![]() ![]() Idiots had signed their own names when cashing those checks. Can’t remember if it was local police or FBI. I was there when law enforcement came to take them. I heard a rumor that a few of them were stealing payroll checks that came through the mailroom. When I started at 18, (1972-73) I worked in the mailroom with similar aged peers. Here’s a bit of scandal for you! “I worked in their offices. It burned down around 1960.” There were also stores in Union Square, Ball Square and on the corner of Highland Avenue and Central St. “There was a First National Store at the corner of Medford St and Somerville Ave next to Target, which way back was Bradlees.” There was one on Broadway near where Star Market was. I won a giant Sugar Daddy candy bar there for counting the marbles.” “There was a First National in Union Square. She told stories of packing pickles into jars, placing perfect spears neatly facing out of the jar and then random bits piled into the center.” “My mom worked in the factory at Assembly Square. Also there was one where the Stop & Shop is in Clarendon Hill.” A warehouse worker recalls, “It was so brutal coming outside into the heat of a hot summer day after the end of a 14 hour shift in a refrigerated warehouse.” ![]() “I remember going to the one on Mystic Ave. Plus, how cool was it to buy a can of genuine Somerville tomatoes ( see photo)?įirst National’s huge warehouse and retail stores employed a lot of Somerville people. The Finast label, much like Market Basket’s, offered consumers quality products at a lower price than the popular brands. Finast was based in Somerville until 1978. The site had more recently been a distribution center for First National Supermarkets also known as Finast. The Assembly Square Mall in Somerville, Massachusetts, opened in 1981 inside of a former Ford Motors Assembly Plant along the banks of the Mystic River. (get it … FINAST?) There used to be a few First National grocery stores around Somerville years ago. The company operated First National (and later Finast) stores in the northeast. An acronym for First National Stores.Īt one point, First National Stores was one of America’s largest grocery chains. But Somerville’s other finest was actually spelled Finast with an a. Names like Remigio, Fallon, Mitsakis, Stiles, Dervishian, Gilberti, Cabral, Howe, Hodgdon and so many more. in Arlington.Somerville’s finest are of course our outstanding police force. Those sales included the Johnnie’s on Mass. Last month, Chelsea-based Johnnie’s, one of the last family-run urban grocers in Massachusetts, said it was closing six supermarkets by the end of November and selling the leases to Whole Foods Market. That would include the one in Somerville, at Arlington’s border, that was thought to be staying open. Hilco Merchant Resources, an Illinois-based company whose services include liquidation, said it is beginning closing sales at all 10 Johnnie’s Foodmaster supermarkets. “I am confident that we have found the best partner that offers the most positive outcome not only for our employees but for the communities as well,” DeJesus said in a statement released Oct. Johnnie’s owner John DeJesus also said the deal came at a good time for his business. The sale of the six leases to Whole Foods was official last month. Stop & Shop promised to do the same for workers at the Medford store. The stores will be renovated and reopened as Whole Foods supermarkets by September, the company said.Įmployees at those Johnnie’s Foodmaster stores will be interviewed for jobs at the new Whole Foods locations, the Austin, Texas, grocer told The Globe. 2, Whole Foods said its purchase of Johnnie’s stores in South Weymouth, Arlington, Charlestown, Brookline, Melrose and on Beacon Street in Somerville will close Nov. ![]() There are two superstores in neighboring Malden.Ī spokesman for Johnnie’s declined to comment to The Globe about the fate of its remaining stores — in Lynn, Whitman and Alewife Brook Parkway in Somerville, just across the border from ArlingtonĪlso on Nov. Stop & Shop has a current store in Medford, at 471 Fellsway. ![]() said it has entered into an agreement to take over the Medford Johnnie’s lease and “quickly convert” the location into a Stop & Shop by the end of the year. Hilco Merchant Resources, based in Illinois, said Johnnie’s has started offering discounts of up to 30 percent on all food, beverages, household products, and general merchandise as the business starts to wind down after 65 years, The Boston Globe reported Nov. 30, and a seventh store — in Medford — will reopen as a Stop & Shop. All 10 Johnnie’s Foodmaster supermarkets are closing, not just the six being taken over by Whole Foods Market by Nov. ![]()
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