TOUR: BB's Grocery Outlet - Morgantown, PA

BB's Grocery Outlet

Owner: Nevin Martin

Opened: 2011

Cooperative: none
Location: 150 Morview Blvd, Morgantown, PA

Photographed: August 20, 2019

For those not from this area, including myself, it may be a surprise to find that there is a very common type of grocery store found in this part of Pennsylvania not really found in too many other places. The Lancaster area is home to a large Amish population, as is well-known, but what is less well-known is that the Amish community owns a lot of discount, salvage, or outlet type grocery stores. BB's, here in Morgantown (with other locations in Quarryville, Myerstown, Newburg, and Oxford, PA), is the first one of this type of store we'll be seeing.

This farm country-inspired store takes up roughly 35,000 square feet of a small strip mall roughly 25 miles outside of Lancaster city. It's set up perpendicular to the parking lot, so the entrance here brings us on the right side of the building with checkouts on this wall, as we see. The aisles run parallel to the front of the store, with nonfoods at the back (aisle 1) and dairy/frozen at the front (aisle 16).

The store doesn't sell meat or seafood, but it does have a lot of variety in the space and very low prices. It's a real salvage store, though, not like a Save-A-Lot, so you're not guaranteed that you'll find all the items you want.

Here's a look up and down the right-side wall of the store, above looking towards the front of the building.

We begin with aisle 1 at the back of the store, with paper and cleaning items in these first few aisles.

And here we're on the left-side wall of the store, also looking up towards the front wall. I believe this store was more of a conventional supermarket prior to BB's opening, but I'm not sure of that 100%.

As we see, there are some shelves for smaller quantities of product, but there's also these big pallets of large quantities of items that make up some aisles.

There's minimal decor on the walls, and I'm willing to bet that what is there was left over from a past tenant. More on that shortly.

As we move into the last aisles (which are the front of the store, closest to the parking lot), we have dairy, some refrigerated produce, and frozen foods. There's minimal perishables here, for obvious reasons.

As we see, though, it's rather well-organized for a discount grocery store, and very clean.

There's a vaguely farm-inspired theme around the store, which I believe is left over from the previous tenant. You can also see that the exterior of the store is barnlike in its appearance.

There's not much produce, but what there is is split between this area and the entrance hallway. If you go back to the first interior picture, you can see where it is there.

Older coffin cases here, but I'm not sure exactly how old.

And as we see, the store is plenty well-stocked, just not with the full line of products you might expect at a mainstream supermarket. There's certainly no empty spaces or disorganized displays here, though.

And here in the last aisle (which is the front aisle), we have a very cool mural definitely left over from a past tenant. Because it is, in fact, named...

That's the outside of this store, and that explains the farm theme! I'm just not clear on what exactly Farmer Brown's was, whether it was a full-service supermarket or a discount store like BB's. Farmer Brown's was owned by John F. Martin, owner of Martin's Country Market in Ephrata as well as the John F. Martin brand of deli meats.

And now for a look at the front-end with more rustic touches above the checkouts before we move on. This was an interesting store for sure, and only one of many of its kind we'll see throughout this area. Up next is a store that's certainly one-of-a-kind, a little under eight miles southwest of here. Come back tomorrow to check it out!