Groceteria.com

New list for a Thursday night:

https://www.groceteria.com/place/massac ... worcester/

Incredible work and thanks as always for the shout-out!

Here's one note: 68 Stafford St is the address used for all of Webster Square Plaza. For about a decade and a half, Webster Square Plaza appears to have had two coexisting supermarkets with the same address. One was on the south end of the west side strip, so where Dollar Tree is now. That was the A&P (I think).

Also in the mall -- although I'm not sure exactly where, I believe it was at the north end of the west side strip, so roughly where Marshalls is now -- was an Elm Farms Food, which opened around 1960. By the end of that decade, it had become Hodes, a local chain. No later than 1973, that space was home to Iandoli, which expanded it to the present shape and size in the 70s. Then, that's the store that became Shaw's in 1987 when Shaw's bought Iandoli. That facade still has the strong appearance of a 90s-era Shaw's, although what I believe was the entrance and exit foyer has now been bricked over.

What I do know for certain is that the present-day Shaw's, which at nearly 80,000 square feet is one of the largest stores in the chain, opened in 2005 in a former Zayre-turned-Ames department store.

It's complicated but I hope that's enlightening. As I comb through your other work, I'll let you know if I see anything else of note worth discussing, but it's so exciting to see your visit to little ol' Worcester!

I have the Worcester newspapers on GenealogyBank, can add a couple things:

--Big L Discount was a discount drugstore/"health and beauty" chain in Massachusetts. I don't think they were connected to Wonder Markets so I wonder if that is an error in the 1975 directory? The stores were converted to Mall Drug around 1980 and shortly thereafter the chain was sold to Brooks Drug. They had a location at 418 Main St in Worcester.

--What appears to be the first Big Discount was opened Feb 1965 at 195 Mill St. By April, all the existing Wonder Markets stores were being advertised as "Big Discount". In late 1966 they change the ads slightly to work the Wonder Markets name back in under the Big Discount banner. I'm not sure when it officially transitioned to "Big D". As far as I can tell the the entire chain was owned by the Gould family.

--In 1963 the Wonder Market on Sunderland Road was renamed "Big G", but was forced to abandon that name after losing a a trademark lawsuit against a Rhode Island chain of the same name (https://law.justia.com/cases/massachuse ... 320-2.html)

--Pay n' Takit was owned by the same owners as Community Stores. A 1957 article about the closing of the last Community Store says that in 1930 the chain had 106 locations, including 74 in Worcester alone.

Thanks to both of you. This is really helpful!

Th reason I had assumed Wonder Markets was some sort of co-op/voluntary chain is that some of the stores were branded as, for example, Ralph's Wonder Market. And it's very possible the stores that were listed as Big L were in fact Big D/Big Discount stores. I'll make notes on these as well as the Webster Square slots.

Thanks again!