Shortly After World War II, the grocery store – a cramped shop in which the man behind the counter retrieved items for you, one by one – was replaced by the supermarket. These markets – average size 40,000 square feet – were equipped with metal carts on wheels, invisible speakers that played flavorless music and offered thousands of things to eat, clean and cook with, along with magazines of dubious worth and candy bars to tempt kids while their mothers stood in line waiting to pay.
One of these stores was the eponymous Demoulas Super Market, in Lowell.
In 1975 the family changed its name – with its whiff of the olde world – to Market Basket. There are now 95 across New England, all if them thriving, all of them attracting those like me who resist paying more for things than they’re worth.
Market Basket’s motto is “More for Your Dollar,” suggesting both thrift and the fact that you don’t have unlimited funds. People don’t splurge on caviar and snails in MB. The last time I looked there were exactly two jars of caviar in the Market Basket I shop in, on Somerville Avenue.
I’ve done many weekly visit to supermarkets over the 60-plus years since I moved to Massachusetts, trying many of them: Shaws, Star Market, Stop & Shop, Trader Joe’s, A&P, Whole Foods Market and a couple of others whose names I have forgotten.
None of them come close to what I now think of the Market Basket “experience.”
A few years ago several members of the Demoulas family went after each other in public. Arthur Demoulas won out over his relatives and has been chief executive since 2014. Something unusual was responsible for Arthur’s triumph over his relatives: a threatened walkout by his employees if he was removed. That kind of loyalty is as rare as a pound of cherries in February. It’s now happening all over again – making for piquant reading in the Globe and elsewhere. You would think with their success, family members would have matured enough to quit squabbling. But Arthur’s relatives are eager to pull him down. My guess is they want to raise their prices.
I used to see Julia Child pushing a shopping cart and waving to fans in the branch where I now shop. I have seen there professional caterers, people whom one assumes know where to find good stuff for less than an arm and a leg.
One reason Market Basket is able to offer its wares for less is that it allows shelves to be stocked during business hours; shoppers often have to maneuver in a kind of slalom around cardboard boxes being unloaded. Sometime before the turn of the century, the Somerville store was enlarged; a wall was knocked down and the walls extended. How large and glorious it seemed at first. But soon – because it stocked more fruits and vegetables, it was just as cramped as before. At the Star Market on Mount Auburn Street where I shopped during the pandemic, the fruit and vegetables were arranged artfully on hip-high displays. Visual pleasure is not high on my list of reasons to shop for food.
At My Market Basket, the fruit is displayed in aisles so narrow only one person at a time can maneuver through – sort of like trying to find a seat at the movies in the middle of a row after the lights go down. But the grapes and cherries and melons are near perfect. What can I say? The deli counter is so small a new shopper could easily miss it and the sole man [sic] patiently slicing prosciutto or American cheese. When the store is crowded, shoppers often wait for more than 15 minutes for their deli delectables.
Still, price and quality can’t be the only reasons a lot of people are ardent about Market Basket, especially the one I shop at. While newer MBs are more up-to-date in grocery-selling techniques such as freebees, indirect lighting and general atmosphere, here there’s a kind of cultish feeling, a brother- and sisterhood and a gleam in the eye to Market Basket shoppers that defies analysis. I hope Arthur Demoulas, the gutsy leader, keeps his job.
A stronger
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When I saw on the news about a month ago that a new dispute was brewing, as one of the cult members you refer to, I called the general manager of the Waltham store (that’s where the news videos were taken).
The gentleman who answered, whose name I unfortunately don’t remember, or assured me that this was an entirely different scenario from the one 11 years ago. I asked if it might be useful to start writing letters of support and get hundreds of signatures, and he assured me it would be absolutely useless.
If anybody has any different information I would welcome knowing about it because indeed Market Basket is a rather unique institution that offers a huge selection of ethnic products and cares for its employees, while maintaining prices relatively affordable.
Enough disputes, enough partisanship, it’s time we All UNITE!