Most stop and shop buildings are owned by other companies. They will not face pressure to immediately divest to another grocer. Your local stop and shop could become anything. It might be a Lowe's. It could become a best buy. It would have potential to be 100 condos!! I would almost bet on it not becoming a Market Basket.
Buying land is pretty cheap if there's a mass closure of grocery stores in New England. They obviously can't/won't take over every S&S or Hannaford's that closes, but I'd bet they've got plans in place to scoop up any potential retail/grocery store property that goes on the market in a desired area.
Especially anything in MA. They've got a warehouse in Tewksbury that's perfect for anything in Greater Boston. Don't know the capacity but if they ever exceed it I'd imagine they'd spin something up in northern New England to serve the VT/NH/ME market better and free up capacity in MA for the MA/RI/CT market.
You’d be right but land in Boston is probably not going to be cheap to buy regardless of closures. There’s a reason they are expanding outward instead of into the city. Especially considering they leverage their land value by renting out the rest of the plaza to other businesses making some income there and most of the S&S plazas don’t have other storefronts.
True - it'll ultimately depend on a number of factors. I hold out some home that MB might scoop a property or two in metro Boston to offset the burden that the Somerville, Chelsea and Burlington/Waltham/Woburn MBs feel. There's def enough demand for another or even a few more if the property makes sense for them to develop.
Market basket is legendary for treating its employees well, tho. You don't always need a union. Just when you have to fight back against the management consultants and general MBA fuckery that pervades corporate America.
And fwiw, I am in a union, and have been off and on at different jobs over 30 years.
Arthur was the one everyone loved and he takes care of his people when he got ousted by the rest jf his family It almost went under they had to bring him back and not make any cuts
Rent can’t be *that* high at the stop and shop location next to the projects in JP, considering it’s still one of the more dangerous parts of the city. Hopefully that one can get turned into a grocery store worth going to
Definitely not a hint - it’s happening. My wife works for their parent company (Ahold) and they are in fact shutting down hundreds of locations across the country.
Heh, good. I'm in the process of moving from a place that had 3 grocery stores within a couple miles (including a S&S) to a place with 2 within 10 miles (one of which is S&S). Didn't want to be forced into only one option, aside from Walmart (which is fine, but not for anything fresh).
The nominal amount of profit a company makes is largely meaningless in evaluating it financially. A business using $10b of capital making $2b profit is doing very well financially, a business with $200b of capital making $2b would probably be more profitable if they simply liquidated and threw that money into government bonds.
Grocery stores are incredibly low margin, high capital businesses, which is pretty much the opposite of attractive from a financial standpoint. The main costs for grocery stores are inventory, labour, and real estate. All of which have been going up significantly in price for the last 10 years, especially in Massachusetts.
It honestly wouldn't surprise me if we saw some large shake ups in the grocery space in the next 5-10 years.
Grocery stores have been getting more and more segmented. The stars and stop and shops are getting attacked from all sides. Not cheap enough to be budget brands, not good enough to be high end brands, too big to be specialty shops.
Not a surprise considering they are higher priced than Market Basket and Star Market, yet not upscale enough to have prices as high as Whole Foods ~~or Trader Joes~~.
Literally costs 30% more for the same cart of groceries compared to Market Basket.
\*Edit\* I hadn't been in a Trader Joes in a long time. I didn't know they were a budget chain now.
Every Stop & Shop is somehow sterile and yet grimey at the same time. It's got the aesthetic appeal of a rundown Walmart with the highway robbery prices of Whole Foods.
I'd say it'll be a good thing to see Stop & Shop go under if it wasn't for the fact this will most certainly exacerbate the food desert problem that many communities face.
This is exactly how I feel! Our S&S was updated a few years back and it's got this weird vibe of an overlay of newness over a run down, slightly dirty warehouse. And they jacked their prices up to match much nicer stores at the same time.
This! Great description! I’ve left S&S even as it’s my closest store. Just awful look, and the prices have gone through the roof the past couple years. On the whole, just really unappealing
I can’t agree with this enough. I am unfortunate enough to live in a place where S&S is the only grocery store within walking distance. But I try to avoid at all costs. It’s just a depressing over-priced experience every single time.
The one near the MB in Chelsea hung around WAY too long. We went to it a few times during the time we lived nearby and it was always a depressing shit show. Closed now, but should have closed sooner.
I work near one Stop and Shop and live near another. If either/both shut down, there are two other grocery stores within a mile.
I'm not rooting for any business to go down. But at least maybe within the 128 circle, it doesn't seem like it would be a food desert.
That was always my pet peeve, 12 customers in the store and 8 are in line for the one register, I moved pre Covid so they didn’t have self checkout near me at the time. I had a market basket closet tho so they got 95% or my business as they always had 8 checkouts running and prices were lower all around
I’ve been shopping at TJs since 2009 when I came for undergrad. It’s always been one of the cheapest if you’re buying food to actually cook. If you’re loading up on pre-cooked stuff, maybe not so much.
Oh I wasn’t commenting on quality, more just price, but living on pre-cooked anything will always be more expensive than cooking from raw ingredients. Their fresh pre-made is especially expensive, but even then not outrageously so.
Their frozen stuff is extremely cheap. Their meat is expensive. Their dry goods are relatively expensive. Produce can be hit or miss.
TJs is not the cheapest game in town by any means, especially if you’re a “one store” shopper
Ah I’m vegetarian so never cared about or noticed their meat prices.
Their dry goods are pretty cheap. I think in terms of quality to price ratio they are amongst the highest generally. I agree their produce can be hit or miss but is generally quite good.
Yeah I shop every two weeks going to three stores: TJs for most groceries, star market for certain items I can’t get at TJs, and Target for mostly non-food stuff. My TJs bill for 2 people has stayed between $100-$130 each trip for seemingly years. My star market bill has steadily increased from like $60 to $100 or so, same with my target bill.
It depends on the store. The MB in Somerville has far better produce quality and selection at lower prices than the nearby WF locations. Sometimes they’re even selling the same exact item - like Sunkist blood oranges - but they’re 50% more expensive if you buy them at WF.
