Now it's time for all the former grocery stores in and around downtown Worcester, and nearly all are on Main Street or a block or two away. In the central downtown area, so many of the buildings are new that none of the original grocery stores are left. To the north and south a few blocks, though, there's a lot to see.
832 Main St | Downtown
818 Main St | Downtown
799 Main St | Downtown
804 Main St | Downtown
802 Main St | Downtown
9 Castle St | Downtown
796-798 Main St | Downtown
A note on historical sources: To get past stores in each location, I've consulted Worcester city directories going back to the 1910s. Here in the city, I'm drawing from 1916, 1922, 1927, 1931, 1937, 1943, 1959, 1952, 1957, 1962, 1969, 1973, 1979, 1985, 1991, 2000, 2009, and 2017. Also of note: this is far from an exhaustive listing of all grocery stores that have been in this area, although I'll probably eventually post the full thing, this is just what I've been able to photograph.
Reading the captions: A caption such as the following...
| John Smith (1926-1937) > Joe Jones (1955-1982)
...means that John Smith appears in the directories in 1926 and 1937, and Joe Jones appears in all directories I consulted between 1955 and 1982. That doesn't mean that John Smith opened up shop in 1926 and closed in 1937, he might have started in 1920 and closed in 1941 but since I don't have those records, I don't know for sure. Any questions (or corrections), feel free to drop a note in the comments and I'll look into it!
Downtown
836 Main St | Downtown
A&P (1932-1937)
A&P (1927)
A&P appears to have moved from 832 Main to 836 Main between 1927 and 1931.
Desmore & Lewis (1916) > Worcester Economy Stores (1922) > Community Stores Co (1927-1943) > Pay 'n Takit Food Stores (1949)
Castle Market (1931) > Blake's Market (1937)
Cibao Market is at the right side of this block. Castle is presumably named after Castle Street one block over, leading to what is now Oread Castle Park.
Vigeant & Payette (1922)
It's possible that Ulderic Vigeant was part of this partnership, as his business later was across at where Cibao is today.
A&P (1922-1927)
Catherine Rooney (1931)
Here you can see the end of Castle Street as it turns into Oread Castle Park. Crazy how you almost feel like you're in the country here when you're just outside downtown in the second-largest city in New England. I don't honestly know which part of the building the grocery store would've been in, but the building dates back to 1890.
796 Main St: A&P (1931-1937) > John Markarian (1943-1952)
798 Main St: Beacon Market (1943-1957)
It appears both storefronts have since been combined into what's now a Rent-A-Center, built essentially into the front of a large house.
23 Lagrange St | Downtown
704 Main St | Downtown
705 Main St | Downtown
700 Main St | Downtown
6 Chandler St | Downtown
630 Main St | Downtown
407-409 Main St | Downtown
305 Main St | Downtown
281 Main St | Downtown
Vessio & Robo (1931-1943) > D. V. Robo & Son (1949-1952) > Lagrange Market (1957-1991)
An incredibly well-preserved grocery store of about 1000 square feet in what might be called far southern downtown or possibly far northern Main South or possibly Beacon Brightly. It looks like it's used for storage now, but I can't fully tell. Regardless, it's extremely impressively original. The building dates back to 1925 and is also known as 21 Lagrange St.
Manooshian Brothers (1922-1927)
Sarkis Manooshian moved across to 703 Main by 1931.
Athens Market (1979) > Mekong Market (1991)
Mekong moved to 749 Main Street, then to its newly-built location at 747 Main around 2005.
A&P (1922-1931) > Santiago's Market (2000) > Fresh Foods Market (2017)
Eva Lamy (1922)
A&P (1931-1937)
Don't miss the obvious Woolworth's (paywall) next door!
Protective Union (1916-1922)
Although it's been extensively renovated, this building actually dates back to 1890. Woosta Pizza recently closed, but it was an amazingly preserved retro McDonald's inside.
Central Grocery Co (1916)
Healthmode Food Shop (1937)
And there you have it, as far as downtown Worcester goes! Up next, we're headed east across the train tracks to Green Island/Canal District/Kelley Square and then some of the southeastern neighborhoods of the city!
There seemed to be a health kick in downtown Worcester around 1940, as a few (long-gone) stores had names like Healthmode Food Shop and Nature Food Centers, of which there were two on Main Street. Nature Food Centers had locations at 373 Main and 31 Pleasant, and Healthmode's other location was at 568 Main -- now a parking garage.
The A&P moving wouldn't be strange (having read about them, they did very short-term leases back at that time, sometimes as little as a year.
ReplyDeleteTurned out that was very helpful when the Depression hit, as they were able to do quite well not being stuck in a bunch of stores that were not doing well.
However, with that known, it does seem a bit odder with that first one, since it seems to be the same buildings (even if a different number), so not sure what, if any, advantage they'd get moving from one end to the other (as it would seem likely to be all owned by one group/person, but maybe not?).
That's really interesting, thanks for the info here!
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