DeCarlo's Bravo Supermarkets
Owner: unknown
Opened: before 2007
Previous Tenants: unknown
Cooperative: Krasdale Foods
Location: 228 Penn St, Reading, PA
Photographed: August 20, 2019
Our next stop in Reading is this Bravo, branded as DeCarlo's Bravo Supermarkets. I'm not aware of any other DeCarlo's Bravos, and I see some listings online for DeCarlo's Meat Market at this location, so it's possible the 4500 square foot store was previously DeCarlo's Meat Market and potentially was purchased by a Bravo owner who kept the name -- or, possibly, joined Krasdale and rebranded their store as Bravo. Looking through archives on Newspapers.com, DeCarlo Meat Market has been here at 228 Penn Street since at least 1931. Unfortunately, I can't find much more about the store, or its later transition to Bravo which I assume was under new owners, although I suppose it's still in the family.
The store is small, but much like the other Krasdale stores we've seen in this part of PA, very complete. It's on the older side but has gotten some fixture upgrades and other small updates.
It's also clearly a heavily used store. I had trouble getting pictures in here with the number of customers who were in the very cramped space. Produce and frozen foods are in the first aisle here, with meats and butcher on the back wall. Additional frozen foods (ice cream) are in the back right corner, with dairy in the rest of the last aisle.
We can see the store packs in a lot of fresh produce in the small space. Opposite the produce department is the usual condiments and related items, which gives us a chance to check out the Krasdale rebrand which was in progress at the time of my 2019 visit...
Old (which always struck me as rather similar to Pathmark) on the left, and new on the right.
As we can see, these older frozen cases take up the rest of the first aisle. It's definitely a full supermarket despite its small size. I assume that, in the past, DeCarlo's was more of a butcher shop.
That's not to say that meat isn't still a feature here. The packaged meat looked very good on the back wall, and there's a butcher counter in the far corner.
Grocery aisles are packed with items, too.
And judging by the number of butchers behind the counter here, meat is still a big business.
In the last aisle of the store is ice cream and dairy, in much newer cases. In fact, they looked almost brand-new at the time of my visit.
And the front end is completely packed with merchandise, with what I believe is customer service (but may have been a deli, I can't remember) in the front corner.
That wraps up our tour of this little store, but there are still three other Krasdale-affiliated stores in Reading we'll be touring. We'll be seeing the first tomorrow, which is located on the south side of Reading, right here on The Market Report!
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