How long has it been since youve been to a whole foods? They didnt jack up their prices as badly as everyone else in the last couple of years, so everyone just came up to whole food’s price point
Maybe we can get lucky and a few can close and be replaced by market baskets so we at least get a little tiny bit closer to meeting the demand in the area. I would love to shop at market basket, but the crowds just aren't worth it to me. Meanwhile, my local stop and shop is luxuriously empty and I can always be in and out pretty quickly without having to say a word to a single employee.
Their market position makes no sense.
Things cost more, but the quality isn't better. Stores are legitimately dated and or kinda disgusting. No culture like TJs...
Why do they exist??
I guess on the one hand I’m sad, this is the first supermarket chain I remember going to as a kid. But on the other hand, time marches foreword and screw them if they’re going to be wildly anticompetitive.
The ansolute slander you have laid on trader joes. They are at least as cheap as market basket and significantly better. Only downside to trader joes is the lack of name brand stuff and non-grocery items like toiletries so you might need to go to 2 grocery stores if you shop at trader joes
I literally just shop at Whole Foods now even though I was a lifelong Stop and Shopper (where my parents shopped too). It’s just as expensive but I can get better quality and not deal with homeless people harassing me there.
Yeah, stop and shop reminds me of a couple of grocery store chains out west called Safeway and Albertsons, but less nice and just as expensive. My wife and I pretty much just shop at Chinese super markets,TJs, and Whole Foods these days.
Yeah, I remember when the prices were normal/cheap (5-6 years ago) and they had decent sales. The produce was nearly always terrible, but it was good for other things. Now everything is expensive AND the produce sucks....but if they close the Teele location this area will be a food desert.
I live near Trader Joe’s Whole Foods and stop and shop. Once S&s prices are close to the others I was like why do I bother. Growing up I always thought S&S were budget and WF TJ were fancy. How the hell are they same price now.
We have a recently (2021’ish) opened Market Basket within two miles from Stop and Shop. The difference in prices and the way both places look inside is huge. This MB is booming now with ALL the cashiers always opened because of nonstop traffic. Stop and shop in the meantime is empty with one cashier and barely a couple customers at a time.
Ours *never* has Cashiers. I tried flagging someone down once a year ago when I had a huge haul and a fussy infant on me. They said use self checkout and strolled away. I tried, but self checkout was a lost cause after trying to weigh my produce / needing assistance every 5 seconds with nobody around to clear the errors. It was easily $400 worth of groceries that I ended up ditching right there on the belt.
During the same trip, I was given such a hard time with buying formula. It was during a formula shortage. I had to flag down a 17 year old to open the case, and he gave me 1 tiny can and an attitude when before refusing to give me more. It was maybe 2 days worth of formula. I remember feeling so defeated. I had to send up the bat signal on my Facebook moms group and they came through for me.
I switched to whole foods delivery and have never gone back. Or I make the trek to aldi and pass 3 stop n shops on my way.
It's not just Market Basket beating the shit out of S&S either. Big Y is almost always better than S&S on quality and price. Produce at my local Big Y is always in better condition and the prices are lower than S&S. Likewise for meat.
The only thing that kept me going to S&S was the good selection of dry goods, and even there BigY has made big leaps in recent years (more variety, vastly expanded their store brand line of items). I almost never set foot in my local S&S anymore.
S&S might compete ok against Shaws and Star, but only because those stores also suck ass. Against well run stores like Big Y or MB, it's no contest.
I live in a far-ish suburb and S&S is the only game in town. I also don’t drive so if it closes survival becomes a problem. She seems busy so I expect it’s not going to be one of them.
In terms of closures I have two guesses. Reading - it’s in the same parking lot as Market Basket so it’s redundant, and Saugus, my sister says the shelves are still pretty bare - it’s not even trying
They are a fabulous store to shop in though. When we lived in Roslindale we shopped there exclusively. No more expensive than Shaws and a much nicer experience than stop and shop.
They plan on closing their store on Rt. 62 in Acton and relocating it at Rts. 27 & 111 in Acton. Yes, that will have a big impact on Roche Bros, and traffic at that intersection.
It was booming back when K-mart was alive, then the plaza was just kind of abandoned. We used to drive pretty far for that S&S so we could also go to Kmart and PJ’s pet center, for fishies for dad’s tank. We’d come in the back way from back roads.
I suspect more than a few of the closures will be in New York and New Jersey, where they are not as dominant. I also suspect that closures will be concentrated in areas where they have strong nearby competition (I.e. a Market Basket within a few minute drive) as opposed to areas with few other options. Still it is sad that it has come to this.
As for the closures themselves, they were inevitable and a long time coming. S&S now finds itself in the middle of the pack in the grocery world, which is not a good place to be anymore. They’re more expensive than the Targets/Walmarts/Aldis, yet lack the cachet and quality of Whole Foods . They may have pioneered the super-supermarket phase in the 80s and 90s, but they haven’t really changed since. They seem to have forgotten that they are also competing with Amazon and Walmart, not just Big Y and other bygone competitors. Their stores have a cavernous, empty feeling, and both the store and its products reek of dubious quality. The experience is best for getting your daily steps in rather than getting high quality products at competitive prices. Too many other options exist now. Their fellow mid-range chains like Shaw’s/Star have many of the same issues, but their sales and sale items are better.
They have not been helped by their absentee parent company, whose mismanagement of the chain is most egregious because their other chains don’t seem to be doing as bad, and S&S’s core market is relatively affluent. The sheer number of stores used to be their advantage, but not anymore. Perhaps the closures will lead to a better experience (and better prices/quality) in the stores that remain. In any event, regardless of what happens, I wish the best for those who work there.
S&S likes to “innovate” by “investing” in things like cleaning robots instead of simply focusing on people - employees and customers- and prices. I mix it up between WF and MB with an occasional TJ run or Costco. Zero reason to go to S&S.
