Polmart Post Office

Polishing Off Another Superlative
Polmart Post Office, New Britain

In a sense, we could find infinite things that are only in Connecticut. Like, “only Whole Foods that used to be a Wild Oats that’s only a mile or two away from two other Whole Foods” (West Hartford) or “Only town that is shaped like a wallaby” (New Haven). We can just make up stuff all day long.

So this one… that is published elsewhere in at least two places I can think of… isn’t much different. But there it is, right on the City of New Britain’s Little Poland page:

Polmart is the largest Polish themed store on the East Coast.

No, no, not that. We don’t do “largest on the east coasts” here. Not good enough for CTMQ. Gotta do more to impress me, Polmart.

The building houses a bakery, grocery store, deli, hair salon, day spa, retail store, and a fully functioning U.S. Post Office branch. It is the only one in the United States with the word “POCZTA” greeting customers as you enter. (Poczta is Polish for “Post”).

Ooookaaaay. So it’s the only Polish post office in the United States? I can work with that. It’s just weird and ridiculous enough for me visit Polmart, poke around, and mail myself a card. How many of you can say you’ve used the only Polish post office in the country?

The Little Poland section of New Britain certainly deserves a page unto itself. It is a unique part of Connecticut for sure. And it’s certainly not just restaurants and Polmart. Oh no, travel agencies, salons, butchers… pretty much everything. And everything is in Polish. In fact, some of the post office signage here at the Polmart Polish Post Office are the almost the only English words I saw in the entire store.

I’m not sure what else to say here though. It’s a store with a little bit of everything. I felt like a creeper; walking back and forth down the cramped aisles trying to surreptitiously snap a few photos. I definitely got some looks, and I’m sure that after I left without having bought anything, people talked.

Well, to those people, this is why I was there:

(I do wonder how accurate Google translate is…)

So there you have it. A visit to the only Polish Post Office in these United States of America. I assume there are a ton of Spanish Post Offices, and probably some French ones in northern Vermont and Louisiana. And maybe some Navajo and other native language post offices. But only one Polish Post Office, right here on Broad Street in beautiful downtown New Britain.

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