Flagship Stop & Shop Store Opens in Boston
Despite recent news that Stop & Shop intends to shutter underperforming stores, the Ahold Delhaize USA banner has held the grand opening of its newly built flagship store at 305 Guest Street, which is part of the Allston Yards development, in Boston. The nearly 52,000-square-foot store, which offers a modern look and services to make the shopping experience simpler and more enjoyable, is across the street from Stop & Shop’s former location at 60 Everett Street, which closed on June 20 ahead of the opening of the new store on the 21st. Stop & Shop more than doubled its store workforce for the Allston supermarket, hiring more than 100 new associates.
Designed to meet the needs of Allston’s growing and diverse community of almost 70,000 residents, more than half of whom are under the age of 35, the new store features a large assortment of grab-and-go meals and services such as online pickup to better serve on-the-go customers.
Other features of the new store include the following:
- A large produce department with more fresh and local fruits and vegetables
- An expansive assortment of sustainably sourced seafood
- A big prepared foods section with such chef-prepared grab-and-go meals as flatbread pizzas, a full hot bar with a rotating variety of foods, sushi made fresh daily, and ready-made sandwiches
- Free 90-minute parking for customers
- An in-store Starbucks Café and a Citizens Bank branch
Stop & Shop has also carefully curated a considerably larger assortment of products for the wide range of cultures and communities in the area, with more than 800 new multiculturally focused items offered throughout the store, among them:
- A Kosher certified bakery plus more than 200 new Kosher items, including products from popular brands like Manischewitz, Kedem, Haolam, and J&J
- New refrigerated and dairy halal products from Merve
- Hundreds of new products from various countries of origin, including Korea, Turkey and China
- Dozens of new Hispanic products
Additionally, to help customers save, a new in-store savings kiosk enables shoppers enrolled in Stop & Shop’s GO Rewards loyalty program to easily scan their loyalty card and activate digital coupon offers. Customers can also save through Stop & Shop’s competitive weekly sales and its Deal Lock program, which offers extended discount pricing on hundreds of items for weeks at a time.
“Stop & Shop Allston Yards offers an exciting new shopping experience for our local customers,” said Gordon Reid, president of Quincy, Mass.-based Stop & Shop. “Our team put careful consideration into designing a store that offers the right mix of products, convenient services and great values to help our customers save, We are continuing to invest in our stores in Boston and across the Northeast, and our team remains focused on unlocking new ways to deliver even more value and convenience for all our customers.”
In the area of sustainability, the store was built from environmentally friendly materials; has converted all of its cooking equipment from propane to electric, helping to reduce carbon emissions; and features updated refrigeration units that use more climate-friendly refrigerants and have doors to lower energy use.
On the occasion of the grand opening, Stop & Shop donated $50,000 to support in-school pantries at four local schools in Allston-Brighton as part of The Stop & Shop School Food Pantry Program, which ensures that students have steady access to healthy food. The celebration also included a special appearance by Wally the Green Monster, the official Boston Red Sox mascot. The Stop & Shop Community Food Truck and several vendors were also on site offering food samples and special giveaways, including limited-edition Star Wars Oreo merchandise, and festivities continued throughout the weekend with more food samples, free giveaways and more.
Stop & Shop Allston Yards is open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday-Saturday, and 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sundays.
Employing 54,000 associates, Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. LLC is an Ahold Delhaize USA company that operates nearly 400 stores throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey. Ahold Delhaize USA, a division of Zaandam, Netherlands-based Ahold Delhaize, is No. 11 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2024 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. Its brands are Food Lion, The Giant Co., Giant Food, Hannaford, Stop & Shop, Peapod, and Retail Business Services. PG also named the company one of its Retailers of the Century and among its 2024 10 Most Sustainable Grocers.
