TOUR: Adams Hometown Market - Watertown, CT

Adams Hometown Market
Owner: Bozzuto's Foods

Opened: 1996

Previous Tenants: Edwards Super Food Stores (ca. 1960-1996)

Cooperative: IGA

Location: 1167 Main St, Watertown, CT

Photographed: July 9, 2021

I've mentioned that many independents in Connecticut are supplied by Bozzuto's, a food wholesaler based in a suburb between Waterbury and Hartford, including all of the IGA stores in this region. What I didn't know until relatively recently is that Bozzuto's has actually owned a group of IGA stores for several decades, and in 1996, acquired nine Edwards Super Food Stores from Ahold and renamed them Adams Super Food Stores after Bozzuto's founder Adam Bozzuto. They've also acquired various other IGAs and independents -- especially from their own customers who are looking to sell their stores for one reason or another -- over time, rolling them all into what's now called Adams Hometown Markets. The Adams chain now owns 17 stores under the Adams Hometown Markets, Better Val-U, TriTown Foods, and just IGA banners in NY, CT, RI, and MA.

This store is around 30,000 square feet, so it's large enough that it's a substantial supermarket but not too large. It is a remarkably good combination of a big-chain feeling in a good way with a lot of local brands and other small-operator feeling. You can also just barely make out an Edwards labelscar behind the Adams logo here.

Watertown is a suburban town just outside Waterbury, the larger city in this area. In addition to this Adams, there's another IGA (which we're touring tomorrow), a Stop & Shop, and a small butcher shop/grocer called the Watertown Meat Center.

Produce lines the front wall of the store, with dairy on the right-side wall. The meat department and service butcher/seafood line the back wall of the store with deli and bakery in the back left corner. Checkouts line the rest of the left side wall of the store. It's quite a nice store, if not brand-new.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some or most of the fixtures and the flooring were left over from Edwards. They definitely look older than the decor of the store. The decor also looks to have been pared down more recently in favor of some of the newer IGA promotional signage, such as what we see below.

The grocery aisles are well-stocked with the full line of IGA products, along with Hy-Top (I assume now they use Life Goods and Life Every Day, which appears to mostly have replaced Hy-Top) and Seven Farms organic products. Those brands are all distributed by The Federated Group of Arlington Heights, IL, but locally distributed by Bozzuto's. So it only makes sense that they'd carry a really broad selection in their own stores. You can also get a sense of how well-stocked the store is from the picture below.

That, of course, is not always the case. Many wholesalers who attempt to become retailers aren't able to run a good store. I've been to two of the new C&S-owned Grand Union stores, and they were just terrible. Poorly stocked, weird product mix, lights burnt out, nonexistent service departments. Bozzuto's is clearly quite good at running retail stores in addition to their wholesale operations. The prices also seemed quite reasonable, in line with any of the other chains in the area, but I didn't do an extensive comparison.

An example of the newer IGA promotional signage that I've seen in a few IGAs. This store had more than I usually see, though.

I would assume Ahold sold this store to Bozzuto's when they bought Stop & Shop (because of how close the Watertown Stop & Shop is to this location), as both happened in 1996, but I'm not sure when the Watertown Stop & Shop opened or if there was previously an older store in town.

The frozen foods department has gotten some updates, though...

I believe frozen foods are located in the second-to-last aisle -- and those cases look practically brand-new. Even though the rest of the fixtures are older, they have definitely been maintained really well and don't necessarily need to be replaced.

The one downside to this new IGA promotional signage is that, well, it's not always in the right place. Unless these are locally-brewed cold cuts. Beer is unfortunately just opposite this signage, at the end of the last grocery aisle. Meat is on the back wall of the store. As we see, the store's layout is rotated 90 degrees with checkouts on the side wall.

A larger service butcher and seafood counter than I expected are in the last aisle. I actually didn't expect them to have one at all, so it's nice that they do -- and the product looked appealing, which is a good sign. Actually the perimeter overall was pretty strong, much better than I was expecting from a wholesaler-owned store.

Deli and bakery are in the back corner of the store. Here, too, the offerings were impressively good. Much better than, for comparison, the C&S-owned Grand Union stores, which had pathetic delis and no bakeries.

The front-end then continues along the side wall of the store beyond the deli and bakery...

This was a pleasant surprise! I was very happy with this store and I think it is well-run and attractive even if on the older side. I mentioned there's another IGA in town, which is actually just about the same size as this one across town about a mile and a half south. We'll be touring that tomorrow!