TOUR: Donelan's Fresh Market - Acton, MA

Donelan's Fresh Market
Opened: 1959

Owner: Gohal and Mohanbhai Patel

Previous Tenants: none

Cooperative: none

Location: 248 Great Rd, Acton, MA

Photographed: May 11, 2023

Happy Valentine's Day, and it's let's celebrate by visiting another Donelan's! We've seen their location in Littleton along with a former location in Pepperell, and now it's time for Acton. (Sadly, we won't be seeing the locations in Wayland or Lincoln, which I haven't been to.) At around 32,000 square feet, this store is slightly larger than Wayland, Lincoln, and Pepperell, but smaller than Littleton.

The supermarket dates back to 1959 but has been expanded and renovated pretty significantly. It appears to have been renovated a bit more recently than Littleton, but both are very nice stores.

The layout is a bit different from Littleton, too. A cafe is in the front-left corner of the store, with prepared foods and some self-serve prepared food bars around it, then deli and seafood line the left side wall of the store in the grand aisle. Bakery is at the back of the grand aisle with a liquor store and meat on the back wall. Frozen and dairy are on the right side of the store.

Donelan's is not a member of any cooperative as far as I can tell, but they are supplied by C&S and sell Best Yet and Full Circle storebrand products.

As we can see, the store is quite attractive. This decor has a strong circa-2010 feeling to it, but that's not a bad thing at all. It's not looking dated and it remains in very good shape.

Between the bakery and the meat department on the back wall is a rather large liquor store.

The grocery aisles are fairly straightforward, but we can see the maintenance is really good here.

The meat department looks great with the combination of decor, lighting, and flooring. Good lighting makes a big difference in supermarkets.

Dairy and frozen in the last few aisles. The last aisle is shorter than the rest, and you can see the last aisle to the left of the price check sign below.

Frozen foods cases are on the older side, but again looking really good with good maintenance.

Looking up the last aisle towards the back of the store...

In the front-right corner is a floral department, which somewhat strangely doesn't have a department sign but still looks quite nice.

And a look across the front-end. You can see the cafe in the far corner of the store.

Donelan's is not the only independent supermarket in Acton. On Monday, we'll be off to an independent specialty grocer all the way on the western side of Acton. And this weekend, we have a lot of updates to see, so stay tuned!