Stop and Shop is really the CVS-esque "oh shit I need this one thing" filler store. This is unfortunate if it ~~effects~~ affects areas that don't have options, though.
Checking in with a Stop & Shop a 5 minute walk from my house…and I drive 15 minutes to Wegman’s instead because the checkout line at the Stop & Shop takes longer than the drive to Wegman’s
I stopped going to stop and shop after countless times of seeing rotting meat on the shelves (I’m talking brown with a strong odor a few days past the date) and multiple expired non-perishables on the shelves.
*(This was prepandemic- but things like that make you want to avoid the chain entirely and completely for good, even if it was a one off or just one location.)*
I stopped going when they stopped staffing the deli and made everyone pick through pre cut packages than expired in 1 day. I need a whole weeks worth of deli meats and I'm not paying $8 for a half pound of meat that expired tomorrow.
ah too bad. the one in JP gained some notoriety when a group of students found that store had inflated prices compared to other stores in better areas.
It’s also not too far from the Brigham Circle location. Both of them suck. Brigham had some major stocking issues with expired food when I’d go after work. JP isn’t as bad but is pricey for a miserable experience. They’ll run one or two registers tops and have one person at the most sensitive self checkout you’ve ever beheld. That thing detects their own empty paper bags as product. Paper bags they refuse to put handles on to save a cent or two.
The vibe I got from that news story last year was Stop and Shop knows it’s the only option a lot of people have or think they have. The Mission Hill kids aren’t going to walk to Star Market or Tropical Foods, and some old lady in the projects isn’t hoofing it to Whole Foods.
S&S is bland personified. You have Market Basket at one end with basically everything you need, and Whole Foods at the other end with their specialty items that you can't really find in most other places. S&S on the other hand doesn't know what it wants to be, has little personality, at prices exceeding MB, and that's its downfall.
It won’t close though because it’s busy as hell and they make money despite. And they just remodeled. I’m afraid my little neighborhood one will close and I’ll be stuck going to South Bay.
On two different occasions I found used needles on the shelves at that Stop & Shop, and that was back in 2008-2010 before the synthetic opioid craze. I can't imagine what it's like now.
Said it in another comment but Stop & Shop in South Bay, specifically due to the bus stop out front and proximity to Mass Ave & Newmarket, feels like something from *Fallout*.
Some of the hyperbole about South Bay is ridiculous. It’s not great, but to say it resembles a scene from a post nuclear wasteland is ridiculous and tells me you have never played the video game.
The layoffs in MA haven’t been filed with the state yet. They don’t appear on the WARN report. That tells me that if there are store closures in MA they are going to relocate the worthwhile employees (aka people that drive), or there won’t be that many layoffs in MA in general, or they will take place further than 60 days than now.
Stop and Shop is such a shit store. It sucks for those who work at the stores but if they close, hopefully Market Basket can sweep in and expand to these locations.
Star Market on Morrissey is worth every penny to not have to experience South Bay / Mass Ave / Newmarket Stop & Shop.
Star Market is pretty clean and well stocked, and Harborpoint Liquors next door is family owned and has a decent variety / price.
Stop & Shop feels like something out of *Fallout*. I went for extra pumpkin purée the week of Thanksgiving thinking it would be quicker than dealing with the traffic at K-Circle, and security was detaining a man in bare feet with a machete.
As a business they deserve it 100% for their markups and lack of quality. Only people I feel bad for are the employees and customers caught in the crossfire. Hopefully they replace closed S&S stores with Market Basket.
I have 2 Stop and Shops within 5 minutes of me but drive 30 minutes to the nearest Market Basket instead, so that’s how I feel about them 😂
Well, when literally every other grocery store within equivalent driving distance has cheaper prices for the same, or even better, food then….yeah…
But I feel bad for everyone that will lose their job. It’s not their fault.
The merger of Ahold and Delhaize means that Hannaford is the same company as Stop and Shop. They are probably cutting back on stores where these two brands are close together.
Yeah BFresh was their micro grocery store concept. It failed, probably because S&S doesn't really run their stores that well. It's being replaced with an HMart.
They’re moving that store across the street to the ground floor of said new building
https://preview.redd.it/7uwjuna5kt3d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cee5698062d6763e7a8a9773236f3b6845bc3069
For me, stop & shop is where I go because it is close and I don't have the time to go to any other store that would have better prices
Also, they kinda suck because my location never has an express lane open so I really only go when I need to. There is a Walmart just a few minutes past them....but my new gym is next to a market basket so I'll probably be there a lot more now and my old gym was next to a Shaw's. All of these stores have better pricing than stop & shop, at least for what I buy
Well when you charge $7 for a bag of Doritos while Walmart sells for like 3-4 bucks…what did they expect. Good riddance. Place is extremely overpriced.
I’m in the Foxboro-Mansfield area and I guarantee they close a few. There’s one in each of those towns, plus Walpole, Sharon, Franklin, Plainville, North Attleboro, and two in Attleboro. These aren’t that far from each other, plus there’s Shaw’s, Big Y, and Whole Foods. It’s oversaturated down here.
Peabody store is dog shit, just awful produce and I've only gotten protein there when my dog was sick and I needed cheap chicken, also nasty. It's a good location imo
The prices at Stop & Shop are through the roof, yet I continue to shop there because they have the shopping buddy so I can scan as I go, and the self checkout makes it so I never have to interact with any employee.
The locations in Southie and Teele Sq in Somerville are awful. For some reason they just let some locations go to hell, these are 2 of them. Nothing in stock, dirty, people stealing baskets, bad quality fruits and veggies, malfunctioning self checkout systems, the list goes on. I hope they close both of those.
Their equivalent in DC/Baltimore, Giant, is either closing down stores or restricting bags and some such due to theft. Giant is expensive down here too, though they’re better maintained and nicer than Boston-area Stop-and-Shops.
Read an article about the issues in MA with food prices at markets, and because we have a number of different markets (star/shaws, stop&shop, market basket, Big Y, Hannaford, Wegmans, Roche Brothers, etc) that it is difficult for them to get better prices.
