The Market Report

We're taking a quick detour from the Wellington corridor to head west a few blocks over to the Marché Atwater, a farmers-market style outdoor/indoor complex with individual vendors. It's not quite a supermarket but worth mentioning nonetheless. It's run by MPM , or Marchés Publics de Montréal (Montreal Public Markets). This large building is a beautiful example of art deco architecture, and although I don't know what it was originally built for, I doubt it was always the market. (Any input?) It's basically a large public market with fresh produce, butchers, seafood, wine, cheese, breads, and other gourmet foods, much like the famous Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. One thing that surprised me is that several of the names around here are English, despite Quebec being a French-speaking province. Last time I checked, Wellington and Atwater are not exactly French.

Branche d'Olivier doesn't really sell fresh produce. That's OK, though, because there are other fresh produce stores nearby. Really nearby. Like Fruiterie Vert Pomme, which is all of 18 meters north of Branche d'Olivier. As a matter of fact, you can see Branche d'Olivier in the above picture. Vert Pomme, or Green Apple , is a small greengrocer, like the ones you see on every corner in New York City. Of course, there is a difference... Show me a corner greengrocer in NYC that is so meticulously stocked! This store pretty much has only fresh produce, although there is a small selection of basics like milk. The store's two aisles contain a wider variety of produce than I've seen in some supermarkets. However, the prices were high compared to the greengrocers around here. Vert Pomme is located at 4324 Wellington.

Thank you to all the readers of The Market Report, whether you check back weekly or are just here for one specific photo or post!

As I mentioned, Verdun was formerly an independent city, so it feels very distinct from the main section of Montreal. Its own main street, Rue Wellington (Wellington St), is home to many small grocery stores and one major supermarket. This market, focusing on natural and organic products, packs a lot of selection into a very small space. The name translates to Olive Branch Market . It's located at 4342 Wellington and appears to be part of a 3-store chain. Although I didn't get any pictures inside, you can see inside thanks to Google Maps...

Starting on Friday... The Market Report is excited to present its second trip to Canada, returning after the initial visit to Nova Scotia in 2016. This time, we're taking a look at some stores in and around Montreal, Quebec (a French-speaking province). I stayed in the neighborhood of Verdun, which was originally a separate city, so most of the stores we'll see are in that neighborhood. We'll look at twelve grocery stores in this area for all of May, then in June we're back to New Jersey. Come back on Friday for the first store!

Welcome back to the Easton Food Market! Initially, I posted this store on Flickr after my visit in September of 2016, but I've now prepared it as a full tour. Going forward, I'm trying to get some of the pre-blog material on Flickr written up for the blog. So far, it's slow going. This supermarket is located way in the back of a residential neighborhood of Easton, and backs up to INT-78. According to Josh Austin, it opened as a Food Lane supermarket in 1962 but was later expanded into a Laneco department store. After this closed in 1997, TJ Bart's (a local chain) moved in, closing by about 2005. C-Town, owned by Juan Diaz , moved in soon thereafter, remaining in business until about 2012. Easton Food Market, a Pioneer supermarket, moved in (possibly even keeping the store open during the transition). The store itself is quite large, and commenters on Josh's Flickr page say that C-Town blocked off part of the sales floor, so it's possible EFM has reopened ...

Special, today only: three Snapshots for the price of one! We're looking at three former supermarkets so close you could throw a Frisbee from one and hit either of the other two. The first building you see here was an ACME. The second (just past the two-story building) was an A&P. And the building with the tall clock tower is on the site of a ShopRite! The former ACME (45 S Livingston Ave) is now the Firehouse Commons, a small strip mall which includes a Walgreens and faces away from Livingston Ave, the main road visible here. There is a large parking lot in the rear. This ACME probably closed by the 1980s. Now on to the A&P (25 S Livingston Ave)... We've seen these pictures before. This was more recently a Bottle King, which moved to the Livingston Circle. I'm not sure if this is the original building. It remains vacant. The blue metal frames along the top, however, have been painted. It would be the perfect space for a small gourmet or pro...

Welcome to the downtown of the small Rockland County town Piermont, NY. It's basically a single-street downtown that has multiple restaurants and upscale shops. It's also home to this former supermarket, which closed ca. 2014. It remains closed today, despite posters in the windows advertising Market Social, a gourmet takeout restaurant/greengrocer run by a restaurant family. The owner of Community Market also owned a restaurant that didn't make it in town either. Market Social's opening has been pushed back several times, and it remains to be seen whether it will actually happen.   The store is located at 487 Piermont Ave, Piermont, NY.

Almost since I've started blogging and posting on Flickr, my icon has been a picture of the IGA logo on the sign for the Boiceville Market in Boiceville, NY. In fact, as I was writing this post, I was staring at it in the top-right corner of my screen. (I've since switched it out...and I've changed the graphics for The Market Report!) But the two pictures I have of the Boiceville Market are not my own. My father took them for me when he was up in that area years ago. The store's recently-renovated exterior doesn't quite match its slightly rundown interior. The exterior is quite attractive, though, and it matches the small town setting very well. Now on to my own pictures, taken last summer... You enter to meat and deli on the right side, with dairy and frozen along the back wall. Produce is in the far front corner. And strangely enough, the aisles run parallel to the storefront, not perpendicular as usual. The corn and watermelons are not actually in...