Special Report: Market Basket - Shrewsbury, MA

Market Basket
Opened: January 2023

Previous Tenants: none

Location: 200 Hartford Tpk, Shrewsbury, MA

Photographed: January 21, 2023

Welcome to The Market Report's first Market Basket! Not the first one I've been to, but the first one we're covering on the blog. The northern Massachusetts-based cult favorite chain has been rapidly expanding around New England with its massive stores, huge selection, low prices, and no-nonsense atmosphere. It's not a discount or limited-assortment store, for sure -- it's more like a large ShopRite with decor straight from the 1970s. Yes, it has been updated in some departments, but the chain is famous for stubbornly resisting any design trends that may be floating around. I must say that this 85,000 square foot store, which opened in the Worcester suburb of Shrewsbury around a month ago, is admittedly much more modern-looking than most.

When we finally make our way up to New England, we'll be seeing several Market Baskets, ranging in size from around 45,000 square feet to 135,000 square feet. The chain is around 90 stores but continues to expand while closing almost no stores. And we will see why. I visited the store about two weeks after it opened, and the store was still absolutely jam-packed. Check out this parking lot!

In fact, I'm surprised that MB didn't build larger since this property is a former drive-in movie theater that is now a mixed-use redevelopment. It's a bit of a remote location, being in a relatively undeveloped area at the southern tip of Lake Quinsigammond and a good five or so miles outside of the real urban center of Worcester, which is not that large of a city but is the second-largest in New England, behind only Boston.

Here's an overview of the property, with the supermarket at the center of the development. Market Basket also owns a liquor store attached to the supermarket, which probably brings the total space above 100,000 square feet.

The relatively remote location is clearly not, uh, driving away the customers. I walked from Worcester (where I live for some of the year and also where I don't have a car), but if I had driven, I'm not sure I would've been able to find a parking spot. But enough about how popular the store is. Let's dive in and see how Market Basket has perfected its formula for this particular location.

We enter to the most beautiful Market's Cafe I've ever seen immediately inside the main entrance to the right. The seating area is around the corner from the coffee shop and the Market's Kitchen prepared foods department. I was really surprised that this area looks very modern since even not that long ago MB was not using such a high-end design. We'll see that not all of the store looks like this, and you can even see the much older-looking aisle markers right behind the cafe.

And if we enter the store and turn right, we go into the Market's Kitchen department. This encompasses the hot food bars, sandwiches, pizza, sushi, and bakery departments.

Market Basket is also famous for high levels of staffing in the stores, which they do for service reasons. The stores' service counters are labor-intensive, but they even staff center store much more than any other chain around here. They're also very traditional, so you'll see stock clerks wearing dress shirts and ties.

A few overviews of the prepared foods departments. It's a pretty extensive selection.

And beyond that is the bakery service counter, which we can barely see because of the people. The rest of the baked goods are around this area too...

...such as this massive bread island and a huge donut case. The one thing that I felt was missing was a case for single-serve rolls and bagels, though that's significantly less common in New England than in the NY metro area.

These departments line the front wall of the store in the front-right corner. On the far right side of the store is ice cream on the outside wall, and then floral and greeting cards in the front and produce behind that. The first two aisles are frozen, with meat on the back wall and seafood/deli/cheese in the far left back corner. Dairy is in the last aisle on the far left side of the store. I suppose the way I just described it is backwards, since we start with aisle 21 and end with aisle 1. I find Market Basket's idiosyncratic layouts to be very unpleasant but it's just what I'm used to, I guess. Why put prepared foods across the store from deli? Why is ice cream not with the rest of frozen foods? But regardless...

Ice cream on the right side.

This store might not look particularly special (especially for a new-build store that just opened a few weeks ago), but in reality it's really special for this area. There's no massive modern ShopRites, just a whole lot of bad and expensive Price Choppers and Stop & Shops, some good but expensive Big Ys, and some mediocre Shaw's (plus one great one in Worcester).

Market Basket is not unlike Saker ShopRites, in the size of the stores, the presence of prepared foods departments, and the standardization with an older-feeling store across the chain. Saker definitely has a higher-end lean, though, while Market Basket definitely is lower end of middle-market.

I would also say that Saker doesn't have the same cult following that Market Basket does. And yes, I would use the word cult.

Here's a look at frozen in the first two aisles after produce. Beyond that, we move into the meat department (with that one random produce island, which is actually a common feature in many MBs -- I remember being confused about it previously).

This store does have some efforts to be more modern and upscale, such as this butcher counter. It looks great, but I wish the whole store looked like this.

Clearly, though, it doesn't matter, since MB stores do such high volume anyway. But if I showed you just the below picture, you would be certain this store was built in 1975.

The massive grocery aisles are not that exciting, but you can't argue with the selection and pricing.

Market Basket does, by the way, have its own storebrand and I don't believe they use any private label brands other than their own.

There's a large HABA department, but I don't believe any MBs have pharmacies.

You can see what I mean by no-frills environment, but not a discount store. It's just very simple, which may also be a way to cut costs.

And, for instance, compared to Saker, there's a smaller cheese department and it's not set up as a service counter. So the selection is mostly there, but it's not designed for a more upscale setup. Opposite the cheese island is the seafood and deli counters...

...and Market Basket frequently features locally caught seafood, as they should given that we are after all in New England.

The second-to-last aisle has cold cuts and eggs, with the rest of the dairy department in the last aisle.

Also present here is kosher and Italian foods, although Market Basket doesn't venture too far into the realm of ethnic merchandising.

And here's the dairy department in aisle 1, which the way we're touring the store is the last aisle.

And that about wraps up this massive supermarket, and note the cashiers below wearing the uniform jackets, white dress shirt, and tie.

You can also see that it doesn't seem Market Basket has much to worry about as far as attracting customers to a new store. Don't worry, we'll be seeing many more Market Baskets as well as dozens of other Worcester-area stores when we get up to Massachusetts. Here's the rest of the coverage we have today!

• Special Report: Stop & Shop - Long Island City, NY
• Special Report: H Mart - Long Island City, NY
• Special Report: Farm Country Supermarkets - Astoria, NY
• Special Report: Asian Food Markets - Staten Island, NY
• Special Report: HL Supermarket - Staten Island, NY
• Special Report: Market Basket - Shrewsbury, MA (this post)