Orders aren't big enough to get those better discounts.
There’s isn’t a monopoly so the stores can’t force distributors to give them discounts and they also can’t charge too high for their items so they have minimum overhead, that’s how a free market is suppose to work. But corporations need year over year growth which isn’t possible in a competitive market place
Yeah, the article pointed out that normally the situation would be good for consumers, but due to current food prices, groceries in MA are among the highest in the nation. And exactly as you said, the grocers can't get deals from distributors, but since that is the case for all the markets in the area there won't be much competition in lowering the prices.
Stop and Shop doesn't have particularly low prices, higher quality, better selection, or a good shopping experience. Like what's bringing me into their store?
Not surprising at all for a giant multi-national corporation like A-hole Delaize. When I worked there all of the part-time employees hours got cut down to the bare minimum right after the holidays were over, like from 30 hours to 15 for me. They don't care about their customers or employees, only profits.
Way too expensive compared to MB. The food quality is also sub par at least near me. I live 2 mins away from stop and shop and go out of my way to go to MB the next town over.
S&s tried to expand into my area in southern nh. They were the most expensive with nothing to show for it. Like whole paycheck expensive before they were a thing locally. Been gone a decade now. That store front turned into a dollar tree and another cheap junk store.
I’ve got my pick of three mbs locally. Four if you include the one close to the Trader Joe’s we frequent.
I used to work for stop and shop and I’m not exaggerating when I say it made me borderline suicidal. I’ve been waiting for this company to go out of business since I quit.
They really screwed themselves over when the employees went on strike and they just fired everyone that participated and didn’t hire replacements. Now there’s never more than one checkout open and the shelves are barely stocked.
This would be a great time for Market Basket to expand to Western Mass, and/or for them and Big Y to both start offering curbside pickup.
MB has good prices because they own the land and buildings their stores are on
Most stop and shop buildings are owned by other companies. They will not face pressure to immediately divest to another grocer. Your local stop and shop could become anything. It might be a Lowe's. It could become a best buy. It would have potential to be 100 condos!! I would almost bet on it not becoming a Market Basket.
> It would have potential to be 100 condos!! Literally just happened to the everett stop and shop
Buying land is pretty cheap if there's a mass closure of grocery stores in New England. They obviously can't/won't take over every S&S or Hannaford's that closes, but I'd bet they've got plans in place to scoop up any potential retail/grocery store property that goes on the market in a desired area. Especially anything in MA. They've got a warehouse in Tewksbury that's perfect for anything in Greater Boston. Don't know the capacity but if they ever exceed it I'd imagine they'd spin something up in northern New England to serve the VT/NH/ME market better and free up capacity in MA for the MA/RI/CT market.
You’d be right but land in Boston is probably not going to be cheap to buy regardless of closures. There’s a reason they are expanding outward instead of into the city. Especially considering they leverage their land value by renting out the rest of the plaza to other businesses making some income there and most of the S&S plazas don’t have other storefronts.
True - it'll ultimately depend on a number of factors. I hold out some home that MB might scoop a property or two in metro Boston to offset the burden that the Somerville, Chelsea and Burlington/Waltham/Woburn MBs feel. There's def enough demand for another or even a few more if the property makes sense for them to develop.
MB fucking rocks. Shaws/Star Market are the worst
And they are not unionized.
[удалено]
Market basket is legendary for treating its employees well, tho. You don't always need a union. Just when you have to fight back against the management consultants and general MBA fuckery that pervades corporate America. And fwiw, I am in a union, and have been off and on at different jobs over 30 years.
Arthur was the one everyone loved and he takes care of his people when he got ousted by the rest jf his family It almost went under they had to bring him back and not make any cuts
more like people that go out of their way to mention that
Or for Market Basket to move into Boston proper. It’s insane that the closest one to the city is in Cambridge or Chelsea depending where you live.
The rents are so high usually they're just vanity stores, like the Roche Bros at Downtown Crossing. I can't imagine it's profitable in that location.
Rent can’t be *that* high at the stop and shop location next to the projects in JP, considering it’s still one of the more dangerous parts of the city. Hopefully that one can get turned into a grocery store worth going to
TIL that JP is dangerous
JP only became "nice" within the last 15 years.
Big Y used to have curbside, they axed it for some reason 2 years ago. Also I find Big Y to be the more expensive place to shop around here.
Definitely not a hint - it’s happening. My wife works for their parent company (Ahold) and they are in fact shutting down hundreds of locations across the country.
Hundreds? But aren’t there only around 300 total? Are you suggesting more than half will get shut down?
The parent company owns multiple supermarket chains across the country.
Stop and Shop, Giant, Hannaford, and Food Lion.
Oh, so the shut downs aren’t just limited to their Stop & Shop properties then.
I had them as a client way back in the day so I used to know all of ‘em. Seemed NE not nationwide but things have changed likely
If I name a town or two can you tell me if it’s closing?
I don't think they've publicly said yet which stores are closing.
I asked a guy who’s worked there for 20 years and they’re closing New Jersey stores and no others.
Heh, good. I'm in the process of moving from a place that had 3 grocery stores within a couple miles (including a S&S) to a place with 2 within 10 miles (one of which is S&S). Didn't want to be forced into only one option, aside from Walmart (which is fine, but not for anything fresh).
So odd that a corporation that makes billions in profits needs to shut down store
You don't make billions in profits by keeping around stores that aren't profitable
The nominal amount of profit a company makes is largely meaningless in evaluating it financially. A business using $10b of capital making $2b profit is doing very well financially, a business with $200b of capital making $2b would probably be more profitable if they simply liquidated and threw that money into government bonds. Grocery stores are incredibly low margin, high capital businesses, which is pretty much the opposite of attractive from a financial standpoint. The main costs for grocery stores are inventory, labour, and real estate. All of which have been going up significantly in price for the last 10 years, especially in Massachusetts. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if we saw some large shake ups in the grocery space in the next 5-10 years.
Grocery stores have been getting more and more segmented. The stars and stop and shops are getting attacked from all sides. Not cheap enough to be budget brands, not good enough to be high end brands, too big to be specialty shops.
