Hey, there! Log in / Register
Chestnut Hill Star Market: Where the Maytag Repairman shops now?
By adamg on Sat, 05/24/2014 - 3:11pm
2 p.m. on a Saturday.
We were out and about on errands today and figured we'd end the trip with a supermarket run for some barbecue fixings. We wound up at the Chestnut Hill Star, and, yeesh, was that place empty.
Now, one might think this was because it's Memorial Day Weekend and simply everybody in Newton and Brookline is already down on the Cape and the only people left to shop there are the odd stragglers on roundabout journeys from way down in Roslindale or something.
Except: The reason we ended our journey there is because we actually went to Wegman's down Rte. 9 first. It was the kidlet's first visit. But we weren't there more than one minute when she declared she hated the place (really!): Too dark, for one thing, but more important for this story, too noisy and way too crowded for her tastes. So I replaced the one thing I'd put in our cart up to that point and we fled to what turned out to be a near empty Star Market, where the guy at the pizza counter forlornly poked at a pizza in the oven, a pizza that maybe nobody would get to eat.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
This is why Shaw's in Fenway
This is why Shaw's in Fenway is frantically renovating and adding it booze section, as soon as they build the Wegman's at Landmark this Shaw's will also be a ghost town.
The Fenway Shaws' liquor isle
The Fenway Shaws' liquor isle is now open.
Prices Prices Prices
If they can keep their prices 10% lower and the store generally clean they will do fine without any frills. But if they think they can somehow upsell Wegmens they are doomed. That location sucks and the only selling point of that store is that it's not insanely overpriced like Whole foods. But that and beer won't save them from a Wegmens next door.
Wegman's meh
I haven't found Wegmans's to be all that fantastic. The prices are as high if not higher than most of the other grocery stores in the area, I am not loyal to anyone particular store.
I do stop at the Fenway Star Market on my way home from work a couple times a month, Otherwise I would have to drive past my house to get to the stores in West Roxbury.
Fenway Star is perfect for what it is...a city grocery (with parking!).
No actually that is not why .
No actually that is not why . There is 150 Shaws and quite a few star markets ! Do you think one store is adding liqour to save a million dollar store in chestnut hill? No .
Kinda
Kinda.. Shaw's/Star have been renovating their stores as apart of their new "re-branding" thing they've been doing for the past few months.
Shaw's/Star have gotten this reputation for being over priced and dirty out-dated stores (some of the older stores), plus previously being owned by an company (SuperValu) who did not want to spend $$ to expand/update/fix the issues with the chain. Now that they are a wholly owned subsidiary of "The New Albertson's" (aka stores that SuperValu spun off), they are trying to fix the chain.
Sadly I think the damage is already done, plus now with big players like Wegman's and Market Basket expanding and offering a better shopping experience and better prices, Shaw's days are numbered unless they do something radical to bring people back to the stores.
It's a good thing
Shaw's and Stop & Shop have been complacent for far too long, with their prices inching up higher and higher but the food quality (such as produce) slipping and variety dropping. And their prepared foods are nothing but heated up junk from the frozen food case.
The infiltration of another giant into the space will do one of two things: get them to up their game (which it looks like one Shaw's will try to do) or put them out of business. I hope it's the former, because that's the promise of competition: come in with better service, better prices, and better selection, and others need to match it one way or another.
I'd like nothing more than the closer Star Market to up its game, but unless/until they do, I'll go a little further to hit Wegman's or Whole Foods.
Prepared foods are not frozen
Prepared foods are not frozen junk.... Despite what you may think maybe due to appearance sometimes everything is Fresh . Have you ever inquired ? Ask any associate at any location and they can tell you exactly how everything is prepared.
Roche Bros
was probably an insane asylum.
Roche Bros.on Sat.
Was surprisingly quiet. My BF and I were mystified because it's NEVER that quiet and we both remarked about how awesome it was to shop there because everyone was either out of town or had already come earlier in the week.
Home Depot on the VFW, on the other hand, was a mad house and hotter than Dante's inferno thanks to no a/c running.
By the way...
...I just got the "Maytag Repairman" comment. When I first read it, I thought "why would Colin Ferguson be shopping in Chestnut Hill?" They don't pitch him as "lonely" much these days...
Yeah, I'm old school, or maybe just old, take your pick
Star at Chestnut Hill
I was an avid Star Market Chestnut Hill guy (until the Wegmans opened up). Everytime I went there, I would point out the fruit fly problem they had on the produce. Legit, every time I went for the past 2-3 years, fruit flies in the onions or produce, or both.
Star Market needed to step their game up. Also that Star Market charges more than most in the area (for the rent/chestnut hill crowd). Sorry for the employees, who are the real victims here.
It's the slow motion implosion
.. of another leveraged merger during our recent infatuation with value-less parasite capitalism.
The foolish decision to go along with marketing consultants and run a noxious two tier price system worked until the post recession life quality decline and food price increases made every day low pricing the only viable play other than niche player snob appeal things.
And when they finally jettisoned that crap it was too late to get back the lost market share.
No surprise.
They're doomed. I've thought that ever since I heard the first news about Wegmans moving in.
I have noticed my local Stop and Shop is lowering their prices and advertising them as "lower than Shaws". (Market Basket is the one they need to worry about over here, though ...)
Was it as dark as the old Heartland?
On the VFW?
Dunno
That's before our time :-).
Maybe
I was at the Chelsea Market Basket around 3 pm and for a Saturday and a holiday it wasn't very busy either. So maybe people shopped early or just actually went OUTSIDE on a holiday weekend.