Drive down West Chester Pike past the Llanerch Shopping Center and you'll see it: a boarded storefront that's sat empty since before some Havertown kids started kindergarten. For years, the running joke was that nobody actually knew what happened to the grocery store that was supposed to go there. Turns out the joke had an ending. It just took six years to write.
The Box That Sat Empty for Six Years
The space at 403 West Chester Pike was leased to Amazon Fresh, but Amazon never opened it. The company held the lease for six years while the storefront sat dark, and then in February the tech giant abruptly closed all of its physical Amazon Fresh locations nationwide. That gave Brandolini Cos., the Berwyn-based landlord that owns Llanerch Shopping Center, the opening to terminate the lease and find someone who'd actually turn the lights on.
That someone is Sprouts Farmers Market. The Phoenix-based organic grocery chain signed a lease this summer for a 29,500-square-foot store in the same spot, with an opening targeted for the first quarter of 2027. It'll be Sprouts' first Delaware County location and its first foray into Philadelphia's western suburbs. Fred Snow, president of Brandolini Cos., put it simply when the deal closed: "We're just excited that they are going to provide offerings that aren't in the area right now."
That's a real answer to a question a lot of Havertown residents have been asking for years. But here's the part that's easy to miss if you only pay attention to the empty box: while that lease sat dormant, nothing about daily life in Havertown was waiting on it.
Two Blocks Away, a Different Economy Never Stopped
While West Chester Pike had its six-year mystery, Brookline Boulevard was doing something a shopping center anchor can't do on its own: it built an actual district, business by business, without a developer's master plan. A recent count of independent shops on and around the boulevard found ten storefronts that add up to something a lot of towns try and fail to manufacture on purpose.
Start with St. Jude Shop at 21 Brookline Blvd. Louis and Norma DiCocco opened it as a neighborhood religious-goods store in 1965. Six decades later, the DiCocco family still runs it, and the business now describes itself as the largest religious goods and church supply retailer in the country, operating out of a 20,000-square-foot showroom that carries everything from rosaries to Communion gifts. That's not a chain that picked Havertown off a map. That's three generations of one family building something in place.
A few doors down, Catch My Thrift spills its inventory onto the sidewalk, giving you a reason to browse before you've even stepped inside. Koffmeyer's Old Fashioned Cookies & Ice Cream anchors 7 Brookline Blvd. The Bookery Coffeehouse shares a storefront with Plant Roots at 19 Brookline Blvd, so you can get a matcha latte and a houseplant in the same stop. Novità Boutique handles the clothing side. On the food front, Ombra BYOB serves Italian at 5 Brookline Blvd, Sampan Inn covers sushi and hibachi at number 8, and J.D. McGillicuddy's has run an Irish sports bar out of 33 Brookline Blvd for more than fifteen years.
None of that required a grocery anchor to exist. It grew the way most good commercial strips grow, which is slowly, unevenly, and mostly by people who live nearby deciding to open something.
What's Actually New This Year
Havertown's food scene isn't static. Havertown Cafe had its grand opening this summer at 1254 West Chester Pike, with the owners promising free coffee all day and a menu that runs from omelettes and waffles to burgers and cheesesteaks, open daily from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. to start.
A few blocks over on Eagle Road, Koutouki is finishing buildout for a traditional Greek restaurant at 24 E Eagle Rd. The name refers to the cozy, often underground taverns in Greece known for informal, welcoming atmospheres, and the owners have said as much themselves: "We wanted to create a place where people feel welcome from the moment they walk through the door." No opening date has been announced yet, but the buildout is visible if you walk past.
That's the pattern worth noticing. New openings keep landing on streets that were already working, not streets that needed rescuing.
The Calendar That Turns a Walk Into a Plan
Havertown's retail streets stay busy partly because the township and a handful of nonprofits keep giving people a reason to show up on foot. The Oakmont Farmers Market runs Wednesdays from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. through late November in the Grace Chapel parking lot at 1 West Eagle Road, right at the corner of Darby and Eagle. It's a producer-only market, so what's on the tables that week is what actually got picked or baked that week.
In June, the Haverford Township Historical Society hosted its 17th annual Heritage Festival along Karakung Drive, centered at Nitre Hall. It's a short walk from the Beechwood-Brookline stop on SEPTA's Norristown High Speed Line, which is part of why it's stayed a walk-up event rather than a drive-and-park one.
Late in August, the township hosted its America 250 Community Celebration at Haverford High School's football stadium, a free, family-friendly event that ran from noon to 9 p.m. and closed with a drone show over the stadium.
Looking ahead, Discover Haverford is planning its 5th anniversary Havertown Holiday Festival at the corner of Brookline and Darby Roads, with the first block of Brookline closed to traffic for the day. Past years have featured Native Havertonian singer-songwriter Peeks! performing holiday songs and a festival passport that sends visitors into Brookline District storefronts collecting stickers for a shot at gift cards. Meanwhile, the Historic Grange Estate at 143 Myrtle Ave keeps its own rhythm going: Sunday mansion tours through the season, summer Grange Picnic Evenings with live music on the lawn, and a Christmas Winterfest with thirteen decorated trees and the Cobbs Creek Lines Holiday Railroad running in the carriage house.
None of that calendar depends on what happens at the old Amazon Fresh box. It ran through the six empty years the same way it'll keep running through the months before Sprouts opens its doors in early 2027.
What This Means If You're Already Here
The easy story is that a neighborhood needs a big-name anchor to feel like it's arriving. Havertown's version runs the other way. The grocery chain is finally coming, on a real timeline this time, first quarter of 2027. But the streets that make Havertown feel like Havertown were never waiting on it. Brookline Boulevard's mix of a six-decade-old family business, a thrift shop that spills onto the sidewalk, a coffeehouse sharing a storefront with a plant shop, and a sports bar that's held the same corner for more than fifteen years did that work on its own.
When Sprouts opens, it'll be one more thing to walk to. It won't be the thing that made walking here worth it in the first place.
If you're weighing a move to a town where the local economy doesn't hinge on one big tenant showing up, that's worth knowing before you start touring houses. The Tallon & Olenik Team spends as much time studying towns like this as we do studying comps, and we're happy to talk through what a street like Brookline Boulevard actually means for day-to-day life here. Reach out when you're ready to see it in person.