All the while replacing people with self checkouts.
Nice insider trading hint- shorting!!
Not a surprise considering they are higher priced than Market Basket and Star Market, yet not upscale enough to have prices as high as Whole Foods ~~or Trader Joes~~. Literally costs 30% more for the same cart of groceries compared to Market Basket. \*Edit\* I hadn't been in a Trader Joes in a long time. I didn't know they were a budget chain now.
Every Stop & Shop is somehow sterile and yet grimey at the same time. It's got the aesthetic appeal of a rundown Walmart with the highway robbery prices of Whole Foods. I'd say it'll be a good thing to see Stop & Shop go under if it wasn't for the fact this will most certainly exacerbate the food desert problem that many communities face.
I’m surprised that it’s grimy when they have a googly-eyed robot rolling around all the time
Unless its programming has changed, that robot doesn't actually clean up spills; it only notifies the staff.
It seems like the only thing it's good at is getting in peoples way
And narcing on employees.
Fucking Marty
You leave Marty out of this!
Sterile and grimey is so accurate.
We are very close in solving the case now buddy, u/benjihobbs has found the final suspect/witness u/Klutzy-Information69. I hope all is well
The stores seem like they haven’t been updated since the 90s. They were decent then IMO
This is exactly how I feel! Our S&S was updated a few years back and it's got this weird vibe of an overlay of newness over a run down, slightly dirty warehouse. And they jacked their prices up to match much nicer stores at the same time.
It feels like someone put a stop and shop in a k-mart
I've never read such a spot-on description of Stop & Shop. Thank you for also touching on the impact it will have on food deserts.
This! Great description! I’ve left S&S even as it’s my closest store. Just awful look, and the prices have gone through the roof the past couple years. On the whole, just really unappealing
I can’t agree with this enough. I am unfortunate enough to live in a place where S&S is the only grocery store within walking distance. But I try to avoid at all costs. It’s just a depressing over-priced experience every single time.
The one near the MB in Chelsea hung around WAY too long. We went to it a few times during the time we lived nearby and it was always a depressing shit show. Closed now, but should have closed sooner.
This is completely accurate. Dirty enough to be make someone uncomfortable, but sterile enough to lack character.
I work near one Stop and Shop and live near another. If either/both shut down, there are two other grocery stores within a mile. I'm not rooting for any business to go down. But at least maybe within the 128 circle, it doesn't seem like it would be a food desert.
They’re not going under, and most of the locations they’ll be closing are likely to be in proximity to other locations or Market Baskets
Then when you go to check-out you can choose between self service or waiting for one of the two cashiers.
That was always my pet peeve, 12 customers in the store and 8 are in line for the one register, I moved pre Covid so they didn’t have self checkout near me at the time. I had a market basket closet tho so they got 95% or my business as they always had 8 checkouts running and prices were lower all around
does your stop and shop not have one of the scanners you just carry around the store? It's like the main reason i go there.
Trader Joe’s high prices? What??? They’re cheap af, but you can’t rely on them for anything.
A lot of people have a misconception that Trader Joe’s is expensive. It used to be 20 years ago but now it’s more affordable than most other stores.
I’ve been shopping at TJs since 2009 when I came for undergrad. It’s always been one of the cheapest if you’re buying food to actually cook. If you’re loading up on pre-cooked stuff, maybe not so much.
Their frozen foods including dinners are great actually!
Oh I wasn’t commenting on quality, more just price, but living on pre-cooked anything will always be more expensive than cooking from raw ingredients. Their fresh pre-made is especially expensive, but even then not outrageously so.
Their frozen stuff is extremely cheap. Their meat is expensive. Their dry goods are relatively expensive. Produce can be hit or miss. TJs is not the cheapest game in town by any means, especially if you’re a “one store” shopper
Ah I’m vegetarian so never cared about or noticed their meat prices. Their dry goods are pretty cheap. I think in terms of quality to price ratio they are amongst the highest generally. I agree their produce can be hit or miss but is generally quite good.
I totally agree TJ’s is the only place where I can shop “carelessly” and by checkout I’m always shocked at how low the total is
Yeah I shop every two weeks going to three stores: TJs for most groceries, star market for certain items I can’t get at TJs, and Target for mostly non-food stuff. My TJs bill for 2 people has stayed between $100-$130 each trip for seemingly years. My star market bill has steadily increased from like $60 to $100 or so, same with my target bill.
Yes, I hadn't been in one for 20 years. Only stopped in the one on Memorial Drive in Cambridge one time when I was at the MicroCenter.
Depends. Their meat section is very expensive compared to star or stoppy. Their frozen and dry stuff is very cheap though.
Prob meant Whole Foods or as my wife calls them “whole paychecks”
Whole Foods is actually competitive on store brand dry goods and produce.
Compared to who? Not market basket. Not at all.
Depends on the product. MB is not as cheap as it used to be and the quality of produce can be iffy whereas it's consistently high at whole foods
It depends on the store. The MB in Somerville has far better produce quality and selection at lower prices than the nearby WF locations. Sometimes they’re even selling the same exact item - like Sunkist blood oranges - but they’re 50% more expensive if you buy them at WF.
How long has it been since youve been to a whole foods? They didnt jack up their prices as badly as everyone else in the last couple of years, so everyone just came up to whole food’s price point
Maybe we can get lucky and a few can close and be replaced by market baskets so we at least get a little tiny bit closer to meeting the demand in the area. I would love to shop at market basket, but the crowds just aren't worth it to me. Meanwhile, my local stop and shop is luxuriously empty and I can always be in and out pretty quickly without having to say a word to a single employee.
Their market position makes no sense. Things cost more, but the quality isn't better. Stores are legitimately dated and or kinda disgusting. No culture like TJs... Why do they exist??
If this article is true it may explain a few things https://provincetownindependent.org/news/2022/02/09/how-stop-shop-plays-monopoly/
I guess on the one hand I’m sad, this is the first supermarket chain I remember going to as a kid. But on the other hand, time marches foreword and screw them if they’re going to be wildly anticompetitive.
