TOUR: Goretti's - Millbury, MA

Goretti's Supermarket

Owner: Mark Goretti

Opened: unknown

Cooperative: none

Location: 1 Providence St, Millbury, MA

Photographed: October 12, 2019 and October 19, 2019

If you head just east from Auburn, you'll enter Millbury, a town of about 14,000 that's just southeast of Worcester. Millbury is home to a massive strip mall outside of town called The Shoppes at Blackstone Valley, but the only supermarket in town is actually just a couple blocks outside of downtown. It's an independent called Goretti's, and I'm not totally sure how long it's been here for. The supermarket dates back to some time between 1964 and 1967, when it was the Millbury Supermarket. It remained the Millbury Supermarket until 1989, after which time there are no historical city directories available. I'm not sure whether Millbury Supermarket was the same as Goretti's, but around the 1990s, there was also a Goretti's in Worcester that we'll be seeing shortly.

The store totals just under 25,000 square feet, and the layout is slightly nontraditional with the storefront and the loading docks facing away from the street.

The store is quite nice inside, and maintained very well. We enter to the grand aisle with produce in the front left corner, then deli is in an island facing produce and meats are in the back left corner. Bakery is in the first grocery aisle behind the deli, then dairy on the back wall and frozen on the right side of the store. A beer and wine department is in the front right corner.

The store is on the older side, but it's been renovated at least once since it opened. For some reason my grand aisle shots aren't that great here, but you still get the idea. (Plus, I photographed the store way back in 2019.)

Floral and greeting cards are in the front of the grand aisle. You can see the entrance just to the left of the greeting cards.

Baked goods take up the first grocery aisle, which runs behind the deli counter. There's no service bakery counter here, but there is a serious in-store bakery. If you ever go to the bathroom in the back of the store, you'll walk by the large bakery.

Deli faces away from the rest of the supermarket, towards meat and produce. The store is set up relatively similarly to Park 'n Shop in Auburn, and like Park 'n Shop, Goretti's uses Best Yet and Full Circle from C&S.

Here's a look at the meat department looking back up towards the produce department in the front corner. There's a service butcher counter at the front of the meat department.

Cold cuts and frozen meats transition into dairy on the back wall. The store appears to have been expanded a few times, and it looks like the grand aisle is part of one expansion. The other is on the far right side of the store where frozen foods are now.

Opposite the breads on one side of the first aisle are cakes and refrigerated desserts lining the back of the deli counter. There's a few islands in the front and back of the first aisle for other baked goods.

And natural foods line the other side of the first aisle. You can see the columns here that, I believe, delineate where the supermarket originally ended.

Dairy in relatively new cases on the back wall.

The grocery aisles are well-stocked and, like Big Bunny, Park 'n Shop, and some of the other independents around here, there's more representation of local and small brands.

Frozen foods line the last aisle...

Here's a look at the beer and wine department, which looks like it may have previously been the customer service counter given its location and the office above it. The hanging structure is reminiscent of Park 'n Shop's, too, making me wonder if perhaps those two stores were part of a group or cooperative that used the same decor package or at least the same design firm at one point.

And a look across the front-end, and again we can see the the columns separating the original supermarket from the right-side expansion...

I really like Goretti's, and it's a very pleasant small-town store. A Price Chopper is about three miles north in Worcester, which we'll tour shortly, a Market 32 is about two and a half miles south in Sutton, which we'll also be seeing, and a Stop & Shop is about three and a half miles northeast in Grafton. That's where we're headed tomorrow!