Original Stop & Shop Location

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

 I didn't realize until I saw this from the Herald that S&S started in Somerville.

"In its 94th year since the Rabinovitz family founded Economy Grocery Stores Co. in Somerville, the chain of 389 stores now known as Stop & Shop is refreshing its look."

Does anyone know where the original store was and/or where any of the other S&S stores were prior to the one they built at the old Somerville Lumber site?  

I find it odd they didn't have any Somerville locations for a number of years. 

Comments

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

http://pleasantfamilyshopping.blogspot.com/2008/01/early-days-of-stop-shop.html talks about Stop & Shop's early history and has some photos, though it doesn't give the exact location of the original store. It does say that the Memorial Drive location was the first self-service store. (Before there were supermarkets, at a grocery store the guy behind the counter would get you all the stuff you needed.)

The book "The Death of an American Jewish Community" says that the Rabinovitz brothers opened the first Economy Grocery Store in 1914 in Grove Hall (Roxbury/Dorchester), but that might be a mistake, since so many other sources on the web mention Somerville.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Well, someone posted an answer at http://somervillenews.typepad.com/the_somerville_news/2008/02/before-tom-brad.html :

"... at the northeast corner of Cedar and Highland, where the East Cambridge Savings Bank now stands."

[ron_newman]

A bank that was originally built as a Friendly's Ice Cream, according to someone who's been around longer than me. I forget whether I learned that on LJ or on the News blog.

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

So there was actually a S&S in Davis Square? Sounds like they were everywhere back in the day, which makes sense. I think the old CVS location in Ball Square was a Foodmaster once upon a time.

[gildersleeve.livejournal.com]

IIRC, there was a S&S roughly where The Burren/Family Dollar is (I think it was a Stop and Shop , then the first McDonald's, then The Burren.)

The original CVS was indeed a Foodmaster.