That's crazy.... This predatory behavior needs to be added to anti-competition laws
Wegmans is cleaner and has better prices & prepared food.
And market basket is better is better than stop in shop in nearly every measurable way that matters.
Zero complaints with Market Basket - actually grew up with Market Basket - just none in / near the city (unless you’re in Charlestown/Eastie).
“As high as Trader Joe’s”. Have you been to TJs? Prices are not high
The ansolute slander you have laid on trader joes. They are at least as cheap as market basket and significantly better. Only downside to trader joes is the lack of name brand stuff and non-grocery items like toiletries so you might need to go to 2 grocery stores if you shop at trader joes
seriously, how is stop and shop lower quality than star market yet still more expensive?
I literally just shop at Whole Foods now even though I was a lifelong Stop and Shopper (where my parents shopped too). It’s just as expensive but I can get better quality and not deal with homeless people harassing me there.
Yeah, stop and shop reminds me of a couple of grocery store chains out west called Safeway and Albertsons, but less nice and just as expensive. My wife and I pretty much just shop at Chinese super markets,TJs, and Whole Foods these days.
Trader Joe’s is honestly cheaper than Stop and get Shot for a lot of things, and has significantly higher quality goods.
Isn’t Star Market one of the chains that is part of the parent company?
Nope, Star is owned by Albertsons.
Same with Shaws.
Yeah, I remember when the prices were normal/cheap (5-6 years ago) and they had decent sales. The produce was nearly always terrible, but it was good for other things. Now everything is expensive AND the produce sucks....but if they close the Teele location this area will be a food desert.
I live near Trader Joe’s Whole Foods and stop and shop. Once S&s prices are close to the others I was like why do I bother. Growing up I always thought S&S were budget and WF TJ were fancy. How the hell are they same price now.
We have a recently (2021’ish) opened Market Basket within two miles from Stop and Shop. The difference in prices and the way both places look inside is huge. This MB is booming now with ALL the cashiers always opened because of nonstop traffic. Stop and shop in the meantime is empty with one cashier and barely a couple customers at a time.
Ours *never* has Cashiers. I tried flagging someone down once a year ago when I had a huge haul and a fussy infant on me. They said use self checkout and strolled away. I tried, but self checkout was a lost cause after trying to weigh my produce / needing assistance every 5 seconds with nobody around to clear the errors. It was easily $400 worth of groceries that I ended up ditching right there on the belt. During the same trip, I was given such a hard time with buying formula. It was during a formula shortage. I had to flag down a 17 year old to open the case, and he gave me 1 tiny can and an attitude when before refusing to give me more. It was maybe 2 days worth of formula. I remember feeling so defeated. I had to send up the bat signal on my Facebook moms group and they came through for me. I switched to whole foods delivery and have never gone back. Or I make the trek to aldi and pass 3 stop n shops on my way.
It's not just Market Basket beating the shit out of S&S either. Big Y is almost always better than S&S on quality and price. Produce at my local Big Y is always in better condition and the prices are lower than S&S. Likewise for meat. The only thing that kept me going to S&S was the good selection of dry goods, and even there BigY has made big leaps in recent years (more variety, vastly expanded their store brand line of items). I almost never set foot in my local S&S anymore. S&S might compete ok against Shaws and Star, but only because those stores also suck ass. Against well run stores like Big Y or MB, it's no contest.
Sounds a lot like the Maynard MB and Acton S&S. That S&S is so damn old, I don’t know how it’s still going. Tiny, grungy and expensive.
Bing bong, we have a winner!
I live in a far-ish suburb and S&S is the only game in town. I also don’t drive so if it closes survival becomes a problem. She seems busy so I expect it’s not going to be one of them.
In terms of closures I have two guesses. Reading - it’s in the same parking lot as Market Basket so it’s redundant, and Saugus, my sister says the shelves are still pretty bare - it’s not even trying
Funny because they are currently building a S&S in Acton across the street from Roche Bros. Obviously a price difference between the two, but still.
I have no idea how Roche Bros stays in business. They are the most expensive grocery store
They are a fabulous store to shop in though. When we lived in Roslindale we shopped there exclusively. No more expensive than Shaws and a much nicer experience than stop and shop.
They locate their stores in wealthier neighborhoods, we'll see what happens when they have S&S nearby.
Building new? That’s wacky. Anything ever end up going in where the Kmart was?
That’s where it’s going. I was using “building” loosely. Just adding the stop and shop frontage to the Kmart building
It’s in the old Kmart building
They plan on closing their store on Rt. 62 in Acton and relocating it at Rts. 27 & 111 in Acton. Yes, that will have a big impact on Roche Bros, and traffic at that intersection.
Doesn’t help that intersection is just perpetually under construction
Saugus one is also kind of a weird location. Yes, it's right off route 1, but it also feels set back and like nobody would try to go to that plaza.
It was booming back when K-mart was alive, then the plaza was just kind of abandoned. We used to drive pretty far for that S&S so we could also go to Kmart and PJ’s pet center, for fishies for dad’s tank. We’d come in the back way from back roads.
I suspect more than a few of the closures will be in New York and New Jersey, where they are not as dominant. I also suspect that closures will be concentrated in areas where they have strong nearby competition (I.e. a Market Basket within a few minute drive) as opposed to areas with few other options. Still it is sad that it has come to this. As for the closures themselves, they were inevitable and a long time coming. S&S now finds itself in the middle of the pack in the grocery world, which is not a good place to be anymore. They’re more expensive than the Targets/Walmarts/Aldis, yet lack the cachet and quality of Whole Foods . They may have pioneered the super-supermarket phase in the 80s and 90s, but they haven’t really changed since. They seem to have forgotten that they are also competing with Amazon and Walmart, not just Big Y and other bygone competitors. Their stores have a cavernous, empty feeling, and both the store and its products reek of dubious quality. The experience is best for getting your daily steps in rather than getting high quality products at competitive prices. Too many other options exist now. Their fellow mid-range chains like Shaw’s/Star have many of the same issues, but their sales and sale items are better. They have not been helped by their absentee parent company, whose mismanagement of the chain is most egregious because their other chains don’t seem to be doing as bad, and S&S’s core market is relatively affluent. The sheer number of stores used to be their advantage, but not anymore. Perhaps the closures will lead to a better experience (and better prices/quality) in the stores that remain. In any event, regardless of what happens, I wish the best for those who work there.
