Maxwell's opens without fanfare
Maxwell’s Supermarket is scheduled to open to the public today, August 13, without fanfare as various components are still being fine tuned. Our newest, largest, most modern supermarket will strut its stuff. In fact, it is the most modern, up-to-date supermarket in the country.
We have been privileged to browse through the new facility as staff and contractors bring the various elements to completion. It is an impressive piece of workmanship.
The Price Right owners are to be complimented for their vision and determination to see this 22-month project completed. Government will now have to monitor the additional traffic the store will generate on the three access roads for possible upgrading. The supermarket is on Pole Line Drive, also known as Nathan Key Drive, about a block behind Royal Bank. It is worth a visit even if you do not need any groceries.
Customers to Maxwell’s will be impressed with wide aisles, good lighting and a highly polished concrete floor. The 45,000 square-foot interior is stocked with an enormous selection of groceries, frozen goods, household items and beauty aids. Fresh meat and produce were not yet on the shelves during our recent visit, but the display cases suggest a wide variety will be available. The new Maxwell’s is complete with security cameras and an extensive sprinkler system for fire suppression.
Maxwell’s brings a new level of merchandising to Abaco.
A short history of Abaco’s grocery stores
Fifty-one years ago Abaco’s first large grocery store arrived at Snake Cay on the renovated excursion steamboat, the Robert Fulton. This came as the headquarters for the pulpwood operation which had moved to Abaco from Grand Bahama. The Robert Fulton had been outfitted with a grocery store as well as the best equipped clinic on Abaco.
The lumber company opened up Abaco with a road network and built two villages for its employees, Lake City for the woodcutters who were predominately of Turk’s Island origin and Spring City whose residents were mainly Bahamians. Later the company established Campbell Town for the Haitians, who had been originally recruited by S and M Farms.
Arriving on an under-developed island with 500 employees and their dependents to provide for, the company had to maintain a well stocked store.
For Abaco residents, the grocery store was the highlight of the lumbering operation. Supplies came every six days from Jacksonville on the barge that returned to Florida with a full load of pulpwood. Abaco residents were now exposed to a steady supply of fresh meat, fruit, vegetables and dairy products, even ice cream, stored in walk-in freezers and coolers.
In 1966 the pulpwood project moved to Andros and the Snake Cay store closed. Perhaps anticipating the closure of Snake Cay, Nassau’s City Meat Market opened a relatively small store in Marsh Harbour. It was located in one of the two original buildings of the Abaco Shopping Centre. The company later followed up by building Marsh Harbour’s first full-size supermarket, located at the back of Abaco Shopping Centre’s parking lot.
After several years of exposure to large supermarket operations, several of their Marsh Harbour managers seized an opportunity and bought the Abaco store. It was renamed Abaco Market.
Meanwhile during the 1970s, a grocer from Nassau arrived with his brothers and opened the first Golden Harvest Supermarket building on the lot beside Bristol Wines and Spirits. That operated for several years until they built a much larger store adjacent to Standard Hardware. Golden Harvest was later absorbed by the expanding local Abaco Market group. However, in the summer of 2007 this store was destroyed in a daytime fire.
Abaco was growing and opportunities abounded. Solomon’s Wholesale in Nassau built a large wholesale outlet in Marsh Harbour. Eventually, Solomon’s found absentee ownership difficult and years later sold to the locally owned and expanding Abaco Market group. This was subsequently acquired by the Nassau investors when they bought all of the Abaco Market assets. While later downsizing and before leaving Abaco, they sold the Solomon’s Wholesale property to the Price Right owners.
Price Right converted the structure into a modern retail facility under the name Maxwell’s, named after an original settlement by that name on Marsh Harbour’s east side. However, as has happened several times in the past, an evening fire in early August 2008 demolished the facility. The owners immediately began plans for a new and expanded supermarket.
In its quest to corner the island’s food sales, the original Abaco Markets group built the large building now hosting Sav-A-Lot. This building has gone through three transformations, initially as Abaco Wholesale owned by the Abaco Market group. When Nassau investors purchased Abaco Markets, they renamed the operation Cost Right. The building has now been leased by the Price Right owners and continues as the Sav-A-Lot store.
The successful expansion of locally-owned Abaco Markets caught the attention of Nassau investors and the Nassau group ended up buying all the Abaco Market stores. Under the Nassau ownership, Abaco Markets expanded aggressively in Freeport, Nassau and even into Turks and Caicos Islands. However, its own success seemed to be more than it could cope with, and its closed the Abaco operations as its major growth options were in Freeport and Nassau.
Sawyer’s Soft Drinks had built a new building for its expanding beverage business. However, before moving in, the owner was approached by the owner of Nassau’s Super Value grocery about partnering in an expanded grocery operation. That affiliation gave Abaco the Price Right store that opened in August, 2001.
Abaco residents also have the option of shopping at Abaco Groceries located by the airport roundabout. That store is undergoing an expansion to its building and can be expected to offer an expanded line of merchandise.
Abaco’s Price Right has now become the dominant player in the local grocery business. It sensed an opportunity and leased the closed Cost Right building. Extensive renovations were made and the facility reopened as Sav-A-Lot with the emphasis on wholesale and club packaging.
Soon after Maxwell’s is running smoothly, Price Right will be closed for extensive renovations with wider aisles and more efficient freezers. It is expected that Sav-A-Lot will be exclusively for wholesale sales.