Tops Friendly Markets
Tops Friendly Markets is an American supermarket chain based in Amherst, New York, that operates stores in Upstate New York, Vermont, and Northern Pennsylvania. The chain operates full-scale supermarkets. Tops is a subsidiary of Northeast Grocery, which also owns the Price Chopper and Market 32 supermarkets based in Schenectady, New York. As of August 2025, the company operates 152 stores and 59 gas station/convenience stores. It formerly operated stores in Ohio and Massachusetts.
History
Early years
Tops Friendly Markets was co-founded by Armand Castellani, who was born in 1917 in a village outside of Rome, Italy, and Thomas Buscaglia. Castellani's family came to the United States in 1920, and eventually settled in Niagara Falls, where his father, Ferrante, opened a small neighborhood grocery store.Following his mother's death in 1933, Castellani left school to help manage the store. He continued to do so until joining the Army in 1941. He attained the rank of captain after five years' service.
After World War II, Castellani returned to the family business. In 1951, he set out on his own and opened the Great Bear Market in Niagara Falls. Shortly thereafter, he partnered with Buscaglia, owner of a grocery equipment firm, T.A. Buscaglia Equipment Co. Throughout the 1950s, Buscaglia, as CEO, and Castellani worked together, entering into a cooperative agreement with other small stores to build the foundation of what was to become the Tops Friendly Markets chain.
As the local economy boomed in the mid-to-late 1950s, the company's operations expanded to include building construction principally devoted to supermarkets. During this time, Savino Nanula, a meat department manager, became an integral part of the company's management team.
By 1958, they had set up headquarters in Buffalo, and in 1962 opened their first modern supermarket: a store on Portage Road in Niagara Falls. Alfonse DiMino, a Bells franchisee, suggested the name "Tops" and the team chose that name because they were determined to give customers the best shopping experience. The company then changed its name to Niagara Frontier Services.
1960s
In 1962, franchise systems were established for supermarkets, under the Tops Friendly Markets name, and for smaller stores as B-Kwik. In February of that year, Tops signs went up on seven stores, and the chain was born. By the end of the year, NFS was composed of 15 franchised stores throughout Western New York, employing a total of 300 associates. Throughout the 1960s, NFS implemented warehousing and centralized purchasing to allow the company to grow efficiently.In 1967, Buscaglia died and Armand Castellani took over as chief executive officer.
The next year, NFS went public, trading on the American Stock Exchange. Subsequently, the company began construction on a perishable warehouse and acquired general merchandise distributor G&G Sales and Service.
The following year, 1969, NFS entered the convenience store market by opening the first Wilson Farms Neighborhood Food store in Tonawanda, New York. The same year, Tops Friendly Markets was named Retailer of the Year by the Brand Names Foundation, an honor it would again earn in 1974.
1970s–80s
The 1970s saw Tops Friendly Markets, under the leadership of Castellani and Nanula, continue to grow in Western New York, and thrive where competitors struggled. Early in the decade, Tops began to build more company-owned stores. By the mid-70s, the company had expanded into the Rochester area, and over time, it became the only real competitor to Wegmans in the region. Also during this time, Tops Friendly Markets opened its first Pennsylvania store in Bradford.In 1983, SB Investors, a private, New York-based investment group, purchased NFS. By this time, operations had grown to include 65 Tops stores, 50 Wilson Farms stores and 15 B-Kwik Food Stores, employing 7,000 associates.
The next year, Tops Friendly Markets introduced Western New York shoppers to direct debit service, Instabank ATMs and the first CarryOut Café. It was also the year that Tops won the first of eight Golden Penguin Award from the National Frozen Food Association.
In 1985, Castellani was named chairman of the board and Nanula succeeded him as CEO. The following spring, SB Investors became known as Tops Friendly Markets, Inc., as the company went public for the second time, this time on NASDAQ. The following year, as Tops Friendly Markets celebrated its 25th anniversary, a $196 million leveraged buyout of the company was engineered between a group of Tops Friendly Markets executives and private equity firm Riordan, Freeman & Spogli. In 1987, Tops installed electronic scanners, one of the last supermarkets to do so.
