Supermarkets

[NewYorkYankee]

What are some supermarkets in New York? (Ones that are local and borough wide/city wide)

[BrooklynRider]

Key Food
Associated
Gristedes
Food Emporium
Pathmark
Whole Foods
If you're in its vicinity, Fairway is great.

That's my initial list. Others will add I'm, sure.

[Schadenfrau]

D'Agostino
Dean and Deluca
Zabar's
Pioneer Foods

[NewYorkYankee]

Thanks guys! I know it seemed like such a random thing to ask, but I love learning about everyday city life. There is only 1 Fairway in the UWS correct?

[BrooklynRider]

One on Broadway in the W70's. A big one on 125th Street in Harlem by Riverside Drive. A new one coming to Red Hook, Brooklyn.

[NewYorkYankee]

Oh okay :) I thought there was one near our hotel in the UWS. Are there any supermarkets close to Pace University, where I may be?

[Michi]

and near w 96th are there any supermarket? I'll be there in Riverside inn (if anyone know it, tell me how it's, thanks)..
Bye

[BrooklynRider]

Oh okay :) I thought there was one near our hotel in the UWS. Are there any supermarkets close to Pace University, where I may be?

If I am remembering right and you are at the Beekman Hotel, it is right across the street (Broadway). Citarella is up there too as is Zabars. A little pricey but cheaper than a restaurant and you can get buy a sampling of lots of stuff to nibble on.

The supermarket by Pace (Associated? Key Food?) is down on Fulton Street in the housing development by NYU Downtown Hospital.

Cheers!

[ZippyTheChimp]

I hate when businesses leave the city, but I would make an exception for Gristedes.

[NewYorkYankee]

Brooklyn, yes the BEACON hotel on 75th and Broadway. Fairway is across the street and Zabar is 5 (?) blocks up. Thanks for the info :)

[Gulcrapek]

Also Stop & Shop, which in our area replaced Edwards, which replaced Finast. Each is better than its predecessor.

And Waldbaums.

[TonyO]

NYSun
March 4, 2005

Specialty Foods Stores Will Go Head-to-Head at Union Square

BY JEREMY SMERD
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/10058

Trader Joe's, the chain of grocery stores known for discounted, high-end specialty foods, plans to open its New York City flagship store near Union Square, blocks away from a three-story, 48,000-square-foot Whole Foods store scheduled to open March 16.

The exact location of the new Trader Joe's remains unknown, though managers from Trader Joe's stores in the metropolitan area said the Monrovia, Calif., company is in negotiations to lease space from New York University.

A company spokeswoman would not comment, as a lease has not been concluded. "There is no done deal," the spokeswoman, Pat St. John, said. "We never talk about any particular location until we have a signed lease."

Managers at Trader Joe's at Long Island, who spoke on condition their names be withheld, have been told to expect a Manhattan store by this fall.

The arrival of the grocery-store chain adds to the growing number of brand name supermarkets clustering around the square and along 14th Street, which has become a magnet for food since the city launched its biweekly farmers market in 1976. The Greenmarket has become a New York City institution, widely credited for helping to rejuvenate the neighborhood.

Besides Trader Joe's and the soon-to-open Whole Foods, other supermarket chain outlets on 14th Street include Gristedes, Garden of Eden, and Food Emporium. This spring, Balducci's, another upscale market, plans to open a 20,000-square-foot store in the former New York Savings Bank at the corner of 14th Street and Eighth Avenue.

"I think there is room for everyone in the neighborhood," a marketing coordinator for Whole Foods, Angela Rakis, said.

Whole Foods, the largest seller of organic produce in the country, also plans to open a store in 2006 in the Gowanus neighborhood in Brooklyn.

News of Trader Joe's prospective arrival whetted the appetite of its loyal fans, such as Bob Plummer, who had been following rumors of the chain's possible arrival in Manhattan on the Web site chowhound.com. Mr. Plummer, who is from a suburb of Chicago, said he has been hankering for a particularly inexpensive form of truffle oil carried by Trader Joe's.

Standing outside Garden of Eden yesterday around lunchtime, Mr. Plummer also said: "I'm a huge McCann's Instant Oatmeal fan and, at Trader Joe's, it's about half the price of all the other stores around here. So if they opened around here, that'd be great."

Yesterday at Garden of Eden, Mc-Cann's Instant Oatmeal, maple sugar flavored, cost $4.75 for 15 ounces.

For those unfamiliar with Trader Joe's, such as another shopper, Jodi Frieman, certain criteria so important to those who live in Manhattan must first be met. "If it delivers, it's fine," Ms. Frieden said.

Standing with her lunch from the Garden of Eden salad bar in hand, Ms. Frieden, who works at Union Square but lives at the Upper East Side, said: "It's not about the money, it's about convenience. If it has a lunch bar, a salad bar, fine."

For deliveries, Ms. Frieden might be better off choosing FreshDirect, the online supermarket that delivers and is already trying to stave off competition from Whole Foods.

In the past 10 days, FreshDirect's "guerrilla marketers" have targeted pedestrians in front of the Whole Foods Union Square store, which is located on 14th Street across from the park, handing out flyers comparing their prices to those of Whole Foods, which has thrifty detractors who call it "Whole Paycheck."

