SRO for "Wegmans... The Musical" in Boston suburb

About six months after Wegmans opened in Northborough, MA, which is about 40 miles east of Boston,  the town played host to "Wegmans... The Musical!"

The show, written and performed by students at Algonquin Regional High School, opened last Thursday to a standing-room-only crowd of 900. It also closed, as it was a one-night-only production.

Wegmans employees, who provided clothes and props for the show, as well as food for the after-party, had no advanced-look at the script but were on hand with their senses of humor in tact. According to a newspaper report, the plot featured a sibling rivalry between two brothers working at competing supermarkets - Wegmans and "fictional rival grocery store Acme."

I'm guessing Wegmans came out on top, or at least had the better songs.

Wegmans MA store (70,000 SF) to be smallest in a decade

Last Monday, Wegmans announced that its upcoming store in Newton, MA (a densely-populated suburb that borders Boston), planned for 70,000 SF, will be its smallest in a decade. By comparison, the nearby Northborough, MA location is 138,000 SF, and the store recently announced for Montgomeryville, PA will be 120,000 SF.

A Wegmans spokesperson said the 70,000 SF footprint represents a new design and concept for the company. The store will anchor Chestnut Hill Square, a complex with 160,000 SF of shops, offices and luxury residences.

The Northborough store, which opened in October, had more than 25,000 local shoppers sign up for a Wegmans discount card before the supermarket even opened. According to the publisher of The Griffin Report of Food Marketing, Wegmans plans to open six or seven stores in a short period of time across New England.

At 70,000 SF, this "small" Wegmans will still be larger than most Stop & Shop markets, which are typically about 60,000 SF. Stop & Shop New England (a division of Ahold USA; same parent company as Giant) has more than 200 locations throughout MA, NH, CT and RI.