For nearly seventy years, the discount retail market of central Massachusetts was dominated by one man, Anthony “Spag” Borgatti. His brainchild, a sprawling store simply called “Spag’s”, was a fixture along Route 9 in the town of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts from 1934 to 2004. Spag’s had a well-earned reputation for rock-bottom prices; it wasn’t until the 1990s before the store began offering plastic bags or shopping carts. Up until 1992 the business was strictly cash-only, with no credit cards accepted.
One of my own memories of Spag’s was how the store would always hand-write their prices directly on the merchandise using a black magic marker. But even though the store took pride in keeping their overhead costs down to an absolute minimum, Spag’s also sponsored a number of local charities. Their annual tomato plant giveaway was always a huge draw—in 1992 alone, the store gave away over one million tomato seedlings to their loyal customers.
The store went through a number of changes after “Spag” passed away in 1996, and in 2002 it was sold to Building 19, another local chain of discount stores. But even though it’s too late to actually shop at Spag’s anymore, at least you can still use the Internet to take a stroll down memory lane.