Whole Foods looks to buy six Johnnie's Foodmaster stores

and I bet a fair number of people avoid it, and especially its chaotic parking lot, because it's such a madhouse. A second Market Basket would relieve pressure on it, and attract new customers who are scared off by the existing store, or who live in Arlington and will have just lost their Foodmaster.

Typically Market Basket likes to OWN the store and/or plaza they reside in. Market Basket recently just got their lease terminated in a plaza they didn't own because Wal*Mart bought the plaza and gave MB the boot so Wal*Mart could build a store. (Wal*Mart knows Market Basket is a viable competitor..)

A quick look at the Registry of Deeds website for Middlesex County says that "Foodmaster Holding Company" and "FoodMaster Fellsway Medford, Inc" and "FoodMaster of Alewife, Inc." do seem to OWN the shopping centers the stores are in. From my quick glance, it appears that it LEASES all the properties going to WF (including Johnnie's original store at 41 Beacon Street, Somerville.)

I can almost guarantee the DeJesus family (the folks who own the Johnnies Chain) are looking for buyers of the Plazas they own. I wouldn't be surprised if Market Basket, or some other chain buys the whole plaza very soon.

I don't know what the numbers are for the Johnnie's Foodmaster Beacon St. location, but given that it's seldom busy when I go by it (at least twice a day most days) I have to wonder if Johnnie's wants to get it off their books somehow as underperforming. This sale of other properties to Whole Foods could be a reasonable way for them to do that.