The Market Report

Whole Foods Market Opened: 2014 Owner: Amazon Previous Tenants:  Market Basket (1990-2013) Cooperative: none Location: 255 Amherst St, Nashua, NH Photographed: October 10, 2021 Nashua's proximity to Boston and large commuter population makes it a great place for businesses to enter the state for the first time. This was Whole Foods' first New Hampshire store, opening in a former Market Basket in 2014 . Market Basket almost never closes stores, and the only reason they did here was because they were able to replace this location with a massive new one just up the street , and at 85,000 square feet, that store dwarfs this 30,000 square foot one. Produce is on the right side, with bakery in the back-right corner. Meat and seafood counters line the back wall with dairy in the back-left corner, frozen on the left side, and deli/prepared foods on the left side of the store. There's a bar and seating area in the front-left corner, with beer on tap and some food to-order, some...

Monadnock Food Co-op Opened: 2013 Owner: cooperatively owned Previous Tenants: none Cooperative: National Co-op Grocers Location: 34 Cypress St, Keene, NH Photographed: August 13, 2021 This is not our first food co-op in New Hampshire, but like the Concord co-op, it's a beautiful store with an exciting mix of local and natural products. This store was built in 2013, and it's a new-build -- you can tell that the building, inside and out, still feels pretty new. The cooperative food scene is alive and well in New England, and this 20,000 square foot supermarket is as good an indication as any. You enter to produce on the left side, with dairy in the rest of the first aisle. Meat and seafood counters are on the back wall, along with packaged meats, while frozen foods are in the middle of the store. A large deli, prepared foods, and bakery area is on the right side of the store, along with a substantial cafe seating area. Since so many co-ops are set up this way, it feels in...

Sunflower Natural Foods Opened: 1992 in current location; 1985 previously Owner: Paul Flynn Previous Tenants: unknown Cooperative: none Location: 390 S Main St, Laconia, NH Photographed: August 16, 2025 Downtown Laconia has two grocers, and they're actually right next to each other. This small natural foods store called Sunflower Natural Foods (no relation to the similarly-named store in New York ) is just next door to the supermarket, Vista Foods, which you can tour here . This store has been around since the 1980s, and in this roughly 3500 square foot building since 1992. Tomorrow, we move on to see another small grocer here in Laconia!

Tiller & Rye Opened: 2015 Owner:  Sarah Morneault and Lindsey Levesque Previous Tenants:  Rite Aid > Brewer Discount Furniture Cooperative:  none Location:  20 S Main St, Brewer, ME Photographed:  June 13, 2022 I'll stop beating a dead horse someday soon, but there are so many supermarkets that have opened up in former Rite Aids and other drugstores in the last five years or so. Here's one from a bit before the current trend. This former Rite Aid in downtown Brewer briefly became a furniture store after closing, but since 2015 has been Tiller & Rye, a roughly 10,000 square foot specialty market. The exterior doesn't have a particularly distinct Rite Aid look, but my best guess is that the drugstore designed this facade to match the somewhat small-town setting. Neither the furniture store nor Tiller & Rye redid the outside extensively, but the inside has been remodeled. And as you can already tell from the outside, this is no typical supermarket...