TOUR: Crosby's Marketplace - Concord, MA

Crosby's Marketplace
Opened: unknown

Owner: Chris Crosby

Previous Tenants: unknown

Cooperative: Associated Grocers of New England

Location: 211 Sudbury Rd, Concord, MA

Photographed: May 11, 2023

Yesterday we saw the Concord Market just north of downtown Concord, which is a smaller gourmet market. Now we're here to check out the supermarket in Concord, which is Crosby's Marketplace. It's a roughly 20,000 square foot outpost of a local chain (we'll see a couple more Crosby's once we're northeast of Boston, too). As for this building, it was constructed around 1960 -- the hardware store to the left was added later -- and it almost looks like a centennial A&P, but there are some notable differences. Check out the exterior of this store for comparison. I don't know what it originally was, and I can't find any records online of what it would've been.

We enter roughly in the middle of the storefront (another difference from A&P centennials), then turn right to enter the grand aisle.

Produce is in the front-right corner, with bakery, deli, and seafood lining the right side wall. Meat is on the back wall with a service butcher counter at the back of the grand aisle, and dairy and frozen are on the left side of the store.

As you can see, this is a straightforward, full supermarket but leans higher-end. That's in large part just because of the nature of the area surrounding it. Per Wikipedia, Concord's median household income is over $180,000.

Crosby's has been here since at least 2007, and I would bet a bit longer than that. I really don't know much about the store's history, so hopefully a local familiar with the area can fill us in.

As we move to the back of the grand aisle, we come to prepared foods, deli, and seafood. I love this area of exposed ceiling, and as a matter of fact, it looks like the ceiling is made with wooden beams rather than your average metal truss.

The lighting here is also very well-done, such as these spot lights on the meat signage.

I believe Crosby's is a member of Associated Grocers of New England (although I can't confirm that) -- but they do sell Food Club and Full Circle storebrand items, which are the brands used locally by AGNE.

As we see, the store is not brand-new -- although relatively recently renovated -- but maintained extremely well.

I like the aisle markers, too.

Dairy and frozen in the last aisle.

And a look across the small front-end, with customer service under the striped awning straight ahead.

That wraps up our look at Crosby's, but we're not done with Concord just yet. Tomorrow, we're off to West Concord to see a longtime supermarket that recently closed. Come back to check it out!