The Market Report

Market Basket Opened: 2011, replacing older store on property Owner:  DeMoulas family Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  none Location:  1201 Bridge St, Lowell, MA Photographed:  August 23, 2025 Happy Monday! Just a couple blocks east of the Dracut Hannaford is the final Market Basket in Lowell we haven't yet seen -- Store #2, in fact. We saw Store #1 (and stores #19 and #88 ) last week. I mentioned Chelmsford is Store #4, and so after some digging I found that store #3 was actually down in Wilmington , about 12 miles southeast. #5 was up in Lawrence, and... you know what, I'm writing this at 11 pm on a Thursday. I should stop with the rabbit hole. So although this was one of the early locations, that doesn't mean (by Market Basket's numbering scheme) this actual building was the second Market Basket. This 67,000 square foot store, in fact, only opened in 2011, replacing an older store in the strip mall when it was constructed on the site of a closed Ame...

Market Basket Opened:  1997 Owner:  DeMoulas family Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  none Location:  331 Fletcher St, Lowell, MA Photographed:  August 23, 2025 It wouldn't be accurate to say that this is the original Market Basket. It's not: this 43,000 square foot store was only constructed in the late 1990s, taking up a full city block in The Acre, a neighborhood near downtown Lowell with a historically large Greek population. But the Demoulas' original grocery store was located in a since-demolished building on Dummer Street, just four blocks away from here. The original Demoulas store was a " grocerette " at 93 Dummer Street, a building that no longer exists. In 1950, the business became the Demoulas Superette at 80 Dummer Street, across the street. That 80 Dummer location stayed in business all the way through 1997, per Groceteria  and Market Basket , though it was renovated and expanded many times. In 1997, this store was constructed, replac...

Açougue do João Butcher & Grocery Store Opened:  2018 Owner:  João Assis Previous Tenants:  Alexander's Supermarket > Rent-A-Center Cooperative:  none Location:  1653 Middlesex St, Lowell, MA Photographed:  August 23, 2025 We're going to see one more grocer in the far western part of Lowell, near the border of North Chelmsford . If you haven't seen my posts on the Wood Street Market Basket and Apna Bazar yet, make sure to check them out. Now we're off from India to Brazil. Get your boarding pass ready. Okay, before we travel to Brazil (metaphorically, of course), let's focus on this building a bit. It sure looks like an old chain supermarket, doesn't it? That's because it is. The building was originally an Alexander's Supermarket, a New Hampshire-based chain that Hannaford eventually acquired. It looks like this store closed at some point before Hannaford acquired the chain, but they did get locations in Chelmsford and Dracut, which we'll b...