TOUR: The Market CT - Northville, CT

The Market CT / Northville Market
Owner: David Brenner

Opened: 1998 under current ownership

Cooperative: IGA
Location: 301 Litchfield Rd, Northville, CT

Photographed: July 9, 2021

Today's store kind of has two names, as it's co-branded with The Market CT and its legacy name, Northville Market. It's in the Northville section of New Milford, CT, and became The Market CT around 2014 or so. The Market CT also owns another IGA in Bantam, previously the Big Value IGA. I actually remember going there right around the time it switched over from Big Value to Bantam Market (and then it switched to The Market CT more recently), but that was before I was photographing stores.

This 14,000 square foot store has been around for many decades, but was taken over by its current ownership in 1998. Like the store we just saw in Sherman, this is a small but complete supermarket with a lot of small-town charm. I also think this is an exceptionally good independent supermarket. Check out those produce displays below! A lot of the produce was very local, grown in western CT, and some even grown right here in Litchfield County.

Produce lines the first aisle, with deli, bakery, and meats on the back wall. Dairy and frozen are in the last aisle, with bread in an alcove in the front corner... I think. That's the one part of the store's layout that I just can't remember for sure.

The deli also has a large selection of prepared foods, which are very well-loved by customers judging by online reviews and posts.

The decor here might be from when the current ownership took over in 1998. It's hard to tell, because it looks like it was intentionally designed to look retro.

The bakery department is small, but there's some beautiful fresh baked breads and other items on the endcaps opposite the department on the back wall. Meats are next.

Like Sherman, the fixtures here are mostly on the older side -- I'd guess around 1998 also -- but have been maintained unbelievably well.

The whole store is spotless and perfectly stocked, although it was plenty busy when I was there.

Here's where I start to falter on the layout. I know that aisle 8 is the last aisle in the store, with dairy and frozen. But then where's the bread? It's either on the front wall of the store in front of dairy and frozen, or it's behind the frozen cases below.

Although actually in the shot below it looks like there's sunlight coming in between the bread shelving and the freezer cases, so maybe this is actually on the front wall and there's an emergency exit. Or a window or something?

Then it's on to the front-end. What's that we see on the front wall?

That's right, just like the Sherman IGA, this store has an old sign preserved on the front end! This time, though, it's for AG Stores -- I assume from what's now Associated Grocers of New England (AGNE). Notice too the subheading there, which says Member of NROG - World's Largest Food Distributor. I am not familiar with that name, although it could be something like National Retail Organization of Grocers? Here's another question: the various Associated groups -- AGNE, New York's Associated Food Stores (which has since become Associated Supermarket Group), Baton Rouge's Associated Grocers, Kansas's Associated Wholesale Grocers, even the Canadian Associated Grocers -- were they ever related? Or is it just such a common name that the various groups have adopted it independently? I've never heard anything that they were once related, but it would make sense.

That's all for now, and I hope you're enjoying these independent stores! Up next is another somewhat unusual independent about four miles east for tomorrow's store tour!