TOUR: Compare Foods Supermarket - Waterbury, CT

Compare Foods Supermarket

Owner: unknown

Opened: 2016

Previous Tenants: Bravo Supermarkets (2006-2016)

Cooperative: Associated Supermarket Group

Location: 1954 Baldwin St, Waterbury, CT

Photographed: July 9, 2021

Welcome to Waterbury's Compare Foods! There was previously a much larger Compare Foods in town, located around two and a half miles northwest in a former Pathmark. That store became Cherry Valley Marketplace in 2014, and this one was a Bravo from 2006 to 2016. In 2016, Bravo switched to Compare Foods. I don't know what the space was previously -- although back in 1968, a building at this address was a machine shop.

Today, the 10,000 square foot space is a small but full supermarket. The deli is in the front right corner, with produce and packaged meat lining the rest of the first aisle. There's a small service butcher at the back of the first aisle, with dairy on the back wall and frozen foods in the last aisle on the left side. I visited on a hot and humid July day, hence the condensation on many cases...

I'm not sure if the store has always been set up this way, but the service butcher is set way back from the back wall -- we can see a little bit of the strange setup below. I assume the space behind the beer and dairy visible to the left here is the meat room, since I think the wall to the right is the outside wall of the store.

We can see that the store is very small but definitely is a full supermarket. I wouldn't be surprised if the decor here was from Bravo's 2006 opening, since it both matches the time frame and the style Bravo was using around that time.

The grocery aisles have the basics and a lot of Latin foods, as Compare Foods stores tend to have. What's interesting, though, is that this store uses a combination of the Avenue A products we'd expect to see from a Compare Foods store, being part of the Associated Supermarket Group, and Krasdale products. Krasdale runs CTown and Bravo stores, but don't worry, the Krasdale products in this store aren't left over from when it was a Bravo. Instead, I'm betting they just fill in some gaps from ASG (or out-of-stocks or the like) with a few Krasdale items.

I've seen other stores that use multiple brands from different suppliers at once, although it's not too common. What's more common is, for instance, a combination of Avenue A from ASG and Best Yet from C&S, given that C&S supplies ASG with Avenue A also.

As we see, the store is not brand-new but very clean.

This store fills an important gap, too, being currently the only full supermarket south of interstate 84 in Waterbury. Two miles north is a Save-A-Lot we'll tour next week, and as far south is a Big Y.

That's all for our tour of this Compare Foods! It's a nice little neighborhood store and a fun stop. We can also see that the Compare Foods signage is probably just placed over the Bravo logo on these signs.

Come back Monday to check out the Save-A-Lot in Waterbury!