The smallest state in the union has only 105 supermarkets (for reference, that's less than half of the number of supermarkets in Manhattan alone). But we're going to be taking a look at a few of them, even though my coverage isn't too extensive. There's still a lot of fun things to see here! We'll be spending about two weeks in the Bay State, moving from north to south through Burrillville, North Smithfield, Smithfield, North Scituate, then a few stops in Providence (but of course nowhere near a full tour of all the stores in Providence), with two final stops in the Newport area in Portsmouth and Tiverton. Like Connecticut, Rhode Island has quite a few independent stores that are really fun to visit. In fact, we won't be seeing any big-chain supermarkets here in Rhode Island (but rest assured, there are plenty of Stop & Shops and Shaw's). We're starting with our first store tomorrow on The Independent Edition in Burrillville!
Original Grocery Tenant: Red & White Food Stores Address: 46 Tolland Green, Tolland, CT Opened: unknown Closed: unknown Later Tenants: Tolland Red & White Gift Shop Photographed: November 27, 2022 The small town of Tolland, CT -- 18 miles northeast of Hartford and 12 miles south of Massachusetts -- today has a very attractive-looking Big Y , but once was served by the Tolland Red & White. Red & White , for those who are not familiar, is a very loose group of small independent grocers, once a larger cooperative with locations across the US and Canada but now really just a brand distributed by The Federated Group from the Chicago area. It's not uncommon to see small convenience stores, bodegas, and greengrocers in the New York City area selling Red & White products, but those come from Federated via the Jetro wholesaler in New York, through their FoodBase program . On the town green in Tolland, a roughly 1000 square foot store retains the name and its origin