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Over the years there have been many small grocery stores on the island: an A&P on the waterfront; Watson’s, A.M.Bailey’s, and John Douglass’s on Narragansett Avenue; others on Southwest Avenue.
At times the same building was used some years later by a different owner. The building at 65 Narragansett Avenue began life as Gustavus Adolphus Clarke’s fish store. Later, Benjamin T. Gladding moved the market he had opened in his home on Howland Avenue in 1914 to the site. In 1948, Sam Matoes took over the building for the Corner Market, which continued in operation under various management into the 1970s.
The same thing happened at 29 Narragansett on the corner of Green Lane. The Pinto brothers had a grocery store there in the Armbrust building in the 1940s. After the Pintos moved their business to 19 Narragansett, Nibel Santos had a market there.
As the island population grew, larger stores were established. In the mid-20th century, two markets competed for the business of the island.
Midway Market at 123 Narragansett, west of the Post Office, had opened as Job Ellis’s market in 1891. Its name came from the fact that it was midway between East and West Ferry. In the early 1920s, Fred Matoes purchased the business. He operated the market as a full-service grocery until 1974, when he closed because, in his words, inflation and the added expense of bringing produce over the bridge “killed us.” A year later he sold the business and the store to Tom Sisson who changed the name to Jamestown Food Mart and a year later moved the store to 6 Clarke Street, where McQuade’s now is.
The Lyons family established Lyons Market at 23 Narraganset Avenue in 1921. The Lyons family operated the market until 1955, when it was sold to Edward J. Anderson of Newport. The store remained in operation until the late 1960s.
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