The Market Report

Stop & Compare Supermarket Opened: 2004 Owner:  Calvo and Ianotti families Previous Tenants:  A&P (open between 1955 and 1958, closed between 1976 and 1981) > Franklin Supermarket (open by 1981, closed 1993) > Save A Lot (open by 1995, closed 2002) > Midland Farms (2002-2004) Cooperative:  none Location:  2 Adams St, Lynn, MA Photographed:  August 3, 2019 It's easy to recognize this supermarket right away from the outside! Like I was talking about yesterday at Stop & Shop, once you see enough stores you can easily recognize them at just a glance, but this one is particularly easy. Still, there's a really interesting history here that warrants a close look. Of course, this store was constructed by A&P, as it has the distinctive A&P Centennial design. But it was constructed between 1955 and 1958 (1959 was A&P's actual centennial), meaning it was either an extremely early centennial store or a more generic store that, by 1969, ha...

Stop & Compare Supermarket Opened: 2021 Owner:  Calvo and Ianotti families Previous Tenants:  Star Market (ca. mid-1960s-early 00s) > Shaw's (early 00s-2019) Cooperative:  none Location:  43 State St, Lynn, MA Photographed:  May 14, 2022 One of two Stop & Compare Supermarkets in Lynn is here at Lynn Marketplace, downtown and just a couple blocks north of the Price Rite I posted on Friday . It's around 25,000 square feet and located in about half of a former Star Market-turned-Shaw's that closed in 2019. When Shaw's closed, Stop & Compare extensively renovated the store, and while I haven't been inside (the picture above is just from the window of a train), we can see several pictures inside from Google Maps. You enter on the left side of the Shaw's storefront to produce in the front-left corner, and it looks like deli  and bakery are in the rest of the first aisle. Grocery aisles in the middle, meat on the back wall, and dairy/frozen on...

Stop & Compare Supermarket Opened: 1996 Owner:  Calvo and Ianotti families Previous Tenants:  First National Stores (late 1950s-1980s) > Oppedisano's Market (open by 1980s, closed by mid-1990s) Cooperative:  none Location:  170 Everett Ave, Chelsea, MA Photographed:  July 22, 2019 Truly independent supermarkets are getting harder and harder to find. It's no secret that the supermarket business is a hard one, and heck, it's rough out there for small businesses of any kind at all. But in the northeastern suburbs of Boston, a three-store, fully independent chain is not only running full steam ahead but has recently expanded. Stop & Compare Supermarket, run by members of two longtime food industry families, opened up here in downtown Chelsea back in 1996, later adding a location in Lynn in 2004 and another in 2021. Recognize the exterior of this building? If it looks familiar, it's because we've seen other stores with the same general facade design befor...