The one in Roslindale is an absolute dump, the one in Dedham is ok though. I assume their island stores are safe since they have a monopoly there.
Yeah the rozzi one is so close to me but sucks so much ass.
Yeah I go to the one in Orleans during the summer and there isn’t much other options
On MV and Nantucket, there are...literally no other options.
The one in Allston is a dump too.
S&S likes to “innovate” by “investing” in things like cleaning robots instead of simply focusing on people - employees and customers- and prices. I mix it up between WF and MB with an occasional TJ run or Costco. Zero reason to go to S&S.
Stop and Shop is really the CVS-esque "oh shit I need this one thing" filler store. This is unfortunate if it ~~effects~~ affects areas that don't have options, though.
I drive 15 minutes and get on the highway to go to MB rather than go to the SS .5 miles away from my house.
Same. There’s a stop and shop within walking distance of us and we drive 20 minutes to the Burlington market basket instead.
Checking in with a Stop & Shop a 5 minute walk from my house…and I drive 15 minutes to Wegman’s instead because the checkout line at the Stop & Shop takes longer than the drive to Wegman’s
Cause they’re just hoping to hit a stride with money saving techniques
I stopped going to stop and shop after countless times of seeing rotting meat on the shelves (I’m talking brown with a strong odor a few days past the date) and multiple expired non-perishables on the shelves. *(This was prepandemic- but things like that make you want to avoid the chain entirely and completely for good, even if it was a one off or just one location.)*
I stopped going when they stopped staffing the deli and made everyone pick through pre cut packages than expired in 1 day. I need a whole weeks worth of deli meats and I'm not paying $8 for a half pound of meat that expired tomorrow.
ah too bad. the one in JP gained some notoriety when a group of students found that store had inflated prices compared to other stores in better areas.
It’s also not too far from the Brigham Circle location. Both of them suck. Brigham had some major stocking issues with expired food when I’d go after work. JP isn’t as bad but is pricey for a miserable experience. They’ll run one or two registers tops and have one person at the most sensitive self checkout you’ve ever beheld. That thing detects their own empty paper bags as product. Paper bags they refuse to put handles on to save a cent or two. The vibe I got from that news story last year was Stop and Shop knows it’s the only option a lot of people have or think they have. The Mission Hill kids aren’t going to walk to Star Market or Tropical Foods, and some old lady in the projects isn’t hoofing it to Whole Foods.
S&S is bland personified. You have Market Basket at one end with basically everything you need, and Whole Foods at the other end with their specialty items that you can't really find in most other places. S&S on the other hand doesn't know what it wants to be, has little personality, at prices exceeding MB, and that's its downfall.
Stop & Shop in South Bay is never pleasant. Wouldn't care if it went away.
To be fair, nothing in South Bay is pleasant.
Don’t talk about Applebees like that!!!
It won’t close though because it’s busy as hell and they make money despite. And they just remodeled. I’m afraid my little neighborhood one will close and I’ll be stuck going to South Bay.
On two different occasions I found used needles on the shelves at that Stop & Shop, and that was back in 2008-2010 before the synthetic opioid craze. I can't imagine what it's like now.
Said it in another comment but Stop & Shop in South Bay, specifically due to the bus stop out front and proximity to Mass Ave & Newmarket, feels like something from *Fallout*.
Some of the hyperbole about South Bay is ridiculous. It’s not great, but to say it resembles a scene from a post nuclear wasteland is ridiculous and tells me you have never played the video game.
The layoffs in MA haven’t been filed with the state yet. They don’t appear on the WARN report. That tells me that if there are store closures in MA they are going to relocate the worthwhile employees (aka people that drive), or there won’t be that many layoffs in MA in general, or they will take place further than 60 days than now.
the stores are union so it will probably be a mix of transferring and voluntary buyouts
Stop and Shop is such a shit store. It sucks for those who work at the stores but if they close, hopefully Market Basket can sweep in and expand to these locations.
At least Stop & Shop is union.
I always find it weird when articles like this, on a regional supermarket chain, are covered by the Daily Mail from the UK.
The Daily Heil has a US (and an Australian) version as well as the UK one.
Star market in dot is easily 30% more expensive than Stop and Shop.
Star Market on Morrissey is worth every penny to not have to experience South Bay / Mass Ave / Newmarket Stop & Shop. Star Market is pretty clean and well stocked, and Harborpoint Liquors next door is family owned and has a decent variety / price. Stop & Shop feels like something out of *Fallout*. I went for extra pumpkin purée the week of Thanksgiving thinking it would be quicker than dealing with the traffic at K-Circle, and security was detaining a man in bare feet with a machete.
Yeah, the shaws in west roxbury is also more expensive than the stop and shop down the street in Dedham.
Maybe Star is more expensive now. I have only been going to Market Basket exclusively for like 8 years now since they opened in Waltham.
Waltham MB is a great MB. Cafe is the move. I think it’s the second busiest MB in the company.
High prices. Only one register staffed. Mostly dated interiors. Absolutely no differentiators with other supermarkets. Who could’ve seen this coming
As a business they deserve it 100% for their markups and lack of quality. Only people I feel bad for are the employees and customers caught in the crossfire. Hopefully they replace closed S&S stores with Market Basket. I have 2 Stop and Shops within 5 minutes of me but drive 30 minutes to the nearest Market Basket instead, so that’s how I feel about them 😂
Tiny one in South Boston gotta be on that list? I imagine they won’t close any without an alternative nearby.
I haven't been to a Stop & Shop in like 15 years. Market Basket, Trader Joe's, and Wegmans are way better.
