Brigido's Fresh Market Owner: Mike Fernandez Opened: 2023 under current ownership; 1978 previously Cooperative: Allegiance Retail Services Location: 54 Sayles Ave, Pascoag, RI Photographed: April 16, 2022 Welcome to Pascoag, Rhode Island, a small village that makes up part of the town of Burrillville. In the middle of this village are a few small businesses, and the largest is this Brigido's Fresh Market. Built in 1978 as a Brigido's IGA, the store became independent and C&S-supplied by the time I got here in 2022. Then in early 2023, the store was sold to Mike Fernandez, who also owns two Foodtowns in New York City and the Brigido's (formerly Foodtown) in New Hartford, CT . Brigido's was a longtime Rhode Island chain of three stores, and when Fernandez purchased the three stores, the New Hartford one was switched. These days, Brigido's is the only Rhode Island member of the Allegiance Retail cooperative, which also represents Foodtown, Pathmark, Green
The smallest state in the union has only 105 supermarkets (for reference, that's less than half of the number of supermarkets in Manhattan alone). But we're going to be taking a look at a few of them, even though my coverage isn't too extensive. There's still a lot of fun things to see here! We'll be spending about two weeks in the Bay State, moving from north to south through Burrillville, North Smithfield, Smithfield, North Scituate, then a few stops in Providence (but of course nowhere near a full tour of all the stores in Providence), with two final stops in the Newport area in Portsmouth and Tiverton. Like Connecticut, Rhode Island has quite a few independent stores that are really fun to visit. In fact, we won't be seeing any big-chain supermarkets here in Rhode Island (but rest assured, there are plenty of Stop & Shops and Shaw's). We're starting with our first store tomorrow in Burrillville!