TOUR: America's Food Basket - Springfield, MA

America's Food Basket
Owner: Francisco Diaz

Opened: 2015

Previous Tenants: Stop & Shop > CTown Supermarkets (1989-ca. 2010) > NSA Supermarkets (ca. 2010-2015)

Cooperative: America's Food Basket

Location: 790 State St, Mason Square, Springfield, MA

Photographed: November 20, 2023

Happy Monday! On Friday, we saw a Save-A-Lot that took up around 18,000 square feet of a former A&P. Today is a very similar store -- a former 32,000 square foot Stop & Shop, built between 1960 and 1965, that in 1989 had a roughly 17,000 square foot CTown built in the center of it. There was also previously a Finast on this property that was demolished to make way for this building. Thanks to Groceteria for that history! CTown became NSA around 2010, and the NSA switched over to America's Food Basket when the cooperative was rebranded in 2014-2015.

The store takes up the center of the building, but because it's very deep and extends behind the other tenants in the front here, it's much larger than it looks.

We enter to the produce department in the front left corner, with the registers on the front wall and customer service in the front right corner. Deli is in the front part of the right wall, with some short and low grocery aisles between produce and deli. The main grocery department is in the back part of the supermarket, which as I said extends behind the other storefronts here in both directions. Meat is on the back wall with frozen and dairy on the right side.

Although the store is older -- this is probably early 00s CTown decor -- maintenance is quite good here. In fact, there was a guy working with this ladder when I was there. Generally, I've found that a lot of the America's Food Basket around NYC and in MA are very well-maintained and well-run.

Here you can see how the store extends on the right side behind the deli, and on the left side, the store extends in the other direction a few more aisles...

The nail salon and the beauty supply stores are in front of the wall to the left, I believe. Soda and condiments are in the first aisle...

...which becomes slightly wider in the back.

Here we can see how the store is significantly wider in the back than in the front. These fixtures look pretty new to me.

Like most of the AFB locations, the grocery selection is pretty straightforward with a larger-than-average Latin American food selection.

Here's a look at the shorter aisles in the front of the store. It looks like this shelving is brand-new, too. Hard to tell if there was previously something else here. Was the produce department originally much larger?

The store could use a bit of cosmetic freshening up, though, with the age showing in a few places like this sign for Fresh Me ts.

Frozen foods are in the second-to-last and last aisles.

As we see here, the dairy fixtures on the outside wall are very new. You can see just how spotless the store is.

Baked goods and deli in the front corner, with customer service in the front of it. The deli case also looks very new. I wonder if a larger renovation is coming.

Another couple letters missing on the front wall, but still, the store is in very good repair. CTown was here for a good two decades or so before switching to NSA. I'm not clear whether the current owners have owned the store for that whole time.

Unfortunately, we're coming to the end of our relatively sparse Springfield coverage. We have one more store way out east of town before we move on for real, though! Come back tomorrow to check it out.