The Market Report

Original Grocery Tenant: Shaw's Address: 2077 Main St, Brockton, MA Opened:  ca. 1960s Closed:  2009 Later Tenants:  FunZ Trampoline Park Photographed:  November 11, 2022 It's time for our first store here in Brockton! As I mentioned on the preview post yesterday, one of the two chains that merged to become today's Shaw's was from here in Brockton, and was originally Brockton Public Market, later BPM Grocers. There are two Shaw's in Brockton, but there was another here in the far southern end of town until 2009. This store is right on the Brockton-West Bridgewater border, and in fact the town line runs right through this building. According to Google Maps, the right 2/3 or so of the former Shaw's building is in Brockton, and the left -- starting about where the triangle on the left is -- is in West Bridgewater. This store looks a lot like the early-00s models such as Webster (also closed) or Groton or Webster Square , but it actually dates back to the 1960s...

In the summer of 2019, I moved to Boston for a few months for a job. While I was there, I made it my mission to visit every supermarket in Boston -- which I did -- but I also branched out and visited stores in some of the suburbs like Brookline, Newton, Quincy, Malden, and a few others. The farthest I managed to make it outside of Boston (by train) is here, to Brockton, a city of a little over 100,000 people about 20 miles south of downtown Boston. I returned in the fall of 2022 to check out a few stores that opened, closed, or renovated. We'll be spending about a month touring the city from south to north, visiting almost every supermarket in town. There's quite a bit of grocery history here in Brockton -- what's today called Shaw's was originally Brockton Public Market, which they later rebranded as BPM Grocers. Shaw's history is quite interesting and a bid roundabout: per Wikipedia , George C. Shaw opened a store in 1860 in Portland, ME, and shortly thereafter a ...

Produce Barn Opened: 1978 Owner:  unknown Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  none Location:  72 Mansfield Ave, Norton, MA Photographed:  October 13, 2024 Welcome to the Produce Barn! It's one part hardware store, one part liquor store, one part grocery store all wrapped up in an 11,000 square foot building. We're going to focus on the grocery store part, which is in the middle of the building with hardware to the left and liquor to the right. The store opened in 1978, and a lot of it might be original (such as this produce case, perhaps, along with the grocery shelving). Despite the name, the produce department is quite small and limited to this one part of the first aisle. Butcher and deli are on the back wall, with dairy and frozen on the right side. There aren't a whole lot of grocery options in the immediate area, so this store probably fills a need for people who don't want to (or can't) travel about five miles to the next closest store. But within a co...

Trucchi's Supermarkets Opened: 1967 in this location Owner:  James P. Trucchi Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  none Location:  53 Tremont St, Taunton, MA Photographed:  October 13, 2024 This week, I posted pictures of the Trucchi's Supermarket in Middleborough, MA , where I haven't been. But I have been to the Trucchi's in Taunton -- well, one of two, and this is the one on the west side of town. At around 50,000 square feet, it's a bit larger than Middleborough. It's also a little larger than the roughly 40,000 square foot location across town. This store dates back to 1967, but it appears to have been expanded over time. The interior is similar to Middleborough, although it looks a bit older. You enter on the left side to bakery in the front-left corner and produce on the left side. Dairy lines the back wall, with seafood and deli in the back-right corner. Meats line the right-side wall of the store. You can of course tell that this store is not as upsc...

Shaw's Opened: ca. early 1980s Owner:  Albertsons Companies Previous Tenants:  unknown Cooperative:  none Location:  300 New State Hwy, Raynham, MA Photographed: October 13, 2024 Welcome back to Raynham! Remember being here before? We saw the Stop & Shop in town a while ago shortly before it closed, and its most direct competition was this Shaw's located just down the street. At 62,000 square feet, this store is almost exactly the same size as the now-closed Stop & Shop, and although it's a bit older, it's more recently renovated. You enter on the right side to the grand aisle, with produce in the front-right corner. Deli and prepared foods are in the back-right corner, and service meat and seafood along with the cheese department are on the back wall. Meat and dairy line the back wall, with the rest of dairy and frozen on the left side. The bakery is in the front-left corner. A notable difference between this store and the closed Stop & Shop: this one ...