The Market Report

Original Grocery Tenant: Elm Farm Food Stores Address: 978 Boylston St, Newton, MA Opened:  between 1957 and 1963 Closed:  by 1968 Later Tenants:  Purity Supreme (open by 1968, closed 1997) Photographed:  July 8, 2026 A glance at this 18,000 square foot building pretty quickly tells me that CVS didn't build it. At least, I'm not aware of too many other new-build CVS stores with a curved, concave facade like this one has. Here's a look at the building in daylight. In fact, this store was constructed between 1957 and 1963 as an Elm Farm Food Store, a chain I most recently discussed at the Mission Hill Stop & Shop . By 1968, though, it had become a Purity Supreme, which remained in business until 1997. Stop & Shop had acquired Purity Supreme in 1995 but continued to use the name until they converted all but three of the remaining Purity Supreme stores to Stop & Shop in 1997. This wasn't one of those three stores, but I can't tell for sure whether Stop ...

Super 88 Market Opened: 2007 Owner:  unknown Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  none Location:  188 Commercial St, Malden, MA Photographed:  July 26, 2019 We're kicking off our (very short) look at Malden with a tour of this supermarket just a bit south of downtown, and it's the second of two Super 88 Market locations still in business today. The local chain declared bankruptcy in 2009 , and since then has downsized a bit with just this location and the Allston one still operating. This store was planned back in 2004 but didn't come to fruition until its 2007 opening. The 30,000 square foot supermarket was actually a new-build by Super 88, and I don't believe there was previously another grocer on the property. You enter on the right side of the storefront to the produce department, with meat in the back-right corner. Dairy and other refrigerated foods line the back wall of the store, with seafood and frozen foods on the left side. The building -- like the...

Whole Foods Market Opened: 2003 Owner:  Amazon Previous Tenants:  Purity Supreme (1966-early 1990s) > Nature's Heartland (opened 1996, closed by 2000) > Bread & Circus (opened by 2000, converted to Whole Foods in 2003) Cooperative:  none Location:  170 Great Rd, Bedford, MA Photographed:  March 5, 2025 Time for our latest Whole Foods store! Like so many others we've seen in the Boston area, this store was previously a Bread & Circus, but it actually has a much more interesting history than just that. It was constructed in 1966 as a Purity Supreme, and it appears that when that chain was acquired by Stop & Shop in the 1990s, this store was moved into the new-build Bedford location just down the street. The former owners of Purity Supreme then started a natural food chain, called Nature's Heartland, which had opened here by 1996 and closed by 2000. Bread & Circus (owned by Whole Foods) opened no later than 2000, then converted to Whole Food...

Whole Foods Market Opened: 2003 Owner:  Amazon Previous Tenants:  Purity Supreme (early 1950s-early 1990s) > Nature's Heartland (open by 1997, closed by 2000) > Bread & Circus (opened by 2000, converted to Whole Foods in 2003) Cooperative:  none Location:  647 Washington St, Newtonville, MA Photographed:  December 17, 2022 "Why does that one Whole Foods have a fork stuck in its roof?" That was the burning question a friend who grew up in Newton Highlands had for me when we started talking about supermarkets. Well, I don't know, but is it truly a fork if there's no handle? A Google search for " can you have a fork without a handle " brings up not a whole lot of helpful results. Google's generally useless AI overview says that yes, you can have a handleless fork for a "touch of elegance," and if you click on the source for that particular piece of wisdom, you will find yourself on a website with pictures of forklift trucks. Okay. S...