The rumors turned out to be true: It will be H Mart taking over the 11,000-square-foot bfresh grocery store that closed Oct. 12 in Somerville’s Davis Square.
Doors will open this summer despite delays, a worker told The Tufts Daily. The report by Dhruvii Mehta and Carly Cohen was published Thursday and cited a filing with the state by H Mart chief executive Il Yeon Kwon. The filing was made June 1, or 16 weeks before bfresh closed.
The store opened in February 2017, and at just 6.6 years the 244 Elm St. site was still the longest-lived of a small chain founded in 2015 as Fresh Formats. Owner Ahold – also the corporate parent of Stop & Shop – hoped it would become a regional group of smaller, urban stores with healthier food at lower prices, but the other bfresh stores in Allston and Brighton closed in 2017 and 2019, respectively, with Ahold telling media that sales weren’t meeting financial expectations there either.
The store had a 10-year lease when it filled a former Social Security office space empty since August 2010, but that began before opening, said Caroline Medeiros, external and corporate communications manager for Stop & Shop. The building needed renovations, as its facade began crumbling dangerously in June 2015. Former Fresh Formats spokesperson Saskia de Jongh said Ahold made a “substantial investment” in the store too.
The overall 240 Elm St. location, which also has an office co-working space and cannabis shop, has been owned since a $39 million deal in 2022 by Asana Partners, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based real estate investment firm. The seller was Charles River Realty, of Boston.
H Mart, a Korean grocery chain, opened in Cambridge’s Central Square in 2013 in a 18,000-square-foot space vacated by the Harvest grocery co-op and Clear Conscience Cafe. The chain of “Asian-inspired” supermarkets started in 1982 in Queens, New York, as Han Ah Reum, which means “One arm full of groceries” in Korean, but changed its name to H Mart in 2002 when it opened its 19th store. There are now nearly 100 stores in the chain nationwide, according to the H Mart website.
At the time of the closing of bfresh, commenters online said they were hoping to see either a Trader Joe’s or a branch of H Mart – but a message left at the Lyndhurst, New Jersey, offices of H Mart drew no response.
“Even just the rumor of an H Mart coming to Davis is making me feel like I’m coming up on molly,” a Reddit user said.
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