The Market Report

Now it's on to the former grocery stores of Main Middle, Tatnuck, Newton Square, and the other neighborhoods around this area! We'll wander through some of the neighborhoods but spend a lot of time around Tatnuck Square on Pleasant Street, around Billings Square, and a bit in Main Middle -- although I have not photographed the multitudes of former grocers along Pleasant Street in Main Middle and a few other hotspots. So remember, this is not nearly a full listing. A note on historical sources:  To get past stores in each location, I've consulted Worcester city directories going back to the 1910s. Here in the city, I'm drawing from  1916, 1922, 1927, 1931, 1937, 1943, 1959, 1952, 1957, 1962, 1969, 1973, 1979, 1985, 1991, 2000, 2009, and 2017.  Also of note: this is far from an exhaustive listing of all grocery stores that have been in this area, although I'll probably eventually post the full thing, this is just what I've been able to photograph. Reading the cap...

Big Y World Class Market Opened: ca. 2000 Owner:  D'Amour Family Previous Tenants:  none; Finast, Price Rite Market, and Iandoli previously on this site Cooperative:  none Location:  100 Mayfield St, Columbus Park, Worcester, MA Photographed:  September 21, 2018; November 11, 2018; January 20, 2019; and November 16, 2020 Let me preface this post by saying I'm honestly not sure what neighborhood this Big Y is really in. I'm going with Columbus Park, which is primarily to the south, but I wouldn't be mad if you called it Main Middle or Tatnuck or Newton Square or even Main South. But this 55,000 square foot store was constructed around 2000 on a property formerly home to a few other supermarkets -- first a Finast by 1969, then what I assume is an independent called Price Rite Market ten years later (I don't believe there was any relation to Price Rite ), then an Iandoli around the 1980s. A puzzling entry in the 2000 Worcester city directory lists this address as ...