Update: Best Supermarket - Worcester, MA

Best Supermarket
Owner: unknown

Opened: 2018 under current ownership

Cooperative: Krasdale Foods

Location: 877 Main St, Main South, Worcester, MA

Photographed: November 16, 2018; August 31, 2020; September 13, 2020; November 7, 2020; and October 1, 2022

Welcome back to Best Supermarket in Main South! We actually saw this store once before, right after it went through a somewhat strange transition from a Chinese grocery store to essentially a large bodega affiliated with America's Food Basket and using the Essential Everyday brand, but without ever officially being part of the group. Before that, it was Supermarket 999 and even before, Family 88 Supermarket. It looks from city directories like before it was Family 88, it was called Chinatown Supermarket.

After reopening under Latino owners, Best switched to Krasdale shortly after joining America's Food Basket. The store has been rearranged a few times, but it's basically a small store of about 3000 square feet divided into two rooms. On the left, you have produce, meat, dairy, and frozen; on the right, you have single-serve beverages, a few grocery aisles, and the checkout. There's a deli right inside the entrance between the two rooms.

Notice that when it first reopened (in that first picture), they reused the same awning, but painted over the Chinese characters that had previously been under each department name. In 2020, though, they got rid of the awning and installed the sign that's there now.

Let's take a quick look inside! Here's the produce/meat/dairy/frozen side of the store, with produce bins in the middle and refrigerators/freezers lining the outside of this room with the other items.

On the other side of the store, I think there are three or four grocery aisles. It's definitely not a complete supermarket, but it's a little more substantial than your average bodega.

I was very amused to find these labels on the meat and produce items -- Best Market was a mid-sized chain of grocery stores in NY and NJ that was acquired by LIDL in 2021. (They actually still have functional Facebook and Instagram pages.) I guess this unrelated Best Supermarket bought these labels or the labelmaker secondhand from Best Market, or else they've independently recreated the exact labels Best Market used to use...

I mentioned that this store used to have a loose affiliation with America's Food Basket, and the smallest AFB location is actually just up the street from this store. That'll be Monday's post!