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Special Report: Stop & Shop (closing) - Milford, CT

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By Zachary
Stop & Shop
Opened: 1990s
Owner: Ahold Delhaize
Previous Tenants: none
Cooperative: none
Location: 855 Bridgeport Ave, Milford, CT
Photographed: August 18, 2024
Closing Date: October 31, 2024

Milford is one of three closing Stop & Shop stores we're seeing in Connecticut today, and all are set to close on the 31st of October (see Stamford and Ansonia). The Bridgeport Ave. Stop & Shop in Milford, CT opened in the 1990s -- specifically between 1994 and 2001 -- and takes up about 65,000 square feet. It was renovated around 2012.
Big Y has become a very strong competitor, and it's a tightly-run, family-owned chain of around 85 stores (and counting). They've long been strong in western Massachusetts, but their expansion into Connecticut, which keeps pushing farther and farther south, seems to have seriously threatened Stop & Shop. This store is just down the street from a new-build Big Y that opened in late 2019, and it's a nice one (though most are). The Big Y is just a bit smaller than this store.
Stop & Shop continues to operate across Milford at 1360 E Town Rd in Milford. Milford is a suburb of Bridgeport, where a Stop & Shop closed earlier this year and became a Food Bazaar.
This is a standard late-90s Super Stop & Shop, with natural foods in the front-right corner (although I don't know if they've always been there). Deli and prepared foods are on the right side of the grand aisle with produce opposite, and seafood, meat, beer, and dairy are on the back wall. Frozen and the rest of dairy are on the left side, with bakery and pharmacy in the front-left corner.
Even back in mid-August, the store's shelves were starting to thin out. Certain sections, like this one in the natural foods department, were completely empty, while others were just a little light -- and actually, the majority of the store was fully stocked.
Although I'm not a huge fan of these yellow and purple stores, I will admit they have held up quite well over the years.
Notice here that the signage has backlighting built in, which I commented on in Ansonia.
The cheese case was emptying out, but there was still some cheese here and there.
A look across the back wall...
The service meat and seafood departments, too, were open right up until the end. But still, it can't hold a candle to nearby Big Y.
But the store is in exceptionally good shape, with very little visible damage to any of the fixtures, flooring, and even ceiling. It's been kept up really well for sure. I wonder, though, if perhaps that's a sign that it's been a fairly low-volume store for a while now, meaning that it doesn't get the normal wear and tear of a busier store.
Promotional displays had been removed from the aisles, but the grocery shelves were still fully stocked.
I'll point out again that this store, like the other two we're seeing today, is in such great shape that another operator could move in easily. But who would it be? There's already a ShopRite and a Big Y nearby, and there aren't that many operators comfortable with a large suburban store like this one in Connecticut.
A staple of these larger Stop & Shop stores is the Best Sellers department, selling magazines and books. Again, fully stocked as of a few months ago.
The one thing I still don't care for about these yellow and purple stores is the parts where white fruit-slice icons are overlayed on a yellow wall. Without looking carefully, it looks like it's the remnants of paint peeled off when something was removed.
But like in the other stores, the freezer cases look pretty new here.
Frozen foods transitions to bakery in the front corner.
I do like that these signs are backlit. It adds some nice visual interest and helps identify the departments easily.
The pharmacy closed in mid-September.
Again, check out that floor! So clean and shiny.
It's possible Northeast Grocery could be interested in some of these locations (for their Price Chopper/Market 32 banners) but these stores are quite a bit farther south than their stores tend to go in Connecticut. And I don't see any evidence that Northeast Grocery is looking to expand their geographic reach. Their only notable recent acquisitions are the ShopRite stores in the Capital Region, but those are right smack in Northeast Grocery's home territory.
We'll have to see if any other supermarket takes over this store, but in the meantime...
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