Calareso's To Open at New Location Tomorrow

Twice the indoor shopping space. Double the outside, covered space for plants and garden supplies. Ditto the number of parking spaces. More check-out lanes, too.

The new farm stand and garden center a block down Main Street in Reading from where the business started 60 years ago is being readied for its opening tomorrow.

“We’ve been looking for a (bigger) place for 10 years,” Manager Joseph “Joey” Musgrave told Patch Friday afternoon as a crew continued to prepare the buildings for customers, “because we outgrew our space” up the street.

The new space at 100 Main St. will give customers more product variety, better displays and easier movement, Musgrave said, both in the aisles and driving into and out of the parking lot.  

A moving plan was developed about five months ago, Musgrave said. When the building was ready about six to eight weeks ago, the moving started.

First came nonperishable items. Signs mark sections for bread, meats, cheese, prepared foods, apple pie, cakes and an organic island. But no monkey bread. The company that had supplied the bread closed, Musgrave said.

And, of course, bins and bins for fresh produce. Can't fill them too early.

Both the new and the old stores are closed to the public today so employees can finish preparing the new Calareso’s for tomorrow’s opening.

Besides store space, the staff grew, too, according to Musgrave, by 20 people, bringing the number of employees to 70.

Access to the new store is via a two-way, in-and-out driveway off Main Street.  The store has expanded its parking from 70 spaces shared with the abutting Harrow’s at the old location to “154 spaces of our own,” Musgrave said. That was planned for the holidays, he said. 

“We knew what our shortcomings were” at the old site. Parking was “number one.”

The business started when Musgrave’s great-grandfather, Giuseppi, came from Palermo, Italy, Joey said, and started his business with a pushcart in the North End. He became a produce wholesaler. At that time, Faneuil Hall was a produce hub, he said.

When that hub moved, Giuseppi brought his wholesale business to Reading. That didn’t work well, Musgrave said, so Giuseppi opened a retail produce business.

The new store is open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, until 6:30 p.m. on Sundays. Starting April 2, the Monday before Easter, they’ll be open an hour later every evening.

The phone number remains the same: 781-944-6010.

That’s “the first (store) phone number I knew,” Musgrave said.

What would Giuseppi think of the expansive new facility? When he died in 1984, “There was nothing like this,” Musgrave said. According to Musgrave, his great-grandfather might say, “Oh, my God.”

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