TOUR: Key Food Marketplace - Chicopee, MA

Key Food Marketplace

Owner: Tony Diaz

Opened: 2023

Previous Tenants: CVS

Cooperative: Key Food Stores

Location: 185 Exchange St, Chicopee, MA

Photographed: November 20, 2023

Just a few blocks over from the longtime Fruit Fair Supermarket in Chicopee is this newcomer, a Key Food that opened in August 2023. The roughly 16,000 square foot store takes the spot of a former CVS, and it's possible that before CVS, or possibly the Family Dollar at the other end of the strip mall, was originally a supermarket.

Inside, the store looks a lot like the Key Food we recently saw in Holyoke, although we can tell the bones are a little nicer and newer because the store's renovation was more extensive.

Produce is in the first aisle, with meat and a service butcher counter (which I don't believe Holyoke has) on the back wall. Dairy and frozen are on the left side of the store, with deli and bakery in the front left corner.

Obviously, everything in this store is new, since the space was not previously a supermarket. It looks really good inside, and it looks like they've kept the store up really well even now that it's not brand-new.

The store feels plenty spacious even though it's small. It's around 4,000 square feet larger than Fruit Fair and roughly the same size as Holyoke.

All of the supermarkets outside of town on Memorial Drive are much larger. The Big Y is over 75,000 square feet, the Stop & Shop is slightly smaller at around 68,000 square feet, and the Price Rite is naturally a bit smaller at around 40,000 square feet. There's also an ALDI in the area.

There's also a Stop & Shop and a Big Y to the southeast of town.

The Key Food stores in Holyoke and Chicopee are small-format mainstream supermarkets, but they have a large selection of Latin American foods too.

Dairy and frozen are in the last aisle.

There's no in-store bakery, but baked goods are next to the deli and hot food area in the front corner.

7 aisles in total, I believe. The office is behind the wall that says Grab & Go and the customer service counter is right around the corner from that. As we see, I would say these guys have done an excellent job of turning an old CVS into a modern full-service supermarket.

Just four registers on the front-end, but it seems like it's around the right setup for a small format store like this one. Speaking of small format, we're headed into Springfield tomorrow for a small independent store north of downtown in the Memorial Square section!