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| 2014 usual store, likely in Connecticut, courtesy Mike Mozart (we love you, Mike!). |
Stop & Shop have closed a whooping thirty-two locations in the tri-state, New England and New Jersey that were considered underperforming. Others have already closed in the recent past, with a few vacant to this day, while former sister chain Tops* bought several in the Hudson Valley that overlapped with Hannaford after the Ahold Delhaize merger in the Benelux, while Weis acquired some Food Lions in DMV/Delmarva that were too close to Giant (Landover)* and other chains had in the mid-Atlantic (some stores were likely from another former Ahold division, BI-LO, which we covered a while ago). I remember seeing a Food Lion in Maryland leaving DC a couple times heading home from hols on coach trips, which would be a Weis by now. Back up north, only a handful of S&Ss have been taken over by others like Food Bazaar. Here in New York, it's more downstate, with Coram, Long Island being one that became a casualty. It's too exhausting to submit that many closing stores to Bing and Google since it's not automatic, although some locations are already marked, being in a big area.
I've only gone to Stop & Shop when I lived in Dutchess County in the mid-Hudson Valley on occasion, as well as when I last visited. They bought the newer ShopRite in Hyde Park a year after I left, and later built a new Stop & Shop across US 9 where the old ShopRite was. It wasn't right near a Hannaford, yet the Rhinebeck store up the road near the old Grand Union* was considered to be and was sold to Tops (Hannaford was across the bridge in Kingston in the old days, initially as a Shop 'n Save franchise), as was Wappinger Falls going the other way. It was a nice, big store on US 9 (south of Poughkeepsie), while Arlington (east of Poughkeepsie) was a bit smaller. Never went to Stop & Shop on either of my Boston trips since there was no time and Star Market near the Pru (sister to Shaws) was much more convenient since I was on another package bus deal (same group as the beltway stay, as well as WNY and the tri-state, but not for the public), which is much less expensive than a flight to Logan Airport.
The chain are just one of many businesses that have suffered over the past five years. To make it worse, Stop & Shop are a union shop to boot, so it'd be better to come up with another to fill the vacuum if one isn't nearby already. While a new local store would be even greater, it's more uphill to come up with that, especially in an area which you don't know personally, so I'd just have to think of chains that serve each region, whether they're still expanding or not. It's more Stop than Shop now, you could say.
Acme* (tri-state/NJ)
Market Basket (Massachusetts and Connecticut)
Big Y* (Connecticut stores)
ShopRite*/Price Rite (same as Acme)
PathMark* (see earlier post)
Whole Foods/Amazon Fresh/Amazon Go (all areas where one or the other isn't yet)
Wegmans (even though they usually only do up other peoples buildings in big cities with tight infrastructure, only open so many a year, and have recently expanded beyond the Northeast)
Tops* (just the two heading up the Hudson. Carmel is the closest store to the City [post-merger])
Thrift stores (if another supermarket is off the table, then this is a plan B)
Food Bazaar (tri-state indie with multicultural selection)
Indies/local business (missus in Maryland would love that one)
*UFCW Union Shop
