Look Inside: Perry's Market - Worcester, MA

Perry's Market

Owner: Loc Win

Opened: 2005 under current ownership; 1930 originally

Cooperative: none

Location: 196 Stafford St, Webster Square, Worcester, MA

Photographed: August 20, 2020

Just a few blocks away from Webster Square Plaza, we start to feel like we're out in the country a little bit as Worcester starts to give way to its more rural western neighbor, Leicester. A couple blocks in from the city line is this tiny grocer of about 1600 square feet, which appears to have been built in the 1920s by Community Stores Co. In 1930, Community Stores moved next door to 194 Stafford, and Louis Perry opened a grocery store in 196 Stafford. The store would keep Perry's name on the building for almost a hundred years, although the Perry's Super Market name didn't come until around 1960. The original family is no longer involved with the business and it appears to have been sold several times, most recently in 2005.

Inside, the tiny market functions as a convenience store these days, and if you zoom into the picture above, you can see that several of the services the store once had have been covered -- I see deli, fresh bread, and something that starts with P and ends with S covered up on the sign.

Still, it's amazing to see a store still functioning as its original purpose after all those decades. There are a few other similar ones we'll see across Worcester. Tomorrow, we're off to a former supermarket just to the north!