathmark, although the stores were never open at the same time. The entire mall has recently undergone a facade renovation, which was in progress at the time of my visit. I first visited this Kam Man long before I got interested in supermarkets. I was blown away, especially by the produce -- so many things I had never seen before! Then I actually started to visit a lot of supermarkets, and was introduced to Food Bazaar, SuperFresh Food World, Hmart, and other si...