Why Are There No Stop and Shop Locations in Maine or New Hampshire?

Stop and Shop Locations

At the time of this writing -- as occasionally there is always word that locations of any franchise will close if they underperform -- there are over 200 Stop & Shop locations in New England, and over 400 overall in the Northeast.

The majority of those locations are primarily in Massachusetts, with, according to the official Stop & Shop website, well over 100 stores in the state. But while Southern New England seems to be thriving with locations (even after underperforming stores have closed), there's one glaring fact that's easily noticeable.

There are zero locations of the store in Northern New England.

Stop and Shop Maine

Even though there aren't currently any Maine locations for Stop and Shop, there actually used to be back in the late-2000s.

According to Supermarket News, back in June 2007, Stop and Shop opened its first Maine store in Kennebunk, and even had plans to expand and open a second location in Portland.

Plans changed, though, and in October 2009, Stop and Shop not only scrapped plans on opening the second Portland location, but actually decided to close its only Maine location in Kennebunk. There hasn't been another Maine location to open since.

Stop and Shop NH

What happened in Kennebunk was almost a foreshadowing for what was on the way to the Granite State. At one point, Stop and Shop had six stores that were open in New Hampshire, with two stores in Manchester and one each in Bedford, Hudson, Exeter, and Milford.

However, according to WMUR, back in 2013, Stop and Shop made the decision to close all of those stores, with mention to already open Market Basket locations in NH making things tough, with the final nail in the coffin possibly being the opening of the Market Basket in downtown Manchester in April 2012.

Like Maine, since all Stop and Shop locations in NH were closed by September 2013, there hasn't been a location seen in the state since. And there likely will never be one ever again, in neither New Hampshire nor Maine.