1990s
A new era began March 27, 1991 as Tops Friendly Markets, which had grown to 145 total stores and 11,000 associates, was acquired by Ahold, a major international food retailer based in the Netherlands. The same year, the first Tops Friendly Markets International Super Center opened in Amherst. At that time, the store was the largest in Western New York, and boasted the biggest in-store bakery in the entire U.S.In the next few years additional Tops Friendly Markets International stores opened in Niagara Falls, West Seneca, Greece, and Perinton, New York. Also, a franchised International-style store, which operates as a Tops Friendly Market, was opened in Lockport. The International stores feature additional floor space and a product mix of many foods from different world cultures which up until then had not been widely available in the Buffalo area. With many Canadians at the time regularly crossing the border due to relaxed duties after the recently concluded Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement and the Canadian dollar at 90% of the value to its American counterpart, the new stores were in the right place at the right time and did even better business than expected.
The 1990s were marked by a new growth in operations, including the 1996 merger with Finast in Northeast Ohio, expansion across New York, the construction of a new headquarters in Amherst, New York, and the opening of an distribution center in Lancaster. By 1998, Tops Friendly Markets' market area stretched from Sandusky, Ohio, to Utica. In January 1999, the BonusCard, its customer loyalty program, debuted. In May 1999, all 45 Northeast Ohio Finast stores adopted the Tops Friendly Markets banner.
2000s
Tops Friendly Markets entered into the new millennium by acquiring the Sugarcreek Stores chain, adding 87 stores to its Wilson Farms division. That summer, Tops installed self-scanning checkouts at 11 stores in Ohio and in late August, the first Tops fueling station premiered in Akron.In 2001, Tops acquired 22 former Grand Union stores in the Adirondacks region and in Central New York, further east than its market had traditionally been. They also introduced the Tops Xpress convenience store format. By the end of the year, the company celebrated another landmark with the opening of its 150th Tops store, located in Madison, Ohio.
This aggressive growth was fueled in part by deliberate understatements of Ahold's debt to the financial markets. When this came to light in 2003, Tops was forced to backtrack. By 2005 the convenience stores had been sold to WFI Acquisition Inc., which later sold the stores to convenience store operator powerhouse 7-Eleven, and Tops Friendly Markets was also looking to sell the 31 stores it had established in the Adirondack region. P&C Foods acquired 2, Price Chopper acquired six, Hannaford acquired three, and twelve returned to the Grand Union division of C&S Wholesale Grocers.
Image:Tops Markets Tallmadge.jpg|thumb|Store closing in Tallmadge, Ohio in 2006, which later became an Acme Fresh Market store
On July 6, 2006, Ahold announced its decision to exit the Northeast Ohio market, which consisted of 46 locations. The 46 stores were located in Greater Cleveland, Akron and Norwalk and at the time employed approximately 3,800 full and part-time employees. Tops announced on October 10, 2006 that 18 of its Ohio stores were sold to rival Giant Eagle. The store in Youngstown which closed prior to 2006, was sold, expanded, and converted to Target. An additional store in Sheffield, Ohio, was sold on November 29, 2006. The store in Tallmadge, Ohio, was sold to local competitor Acme Fresh Market. On November 9 in a company press release, it was stated that all Tops stores in Northeast Ohio would close whether they have been sold or not. A store in Cleveland's Lee-Harvard Neighborhood and a store in Garfield Heights were converted to Dave's Markets, a small independently owned chain of grocery stores in Cleveland. In June, the Tops store in Cleveland Heights became a Dave's. All Northeast Ohio stores closed by 3 pm on December 8, 2006 and some remain unoccupied.
2010s
In October and November 2012, Tops closed one store and downsized a second store. The first was the Elmridge Center store in Greece, New York which closed in October 2012. Employees and customers were absorbed into other nearby locations. The Geneva, New York, store downsized and moved into the Geneva Town Centre in November 2012. This new store is a location and has upgraded departments, along with a gas station, that were not in the formerly larger location. Both of these stores had been superstores that Tops built in the early 1990s.In 2013, Tops downsized another store in the Rochester suburbs. The Jefferson Rd location in Henrietta, New York, relocated to the Frontier Commons Plaza. As a result, the store is now 55,000 square feet instead of the previous 76,000 square feet it formerly occupied. The new location also contains departments and a gas station which were not found in the former location.
In 2014, Tops downsized a store in Perinton and an Irondequoit, New York store on East Ridge Road. The Irondequoit store was relocated to the Depot Plaza, which used to be anchored by Kmart.