By 1945, Stop & Shop had nearly 450 stores, most of which operated in the self-service format. In September of the following year, the company formally changed its name to “Stop & Shop, Inc.”. The photos above are typical of the company’s stores of the early postwar period, showing two urban locations – Springfield and Lynn, Massachusetts, and an early shopping center location in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. In the next decade, Stop & Shop would replace many of their smaller urban stores as part of a concentrated push into shopping centers, gaining the advantages of much larger footprints and ample free parking.
