The Market Report

Original Grocery Tenant: Iandoli Super Markets Address: 101 West Boylston St, West Boylston, MA Opened:  ca. 1980 Closed:  by 1987 Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  November 8, 2020 West Boylston once had an IGA , a Big D (later Price Chopper) , and an Iandoli supermarket, although their tenures didn't all align. The IGA was open roughly from the early 60s to the early 90s, the Big D/Price Chopper was open roughly from the late 80s to the mid 00s, and this store was open only within the 80s (possibly the late 70s too). It's about 26,000 square feet, and for whatever reason doesn't seem to have been acquired by Shaw's when the rest of the Iandoli chain was. The space was subdivided, and half became a movie theater. Part or all of the space was also once a JC Penney, as we'll see. Also here in the Scarlet Brook Marketplace is a relatively small Walmart, of under 100,000 square feet. These entrance and exit doors are likely original to the supermarket, as is ...

Original Grocery Tenant: Big D Supermarkets (?) Address: 184 West Boylston St, West Boylston, MA Opened:  ca. late 1980s Closed:  1995 Later Tenants:  Price Chopper (1995 - mid-2000s) Photographed:  November 8, 2020 Here we are in West Boylston for another former supermarket. The small town just north of Worcester doesn't have any supermarkets today, but there were previously several. (I'd be fascinated to know exactly why that was; was there a large population drain? A major employer closing? Tax incentives to relocate into Worcester? Unfortunately, I can't find any more specific information.) This store was constructed around the late 1980s, around 40,000 square feet, and possibly originally a Big D or Wonder Market (given its similarity, at least externally, to this store ). By 1995, there was a Big D in West Boylston -- I assume here -- that became a Price Chopper. The store closed in the mid-00s, which I believe coincided with the opening of a new-build store ...

S&S Farms & Marketplace Opened: 1978 Owner:  Josh & Erin Bailey Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  none Location:  307 West Boylston St, West Boylston, MA Photographed:  November 8, 2020 West Boylston doesn't have any supermarkets these days, although there were several in the past, including yesterday's IGA . But there is a delightful small market in town, or really more of a collection of a few storefronts. S&S Farms was originally located in Clinton, just north, but in the early 80s , moved to this location. The following decade, according to their website, they added the deli (in a separate storefront) and most recently, a butcher. Here's a look inside the farmstand/produce building, with a building just across the side street for butcher and deli. The deli is in the basement and the butcher shop is on the above ground floor. Here's a look at the overall setup -- you can see the produce market with the brown awning behind. It's a great li...

Original Grocery Tenant: Meadowbrook IGA Address: 342 West Boylston St, West Boylston, MA Opened:  between 1961 and 1964 Closed:  after 1989 Later Tenants:  Stop & Shop (?) > subdivided Photographed:  November 8, 2020 Welcome to West Boylston! Don't forget that we're now north of Worcester again, just a mile from the Market 32 and Stop & Shop in the Greendale section. This store of roughly 18,000 square feet was constructed in the early 1960s as the Meadowbrook IGA, which closed around the 1990s. I believe Stop & Shop also briefly set up shop here, later moving to the West Boylston Street location in the late 90s. I seem to recall seeing a 1990s map of West Boylston that had a Stop & Shop in this location, but I can't find any evidence to confirm that so I might be misremembering. The front half of the store became a Dollar General (since closed) with a gym in the back half. This sign out by the street, however, seems to date back to the IGA da...