The one and only 'Super Duper'

Medfield has had a long history of small mom and pop style grocery stores that were able to serve the needs of the town residents. But as Medfield entered the 1950’s and began to grow, the need for an actual super market took center stage.

Medfield was able to secure two named chain stores but only in their abridged version, being located in buildings with small square footage. The First National Store was here and operating in what is today Pizza and the A & P Market was located across the street in the area between and the Mobil Gas Station; the building being torn down in the 1960’s.

It was not until 1959 that Medfield got its very first super market. It’s start came about in 1958, on a proposal by the then Park and Planning Board, when they initiated a zoning change in the area of Route 109 and 27, opposite  the head of Spring Street. That zoning change was voted on favorably by Town Meeting and the building where today’s and is located was built.

At the time, Route 27 did not continue running north as it does today in between Friendly Ice Cream and CVS but instead turned east and combined with Route 109 until it got to North Street. Route 27 then ran down North Street to Harding Street and Harding Street to Hospital Road and on over the Charles River into Sherborn.

That first super market was called Super Duper. Out on Main Street in front of the market was an enormous sign with a large elephant holding the name “Super Duper.”

 There was genuine excitement in the small town Medfield when the news spread that our first super market was about to open.  In anticipation of its Grand Opening, as a publicity stunt, the folks at Super Duper flew a small plane over Medfield in the early morning hours dropping from the air hundreds of small paper plates each with names of food products, candy bars, detergent, etc., printed on them.

The idea was for the town’s people to find the paper plates and bring them into the new Super Duper and redeem their free prize.  Unfortunately not everything went as planned. First, it was an extremely windy morning and when the plane began to drop its prized paper plates all around the town, gusts of wind took most of the paper plates and dropped them into Kingsbury Pond and into the swampy area behind what is today the Hinkley Swim Pond on Green Street.

Excited Medfield kids, who had been up half the night preparing to begin the scavenger hunt and making plans as to how to best find the paper plates, began diving  into Kingsbury Pond trying to retrieve the plates. Others trudged and then sank into the swampy waters and muck off Green Street trying to obtain the plates featuring free Snicker’s bars or boxes of Tide.

Other plates landed in tree branches, on roof tops; but Medfield kids were out and racing all over town finding as many plates as possible. Serious competition developed as to who found the most plates and who found the plates with the products most valued by kids.  Super Duper had arrived in grand style! Medfield had now entered the big time with its first super market. No longer did Medfield residents have to travel to the super markets in Walpole, Natick or Needham, we now had Super Duper, circus elephant sign and all.

The store continued as a success and served the food shopping needs of the town while also employing high school students, many of whom got their first start in the world of business by working at Super Duper.

 In 1977 the Super Duper name changed to Nine-to-Nine, retiring that unique name into the annals of Medfield’s history. By 1986 the name had again changed, this time to M & M Star. With the arrival of  Fernandes Super Market on East Main Street, next to the Gas Station,( later to became ), Medfield had now becoming a two super market town.  

M&M Star then sold out to CVS, which edged its way into the growing Medfield market. The Super Duper building was rehabbed and divided into two sections, with CVS taking the larger part and D’Angelo’s the smaller western end. For unfortunate reasons unknown, the new owners removed the Super Duper cupola which had mounted the center part of the building’s roof and which had given it at least some grace and style. The arrival of  the larger CVS chain also doomed the two smaller mom and pop pharmacies in  Medfield; The Medfield Pharmacy and Maguire’s Drug Store and brought an end to Medfield's first super market in its history.