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...

Happy Monday! Let's check out the small independent grocers across the neighborhoods we've been visiting. 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 ...

Original Grocery Tenant: Finast Address: 638 Chandler St, Tatnuck, Worcester, MA Opened:  bet. 1962 and 1969 Closed:  bet. 1979 and 1985 Later Tenants:  Iandoli Super Market (opened bet. 1979 and 1985, closed bet. 1985 and 1991) > subdivided Photographed:  December 9, 2018; September 7, 2019; and October 9, 2020 Yesterday we saw the former Whitman's Super Market on Chandler Street, and today we're a mile and a half northwest at Tatnuck Square. This building is larger than Whitman's, at around 23,000 square feet, and it has several supermarkets in its past. In the 1960s and 70s, it was a Finast, later becoming an Iandoli by 1979 (possibly replacing the one I mentioned at 411 Chandler ). My guess is the store closed when Iandoli was acquired by Shaw's in 1988; I don't believe this was ever a Shaw's. I visited the store first in 2018 right before Rocky's Ace Hardware moved into the former Whitman's space. Here's that store as it was closing... Bot...

Original Grocery Tenant: Whitman's Super Market Address: 393 Chandler St, Tatnuck, Worcester, MA Opened:  bet. 1957 and 1962 Closed:  bet. 1985 and 1991 Later Tenants:  Brooks Pharmacy > Rite Aid > Rocky's Ace Hardware Photographed:  April 14, 2019 and November 18, 2020 Just east of Billings Square between Main Middle and Tatnuck is this 15,000 square foot store, constructed around 1960 as Whitman's Supermarket. Worcester city directories list Whitman's up until the mid-1980s, when it becomes Whitman's Big D (I'm not totally sure how to interpret that; whether that means certain Big D locations were franchised or possibly the Big D chain took over Whitman's but kept the name). By the early 1990s, the store closed. It subsequently became a Brooks Pharmacy, then a Rite Aid in 2007 or 2008. Rite Aid closed in 2018, and Rocky's Ace Hardware (a local chain) moved from a smaller spot in Tatnuck into this space. (Next door, 411 Chandler , was home to an...

Remember when we were in Main South and Downtown along Main Street? I know that was a little while ago, but we're going from southeastern Worcester to central and northwestern Worcester in the Main Middle and Tatnuck neighborhoods, back towards Main South and Webster Square! Main Middle is roughly between Main Street and Park Avenue on the east and west, and May Street and Pleasant Street on the south and north. Then, Tatnuck is roughly to the northwest of that and Webster Square. Main Middle is home to the large Worcester Polytechnic Institute campus, along with several large institutions to the north including the Worcester Art Museum, and Tatnuck is home to the Worcester State University campus. Main Middle is the transition between the more urban Main South and downtown areas, and the very residential and suburban Tatnuck area. Tatnuck and its environs are green, with big old trees and large old houses lining beautiful suburban streets. We'll see a lot of former grocery sto...