Brockton Got a Supermarket Back on Belmont Street. North Montello Is Still Waiting.

The grocery store at 683 Belmont Street held its ribbon cutting on Friday, October 2, 2026. It sits in the old Stop & Shop near Brockton High School, which had stood empty for about six and a half years. The new tenant is Food Basket International. The company's original store is in Lowell, and its focus is halal meat, seafood, and groceries from South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

Across the city, the other former Stop & Shop at 932 North Montello Street seems headed the same way. A small grocery chain from Providence has said it's coming. Its pitch centers on Caribbean, African, and Asian products, and it doesn't have an opening date yet.

Brockton lost both of its supermarkets from the same company. Both buildings are going to smaller grocers whose main draw is food from somewhere else. And at Montello, the opening date will be set by leases and liquor licenses, not by anything you'd see from the parking lot.

The two buildings at a glance

Belmont Street was empty a long time before this fall

When Stop & Shop said in January 2020 that it would close the Belmont Street store, The Enterprise reported that the store wasn't meeting the company's financial expectations and that Stop & Shop didn't plan to renew its lease. The store was scheduled to close on March 28 of that year.

The building then sat empty through the rest of the decade's first half. On September 3, 2026, The Enterprise reported that Food Basket International was headed to Brockton, with a soft opening planned for Saturday, September 12. The headline started with the word "another," because by then a second closed Stop & Shop in the city also had a grocer lined up.

The ribbon cutting on October 2 drew city and state officials. According to the Metro South Chamber of Commerce, State Representative Bridget Plouffe and representatives from Senator Michael D. Brady's office presented official citations. So did Mayor Moises Rodrigues. Staff from the Brockton Economic Development Office were there too. The Chamber called the store "new activity and investment to a previously vacant commercial space."

What's actually inside 683 Belmont

The store was designed for a different kind of shopping trip than the old one. According to the Chamber, the Brockton location has a full-service halal butcher shop, a seafood department, and a fast-casual kitchen serving prepared halal meals. MassLive's report describes a large frozen food section, fresh produce, and carry-out dishes geared to Haitian, Cape Verdean, Indian, and Bangladeshi tastes.

Co-owner Alauddin Chowdhury told The Enterprise that before this store opened, local customers were driving to the Lowell location just to buy certain spices and fish. He also explained why the company picked this city:

"We think Brockton is the center. All these ingredients from home, all the food from home, we can offer (it) here."

He described the goal as bringing people of different backgrounds "under one roof." He also pointed to halal meat in particular, saying "a lot of people can't find a decent halal supermarket" nearby.

The hours are long. The store's contact page lists:

• Monday through Thursday: 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• Friday: 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• Saturday and Sunday: 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.

On a weeknight, that's a 10 p.m. close for a full grocery with a prepared-food counter on Belmont Street.

North Montello's story has more turns in it

The Montello store nearly closed once and was saved before it closed for good. In January 2023, Stop & Shop announced it would close 932 North Montello Street that year. In April 2023, the company reversed course after talks with city officials and the landlord.

The reprieve lasted about 18 months. On July 12, 2024, Stop & Shop's parent company published a list of 32 underperforming stores expected to close on or before November 2, 2024. 932 North Montello Street was on it. WBZ NewsRadio called it Brockton's last Stop & Shop and reported that then-Mayor Robert Sullivan was disappointed, especially after the city had rallied to save the store the year before.

In July 2026, The Enterprise reported that Daily Stop, a small chain from Providence, planned to open in the building. Ward 7 City Councilor Shirley Asack told the paper, "I did not want that to be an empty building." Daily Stop's website describes the Brockton store as offering grocery essentials, fresh produce, and "a diverse selection of Caribbean, African, Asian, national, and international products."

That same page still says the chain is "excited to expand into Brockton this summer." Today is October 7, and summer is over.

Why Montello depends on paperwork

The best public record of where things stand comes from a neighborhood business meeting. At the September 2 meeting of the Montello Business Association, Councilor Asack reported that the old Stop & Shop space was "slowly being moved forward." According to the minutes, Daily Stop needs to rent some of the space to other tenants and wants a beer and wine license, though the city's supply of those licenses "might already be maxed out."

That puts two jobs ahead of opening day, and neither involves stocking shelves. One is subleasing part of a building sized for a full Stop & Shop. The other is a license that may not be available. Brockton's License Commission agendas for August 20 and September 17, 2026 don't list a Daily Stop item.

Daily Stop's other expansion gives a sense of how timelines are running. The website also promised a Woonsocket, Rhode Island store at Walnut Hill Plaza "this summer." On October 5, The Local Insider reported that the Woonsocket store still hadn't opened, though crews were working inside and new wall frames were going up. The paper doubted the fall opening shown on the store's exterior sign.

Belmont shows the other side of this. Food Basket's soft opening came within the same month The Enterprise first reported it was coming. Those few weeks were the visible part. The years of vacancy before them never showed up in the news.

What to watch for at 932 North Montello

Nobody has announced an opening date, so these public signals are the ones to follow:

1. A Daily Stop item on a License Commission agenda. The city posts these on brockton.gov. A beer and wine application would show up there first.
2. News of other tenants in the building. The September minutes say subleasing is part of the plan, so a second business moving into the space would be a sign of progress.
3. Progress in Woonsocket. Both stores were announced for the same season, so a Woonsocket opening would show the chain can finish a store.
4. Updates at Montello Business Association meetings. Councilor Asack gave the September update there, and the association posts its minutes online.

Getting to Belmont Street without a car

One question from the 2024 closing coverage still applies. WBZ's 2024 closing coverage included a neighbor's concern about getting to another store.

Brockton Area Transit's August 24 announcement helps here. All BAT fixed-route and paratransit service will stay free until July 2027. Starting this year, buses will also run every route on Labor Day, New Year's Day, Memorial Day, and the Fourth of July, which BAT says adds nearly 1,000 round trips a year. BAT Administrator Michael J. Lambert said riders took more than 3.8 million trips on BAT service last year. BAT's site has routes and schedules for planning a trip to 683 Belmont Street.

Food Basket International is open now at 683 Belmont Street, closing at 10 p.m. every night, while 932 North Montello Street waits on a sublease and a license decision.

When a long-empty commercial building near your street fills up, it's natural to wonder what that means for your own home. If you own in Brockton and want a clear read on where your home stands this fall, Arcay Realty can help. Chenell will walk you through the numbers herself, from the first conversation to the last. Get a Free Home Valuation.