The Market Report

Plaza Supermarket Opened: 2008 under current ownership Owner:  Robert de Fernando Monegro Previous Tenants:  Finast > King Super Market > Santiago Meat Supermarket Cooperative:  Krasdale Foods Location:  1000 Main St, Worcester, MA Photographed:  January 13, 2025 Today's look at Plaza Supermarket in Worcester's Main South neighborhood is a very quick revisit to the small store, as they've almost finished a multi-year renovation project. The produce department has been redone with new fixtures (see here for the previous setup and a look at the store through the years), and new flooring, shelving, and aisle markers are in throughout the store. This building has been home to a grocery store for over 100 years at this point, going back to Abraham Glass, who owned a store here in the 1920s. Several other tenants occupied the building through the decades, until Plaza opened up in 2008. The only other change is that a hot food counter is being installed next to...

Latin Food Market Opened: summer 2024 Owner:  unknown Previous Tenants:  Family 88 Supermarket > Supermarket 999 > Best Supermarket Cooperative:  unknown Location:  877 Main St, Main South, Worcester, MA Photographed:  September 26, 2024 Today's last post is a very quick look at the Latin Food Market in Worcester's Main South. The only reason we're seeing this store right now is that we were just here, a couple months ago, when it was still Best Supermarket . At some point during this past summer or early fall, the 3000 square foot store became Latin Food Market. I don't know whether anything changed inside, as I only briefly saw the store and didn't get to go inside. That's all for this brief post, but take a look at the other posts today here. And tomorrow is our final round of posts on the closing Stop & Shop stores! Cornucopia Natural Foods (future) - Millburn, NJ Antillana SuperFood Marketplace - Washington Heights, Manhattan Latin Food Market - ...

Now it's time to see some of the smaller grocers in the Webster Square and Main South area. 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 captions:  A caption such as the following...          |  John Smith (1926-1937) > Joe Jones (1955-1982) ...means that John Smith appears in the directories in 1926 and 1937, and Joe Jones appears in all directories I consulted between 1955 and 1982. That doesn't mean that John Smith opened up shop in 1926 and closed in 1937, he might have started i...

America's Food Basket Owner: Edwin Polanco Opened:  2016 Previous Tenants:  Associated Supermarkets Cooperative:  America's Food Basket Location:  4 May St, Main South, Worcester, MA Photographed:  November 10, 2018; November 1, 2019; and May 23, 2021 America's Food Basket is a cooperative of supermarkets across the East Coast. They represent stores under the AFB and Ideal Food Basket names, as well as a few others, all the way from Boston to Atlanta, with AFB stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and Georgia, and Ideal stores in New York and Pennsylvania. Most of these stores are full supermarkets, even if they're on the smaller side . But the Worcester location (which we've seen before ) is the smallest, occupying just 4,000 square feet in a former auto garage that later became Super Then Supermarket  in 2013 and then Associated by 2015 before finally becoming AFB by 2017. (Don't ask me what Super Then means, I don't know.) The ...

Best Supermarket Owner: unknown Opened:  2018 under current ownership Cooperative:  Krasdale Foods Location:  877 Main St, Main South, Worcester, MA Photographed:  November 16, 2018; August 31, 2020; September 13, 2020; November 7, 2020; and October 1, 2022 Welcome back to Best Supermarket in Main South! We actually saw this store once before , right after it went through a somewhat strange transition from a Chinese grocery store to essentially a large bodega affiliated with America's Food Basket and using the Essential Everyday brand, but without ever officially being part of the group. Before that, it was Supermarket 999 and even before, Family 88 Supermarket . It looks from city directories like before it was Family 88, it was called Chinatown Supermarket. After reopening under Latino owners, Best switched to Krasdale shortly after joining America's Food Basket. The store has been rearranged a few times, but it's basically a small store of about 3000 square fee...

Ha Tien Market Owner: Minnie Nguyen Opened:  1989 Cooperative:  none Location:  892 Main St, Main South, Worcester, MA Photographed:  August 24, 2018; May 3, 2021; September 3, 2021; and September 24, 2022 If you've ever bought a pie from a major supermarket and it looks something like this or perhaps this , it was made by Table Talk Pies. They have two large facilities in Worcester, and they're both in the Main South/South Worcester area. Their larger facility is just three blocks off of Main Street -- basically straight across from this little grocery store and keep walking a couple minutes. You can't miss it . Worcester is also home to Polar Seltzer, which is made another mile or so south near College Hill at the Auburn border. But enough about pies and seltzer, let's take a look at Ha Tien Market! I've mentioned that Main South and southern downtown Worcester is home to a Vietnamese immigrant community, and one of the Vietnamese grocers in the area is Ha Tien ...

Plaza Supermarket Owner: Robert de Fernando Monegro Opened:  2008 under current ownership Cooperative:  Krasdale Foods Location:  1000 Main St, Main South, Worcester, MA Photographed:  April 21, 2018; April 22, 2018; September 5, 2018; September 15, 2018; November 9, 2018; March 27, 2021; April 23, 2021; April 28, 2023; May 8, 2023; and September 15, 2023 So I've only photographed this store 10 times, not the extravagant 11 like the Shaw's at Webster Square Plaza . But again, I lived nearby and went frequently, so we've got an extensive look at Plaza Supermarket here in Main South Worcester! This grocery store dates back all the way to 1925, when Abraham Glass owned a grocery store at 998 Main Street (that's somewhere around the middle of Plaza Supermarket, whose address is now 1000 Main St). First National Stores was next door at the same time at 988 Main St, now the far-right side of Plaza (where you can clearly see what used to be a separate storefront). By the ...