TOUR: Brigido's Fresh Market - North Smithfield, RI

Brigido's Fresh Market

Owner: Mike Fernandez

Opened: 2023 under current ownership; 1999 previously

Cooperative: Allegiance Retail Services
Location: 900 Victory Hwy, North Smithfield, RI

Photographed: September 4, 2021

It's time for our second Brigido's Fresh Market! Yesterday we had the location in Pascoag, and there are now two other locations in New Hartford, CT and North Scituate, RI (which we'll visit soon). This North Smithfield location was previously an independent called Eddie's Market until Brigido's opened up in 1999, but I don't know any further history beyond that. At 19,000 square feet, it feels much larger than Pascoag but there's only about a 7,000 square foot difference.

This store is definitely higher-end, though, with a big focus on the fresh items. There's also plenty of regular groceries, but the perimeter is much more exciting than Pascoag. Like Pascoag, I visited this store back in 2021, before it was sold. These days, it's a member of Allegiance (Foodtown), and last summer held a grand reopening. It was very nice before, too...

The produce department is in the front part of the grand aisle. Meat and seafood are on the right side with produce on the left side. Cheeses and baked goods are in the middle (they do bake in-store, but there's no service bakery department). Deli is in the back right corner with dairy on the back wall and frozen foods in the last aisle. The store now has roughly the same decor package as New Hartford.

Interestingly, too, these hanging flags with the department names have been repurposed on the outside of the building to advertise the services the store offers.

Prior to the renovation, the store had various dictionary definitions of food-related words (like food and market) running around the outside walls, a cool feature.

Here you can see part of the substantial cheese department. This store is roughly the size and format of a Kings store in New Jersey, but far better-run.

Frozen meats give way to dairy across the back wall of the store.

As I mentioned in the Pascoag post, the stores previously sold Best Yet and Full Circle, and under new ownership, have now added Foodtown and Green Way to that lineup. They run a similar circular to the Green Way stores.

Here's a look at the floral department in the front of the store, next to the entrance. The registers extend out to the right in the below picture.

The grocery aisles are once again well-stocked with a large selection for the size of the place.

This one certainly feels larger than its size.

Milk is in the far back left corner and frozen foods continue down the last aisle.

Rhode Island has 27 Stop & Shops and 8 Shaw's, but actually the majority of supermarkets in the state are independents. It could be said that Dave's Fresh Marketplace is the king of the independents, with 10 locations in the IGA-affiliated chain across the Ocean State. We'll be seeing a Dave's soon enough, but if you look at supermarkets across Rhode Island, you're likely to see names like Dino's Park N Shop, Better Val-U, McQuade's, and even Seabra Foods, the NJ-based Portuguese food chain with locations in eastern Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts.

The customer service counter is in the front corner here.

You can see that this store is small but mighty, like so many of the independents we saw in Connecticut. Speaking of small but mighty, wait until you see tomorrow's post!

And that'll be right here in North Smithfield, a very different type of store than we typically see here on The Market Report. Come back tomorrow to check it out!