Stop & Shop
Over the past few years, Stop & Shop has closed quite a few stores. Here in Brockton, Stop & Shop has closed both of their locations in the past five years. This 70,000 square foot store was built around 1990, replacing an older building on the property (I'm not sure if there was an older Stop & Shop, or some other older supermarket, in that previous building). It closed in the spring of 2020, shortly after the time that a Price Rite just to the north also closed. The other Stop & Shop, to the north of downtown Brockton, closed in last fall's round of 32 closures. While this Stop & Shop did not remain a supermarket -- it's been subdivided into multiple stores including an auto parts store and a dollar store -- the Price Rite building today operates as an America's Food Basket. There's another supermarket very close by, so close in fact that it almost shares a parking lot with this Stop & Shop...
...a Shaw's, just slightly smaller than this store, is located next door. We'll see the Shaw's soon, but today, it's time to tour the Stop & Shop!
I visited the store when it was still open, in 2019, then returned once it closed. Let's take a look at the store when it was open first.
This was one of the early Super Stop & Shop model stores, with the design later evolving to this and then to this. But inside, the store was renovated around 2012. That was the last remodel it got until its closure.
It's a standard Super Stop & Shop layout of this era, with floral and natural foods in the front-left corner. Deli and prepared foods line the left-side wall, with meat and seafood on the back wall. Dairy and frozen are on the right side, along with HABA, and pharmacy and bakery in the front-right corner.
The earlier Super Stop & Shop stores were typically built with very low ceilings in the grand aisle, like you can see here. Similar to a store like Raynham, the ceiling is higher over the grocery aisles in the middle. By the time they were building stores like Hudson, which I linked above, the ceilings were high throughout.
It doesn't look like many of the fixtures were changed here during the time the store was open.
Service seafood, which this store probably had when it opened, was gone by the time I visited.
A look across the back wall. Based on the flooring, this Stop & Shop probably opened with the same decor package as Watchung I linked above.
This store did have a solid international foods selection (although it wasn't a focus as much as a store like Vicente's or America's Food Basket).
The slanted drop ceiling around the perimeter, which you can see here on the back wall, was a standard feature for these early 90s Stop & Shops.
You can see some of the fixtures were definitely on the older side, such as the dairy case to the left below.
And bakery and pharmacy were in the front-right corner.
This store seemed busy enough when I visited, but Stop & Shop said it wasn't meeting financial expectations.
Later models of the Super Stop & Shop stores didn't have the mirrored glass across the front wall. That's a one-way mirror, with hallways to break rooms and offices behind it. Later stores had the walkway open.
Now for a look at the building after Stop & Shop closed...
O'Reily Auto Parts has since moved into the right side of the supermarket, along with Dollar Tree.
But when I visited, only the Dollar Tree section had been subdivided off, and you can see the wall to the right below.
On the left side of the store, construction was preparing to divide again. You can see the signature slanted drop ceiling element, which here would've been between the grand aisle (to the left) and the first grocery aisles (to the right).
Open: ca. 1990 - 2020
Owner: Ahold Delhaize
Previous Tenants: none
Later Tenants: subdivided
Cooperative: none
Location: 683 Belmont St, Brockton, MA
Photographed: July 6, 2019 and November 11, 2022
While I'm glad the space isn't sitting vacant, I of course would rather have seen another grocery store move in. Still, Shaw's and America's Food Basket are very close by. Come back tomorrow for a tour of the Shaw's!
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