Daily Stop Supermarket
Opened: early 2023
Owner: Zameeruddin Mohammed
Welcome to Providence's Daily Stop Supermarket! It's a 25,000 square foot store to the northwest of downtown Providence, and a relatively new store having opened approximately in the spring of 2023. The independent supermarket was built in what appears to have been previously an industrial building, and while there are several other grocers in the immediate area, it's the largest in the neighborhood. A much larger Stop & Shop is located across a highway to the north. This store's most direct competition is a tiny Compare Foods just a couple blocks north. Daily Stop is tucked out of the way on a residential and light-industrial side street with virtually no other retail around.
We enter to the prepared foods department, which is an outside business called Zhili's Kitchen. It looks like they specialize in Caribbean foods, which is also a focus for the supermarket as a whole.
The produce department is on the right side of the store, with packaged meats in refrigerators facing. A large meat and seafood counter lines the back part of the first aisle and continues down about half of the back wall, with a bakery and deli in the back left corner. Dairy and frozen are on the left side of the store.
This store is apparently completely independent, but supplied by Krasdale Foods and C&S. I saw both Krasdale and Best Yet branded items on the shelves.
The Caribbean influence is apparent in the produce department, with peppers as far as the eye can see. Most of these are scotch bonnets, but there are also aji dulces and habaneros and a few others. (What are those? Here's a handy guide.)
Packaged meats are opposite the large service butcher counter, which is in an L-shape.
It looks like neither the Stop & Shop nor the closer Compare Foods -- nor, of course, the slightly farther ALDI -- has a service meat counter, so this is likely a big draw. Still, it's hard to gauge this store's volume, because it's in such a strange location (and I was there at night, not a peak shopping time).
The Compare Foods doesn't have a seafood counter, either, and I can't tell whether the Stop & Shop does.
Looking back up towards the front of the store...
And across the back wall to the left side.
Caribbean, African, and Latin foods were all represented here. The owners appear to be South Asian. There's a selection of basic groceries, too, but it felt a bit like an afterthought. The owners of this store come from running convenience stores -- there are a handful of Daily Stop convenience stores scattered throughout Providence -- and this appears to be their first supermarket. Meat, produce, and international items aside, this store feels more like an oversized convenience store than a full supermarket, even though it's much larger than a convenience store.
Seafood was closed for the night.
There are only a few aisles of mainstream groceries, meaning people who want those items probably are going to the ALDI or the Stop & Shop.
The deli and bakery counters were mostly empty, and appeared to be permanently closed, not just closed for the night, judging from the prep areas in the back and the fourth of July decorations still hanging on the deli case. Maybe this store just isn't getting the volume the owners were hoping for.
The store is open late, though, until 1 am when Compare Foods and ALDI close at 8:00 and Stop & Shop closes at 10:00. Dairy and frozen in the last aisle...
There was also a sign for a juice bar that appears to have been removed in the front corner here. You can catch a glimpse of it in this picture from a year ago.
Previous Tenants: non-grocery tenants
Cooperative: Krasdale Foods
Location: 85 Whipple St, Providence, RI
Photographed: February 5, 2025
I enjoyed visiting Daily Stop, but it feels like it's not quite living up to its potential. Still, it's nice to see a very new independent supermarket! Tomorrow, we're off to see another recently-opened independent supermarket in a neighborhood just south of downtown Providence. Stay tuned!
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