TOUR: Amaral's Central Market - Fall River, MA

Amaral's Central Market
Opened: 1978; ca. 2010 in this location

Owner: David Amaral

Previous Tenants: none

Cooperative: none

Location: 872 Globe St, Fall River, MA

Photographed: October 14, 2024

I mentioned on yesterday's post about Portugalia Marketplace that there's a large Portuguese community in this part of southeastern MA, and today's store is no exception. Amaral's Central Market opened in 1978 in a smaller store (a picture of which you can see below, posted on the storefront), specializing in Portuguese foods. When they moved from the 4300 square foot store to this newly-built store of 22,000 square feet around 2010, the supermarket was of course able to sell a wider range of foods and is now a general supermarket with a lot of Portuguese items.

The best thing about the history of Amaral's? The old store is directly across the street, today occupied by Dave's Pizza.

Let's tour the new location! Although it's much larger, it's also shaped in such a way that a lot of the new building is storage and warehouse space, meaning the supermarket is on the smaller side. Produce is in the front-right corner, with dairy and cold cuts in the rest of the first aisle. Meat, seafood, and deli counters line the back wall, along with baked goods (there's no in-store bakery). Frozen foods and wine are on the left side of the store.

As it goes on 15 years in the new store, it's starting to show some age, but overall it looks really good. This is the only supermarket in the immediate neighborhood, although there are others slightly farther away, one of which we'll tour tomorrow.

Dairy and cold cuts are behind produce in the first aisle.

Most of the back wall is taken up by large butcher and seafood counters, along with a deli to the left. Because of this setup, there's almost no space for packaged meats since the vast majority of the meats are displayed in the service counter.

The butcher shop is the centerpiece of the supermarket, clearly, with all meat cutting done in-store and to order. They also make their own sausages.

In the grocery aisles, there's a full line of mainstream groceries but also a large selection of imported Portuguese items. I don't believe the store is a member of any cooperative, but they sell Best Yet products from C&S.

Frozen foods are in the back left corner and continue down the last aisle.

Of course, there are some cosmetic updates that could benefit this store, but it's clear they serve the neighborhood well and it's very clean and well-stocked.

Wine and customer service on the left side.

And here's a look across the front-end. You can see the produce department again in the far left side of the below picture.

That wraps up our look at Amaral's. Before moving on from Fall River, there's one more store I want to show you here in town on Monday. But there's a lot to see before then -- this weekend, I have news about nine different stores in New York and New Jersey. So come back and enjoy your weekend!