Apna Bazar, a grocery chain that describes its new Shrewsbury, Mass. location as the largest Indian grocery store in North America, opens Thursday at 551 Boston Turnpike. The 70,000-square-foot store combines South Asian groceries with a restaurant, bakery, sweet shop, flower shop and meat department. For shoppers in Central Massachusetts, it offers a single stop for familiar ingredients and everyday staples.
How one store is built to do several jobs
Most South Asian grocers in the United States have traditionally been small specialty markets stocked with spices, lentils, flours and frozen items. The Shrewsbury store takes a different approach by putting many separate services under one roof. Shoppers can buy raw ingredients, pick up prepared food from the restaurant, choose baked goods and sweets, and select cut flowers or meat in the same visit.
The store also stocks Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dairy products and other foods, along with American grocery staples. That mix matters for households that cook across several food traditions or that include members who prefer different cuisines. It also gives the store a wider potential customer base than a shop focused on one culinary tradition.
Why the format matters for immigrant communities
Ethnic grocery stores often do more than sell food. They serve as places where people find products they cannot easily get elsewhere, and they can become informal meeting points for communities. A large store with a restaurant and sweet shop extends that role, offering prepared meals and celebratory foods alongside the ingredients needed to cook at home.
The store's owner, Romy Selhi, told INDIA New England News that the Shrewsbury location is the largest Indian grocery store in North America. That is his company's claim, and the source material does not include independent verification of the ranking. Readers should treat it as the owner's description of the store's scale.
What shoppers and the business should watch
A store of this size brings operational demands beyond stocking shelves. Managers must coordinate staffing across departments, maintain inventory for perishable foods, control costs and keep customer traffic steady across the entire footprint. The success of the format will depend on whether the store can turn its breadth of offerings into repeat visits.
For shoppers, the opening day hours are 11:00 am to 9:00 PM. Regular hours are 9:00 am to 9:00 PM. Hours can change, so it is sensible to confirm details with the store before a visit. Apna Bazar was founded in 1995 by Jaswinder Singh Johal and Desh Deepak Bhardwaj and has grown to 32 stores across the United States, according to information provided for this article. The Shrewsbury location expands the chain's Massachusetts presence, which already includes Apna Bazar stores in Woburn and Lowell.