TOPS Markets tops the list for shoppers in Buffalo, New York. The regional supermarket chain operates about 130 company-owned and five franchised stores under the TOPS Friendly Markets banner in upstate New York, including the Rochester and Syracuse areas, and northern Pennsylvania. TOPS Markets doubled in size in 2010 as a result of its purchase of 79 stores in four states from bankrupt rival Penn Traffic. The acquisition gave TOPS more stores in New York and Pennsylvania. (It sold or closed the stores Penn Traffic stores in Vermont and New Hampshire.)TOPS Markets is owned by the private equity unit of Morgan Stanley, which purchased the chain in 2007 from Dutch grocery operator Royal Ahold.
The story of TOPS began in the early 1920s when Ferrante Castellani and his family moved from a village outside of Rome, Italy to Niagara Falls, NY, where they opened their first grocery store. Ferrante’s sons, Armand and Alfred, eventually took over the business and opened two more stores under the name Great Bear Market.