Star Market
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| Subsidiary of The Jewel Companies, Inc. | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Fate | Merged with Shaw's but brand revived under current ownership. |
| Founded | 1915 |
| Products | supermarkets / food-drug stores |
| Parent | Jewel Albertsons |
Star Market was a New England chain of supermarkets based in Greater Boston. It was owned by the Mugar family and started in 1915. The company was sold to The Jewel Companies, Inc. in 1964 and later to Investcorp, which in turn sold the chain to Shaw's Supermarkets. As stores were remodeled, many adopted the Shaw's name, leaving only a handful of Star Market stores operating by the late 2000s. In 2008, Shaw's began to revive the name, a trend which was expedited after the parent company of both chains was sold to Cerberus Capital Management. Today, both Shaw's and Star Market are administered as a single division.
In 1915, Sarkis Mugar, an Armenian immigrant who had arrived in Greater Boston in 1906, paid $800.00 for the Star Market, a small grocery store at 28 Mt. Auburn Street in Watertown. His son Stephen P. Mugar (1901–1984) eventually went to work for him in the store. In 1922, Sarkis Mugar was killed in an automobile accident, leaving his son to take over Star Market to support his mother and sisters. In the early 1930s, Stephen hired his first cousin, John M. Mugar, who later became president and chairman of Star Market.
The second Star Market opened in Newtonville in 1932, and the third store opened in Wellesley in 1937. John Mugar joined Stephen Mugar in management, but had to leave to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
After the war ended, John Mugar returned to the management of Star Market. With wartime restrictions and shortages over, Stephen and John were ready to expand throughout Greater Boston to meet the increased affluence and consumer demand. The second Star Market in Newtonville opened in 1948 and was the Mugars' first supermarket. The new supermarket served as a prototype for the other modern supermarkets that they would soon open during this period. Meats and produce were packaged in cellophane wrappers to make them more appealing to consumers, and a conveyor belt carried bags of groceries to a central pickup station by the parking lot.
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