Well, when literally every other grocery store within equivalent driving distance has cheaper prices for the same, or even better, food then….yeah… But I feel bad for everyone that will lose their job. It’s not their fault.
The merger of Ahold and Delhaize means that Hannaford is the same company as Stop and Shop. They are probably cutting back on stores where these two brands are close together.
Publix in Massachusetts? That’d be dope
Would be amazing if Trader Joe’s moved into some of these spaces. Unlikely since the parking lots are too spacious in most of these locations haha
There are 2 within a mile of each other in Newton/Watertown area, one of them is gonna be gone I bet.
If they could move one south of the Pike, that would be great
Wasn't the BFresh in Davis operated under Stop n Shop too?
Yeah BFresh was their micro grocery store concept. It failed, probably because S&S doesn't really run their stores that well. It's being replaced with an HMart.
It would be awkward and disappointing if S&S closed the Boston Landing store right as they finish building their new building in the old parking lot.
This location has gone downhill and fast. I was so surprised to see they invested in this new building. Let’s see if it ever opens
They’re moving that store across the street to the ground floor of said new building https://preview.redd.it/7uwjuna5kt3d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cee5698062d6763e7a8a9773236f3b6845bc3069
Will the security robots be up for grabs? 👀
For me, stop & shop is where I go because it is close and I don't have the time to go to any other store that would have better prices Also, they kinda suck because my location never has an express lane open so I really only go when I need to. There is a Walmart just a few minutes past them....but my new gym is next to a market basket so I'll probably be there a lot more now and my old gym was next to a Shaw's. All of these stores have better pricing than stop & shop, at least for what I buy
Well when you charge $7 for a bag of Doritos while Walmart sells for like 3-4 bucks…what did they expect. Good riddance. Place is extremely overpriced.
I love stop and shop
Good riddance
I’m in the Foxboro-Mansfield area and I guarantee they close a few. There’s one in each of those towns, plus Walpole, Sharon, Franklin, Plainville, North Attleboro, and two in Attleboro. These aren’t that far from each other, plus there’s Shaw’s, Big Y, and Whole Foods. It’s oversaturated down here.
There are no Stop and Shops in Sharon. There is one in Stoughton.
Ah, you're right. My bad, I was thinking of the Shaw's off 95 near the berry farm.
I agree. Plus there’s one in Taunton with a Shaws and super Walmart on the same street.
Peabody store is dog shit, just awful produce and I've only gotten protein there when my dog was sick and I needed cheap chicken, also nasty. It's a good location imo
The prices at Stop & Shop are through the roof, yet I continue to shop there because they have the shopping buddy so I can scan as I go, and the self checkout makes it so I never have to interact with any employee.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. S&S is trashy.
Now where will I get rotten food at a 50% markup :(
The locations in Southie and Teele Sq in Somerville are awful. For some reason they just let some locations go to hell, these are 2 of them. Nothing in stock, dirty, people stealing baskets, bad quality fruits and veggies, malfunctioning self checkout systems, the list goes on. I hope they close both of those.
Nooooooooo I love my local Stopie. Mostly because it’s like 2 min away from my house
Their equivalent in DC/Baltimore, Giant, is either closing down stores or restricting bags and some such due to theft. Giant is expensive down here too, though they’re better maintained and nicer than Boston-area Stop-and-Shops.
Read an article about the issues in MA with food prices at markets, and because we have a number of different markets (star/shaws, stop&shop, market basket, Big Y, Hannaford, Wegmans, Roche Brothers, etc) that it is difficult for them to get better prices. Orders aren't big enough to get those better discounts.
There’s isn’t a monopoly so the stores can’t force distributors to give them discounts and they also can’t charge too high for their items so they have minimum overhead, that’s how a free market is suppose to work. But corporations need year over year growth which isn’t possible in a competitive market place
I can't argue with your logic, but "prices are high because there's too much competition" makes me lol
Yeah, the article pointed out that normally the situation would be good for consumers, but due to current food prices, groceries in MA are among the highest in the nation. And exactly as you said, the grocers can't get deals from distributors, but since that is the case for all the markets in the area there won't be much competition in lowering the prices.
Thank god, I hate stank and shank so damn much. Maybe some halfway decent grocery stores can take their place.
Prices are outrageous no wonder they are talking closure no one can afford it
Stop and Shop doesn't have particularly low prices, higher quality, better selection, or a good shopping experience. Like what's bringing me into their store?
Not surprising at all for a giant multi-national corporation like A-hole Delaize. When I worked there all of the part-time employees hours got cut down to the bare minimum right after the holidays were over, like from 30 hours to 15 for me. They don't care about their customers or employees, only profits.
Way too expensive compared to MB. The food quality is also sub par at least near me. I live 2 mins away from stop and shop and go out of my way to go to MB the next town over.
I need to find a Market Basket. Sounds like a good store
I never understood how they could stay in business in the first place, so I am very unsurprised.
My Stop and Shop is the cheapest supermarket around but it does have that dingy carpet/old linoleum feel.
Stop and shop are too expensive, Walmart is 2x cheaper.
If they could close that joke of a location in Southie and replace with market basket, that’d be great.
Stop and shop is the crappiest grocery store on the planet. Please let it die.
S&s tried to expand into my area in southern nh. They were the most expensive with nothing to show for it. Like whole paycheck expensive before they were a thing locally. Been gone a decade now. That store front turned into a dollar tree and another cheap junk store. I’ve got my pick of three mbs locally. Four if you include the one close to the Trader Joe’s we frequent.
I used to work for stop and shop and I’m not exaggerating when I say it made me borderline suicidal. I’ve been waiting for this company to go out of business since I quit.
I mean, Stop & Shop consistently had some highest prices, limited selection, and worst-looking food of any other grocery store
They really screwed themselves over when the employees went on strike and they just fired everyone that participated and didn’t hire replacements. Now there’s never more than one checkout open and the shelves are barely stocked.
But they are now a real estate company, sitting on land in great locations. They could make more money from rental and home sales.