A spokeswoman for FreshDirect, Dana Smith, said the flyers were a preemptive strike. "They are a key player in the market," Ms. Smith said of Whole Foods. "We're trying to hold our own in preparation for their opening."

The chief operating officer of Garrick-Aug, a firm specializing in retail leasing, said the neighborhood, commercially and residentially, is now one of the city's most vibrant, active seven days a week with those who work, live, and play there. The key, the executive, Peter Botsaris, said, is density.

"The density is so enormous that there are enough people to go around," Mr. Botsaris said. "In New York City, the competition is fierce, but they all seem to thrive because of the density."

Given the competition and the potential market, which includes NYU dorms for upperclassmen, managers at Trader Joe's stores in the region said the Manhattan flagship will carry one item that will be unique among the chain's other nine stores in the state: wine.

In 2002,Trader Joe's made headlines when it began selling Charles Shaw's Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot for as little as $1.99 a bottle. The exclusive deal with a Ceres, Calif., wine distributor, the Bronco Wine Company, exemplified the grocer's ability to acquire bulk quantities of high-end specialty foods and repackage the goods under the Trader Joe's brand as Trader Joe's Soy and Flaxseed Tortilla Chips or Trader Giotto's Pizza Bagels, and then sell them at low prices.

While Trader Joe's does offer organic and locally grown food, the company is less known for its fruits and vegetables. That is an area Whole Foods has dominated, much to the encouragement of those who promote the Greenmarket.

"Our feeling is there are and should be lots of models for locally grown: Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, roadside stands," the executive director of the Council on the Environment of New York City, Lys McLaughlin, said. Ms. McLaughlin's agency helps run the Greenmarket.

"To the extent these stores buy locally, it raises all boats," she said.

[I LOVE THE SOCCER]

Will be the Whole Food Union square a 24/7 supermarket?
My favourite supermarkets in NYC are: Pathmark(20 among they are 24/7 open ) and Gristede's (5 among they are 24/7 open)

[NewYorkYankee]

Fairway in the UWS is 24 hours right?

[metromade]

Fairway in the UWS is 24 hours right?

No, on weekdays it closes at 1AM. Not sure about the weekend. Check out the site: http://www.fairwaymarket.com/locations.cfm

[NewYorkYankee]

No, on weekdays it closes at 1AM. Not sure about the weekend. Check out the site: http://www.fairwaymarket.com/locations.cfm

Thank you! :)

[heypaul]

I live in Brooklyn and have been a Fairway fanatic for over 3 years. I'm there about 3 times a week loading up on their soups, Murray's free range raw chickens and chop meat. I used to live on their Shepherd's and Turkey Pies. I've been to their uptown store on 132nd Street right alongside the Hudson River. The cold room there amazes me. It is a giant refrigerated room in which meats, chicken, soups are all kept on ordinary shelves, since the entire room is refrigerated. There are jackets outside the room in case you're not dressed warm enough. They have a parking lot that is an easy on/easy off from the Henry Hudson Parkway.

Okay, now for the bad stuff. The Broadway store is a madhouse. The aisles are narrow and congestion is very common. On top of the large number of people shopping, I am always amazed to see workers in the store pushing carts loaded with stuff around. One place you can easily get maimed is the main entrance. If you dawdle near the bread, when one of the workers is bringing a dozen shopping carts in, you can be knocked over.
The sidewalk outside frequently has pallets of goods that were taken off trucks. One of my fantasies is to see them back a 40 foot trailer into the store itself.

There have been a few occasions when this mild mannered Brooklyn boy has had words with fellow shoppers. People who just appropriate the whole place for themselves.

I have often wondered how many people are injured there each day. I'm surprised that an ambulance isn't stationed outside the place. It is so congested.

I am looking forward to Fairway opening in Red Hook. I'm hoping that so few people will be able to find the store, that I'll have the whole place to myself, which is the way things should be in my life.

The check-out is usually very very fast. The prepared foods are uniformly good. Their Chicken Noodle Soup is loaded with real chicken, noodles, and carrots. I live on it.

So I guess I'm interested in hearing other people's impressions and experiences in Fairway.

[NewYorkYankee]

I went into fairway when I came up in Jan. It was right across the street from our hotel. I found it to be very crowded as well. Bit, after all, this is NYC. I didnt expect anything less, I loved it. The food we purchased was delicious and the prepared food looked great! (I didnt buy any.) They need one downtown so I can go when I move up!

[heypaul]

Oh, come on. If you're a real Fairway fanatic, no matter where it is and where you are, it's worth the trip. If I can come out of the Sheepshead Bay area of Brooklyn and go there, then you can take a short subway ride from downtown. If I was living in Tennessee, I would travel up at least once a week by Greyhound, just to load up on Fairway's stuff.

I got to tell you though, that my allegiance to Fairway may be waning. I've been to Whole Foods in the Time Warner Building and I feel like a human being there. It's huge and very attractively laid out. I've fallen for their packages of 6 huge Oatmeal Raisin cookies. Their Shepherd's Pie is much more interesting than Fairways, although it is too spicy for my bland taste.

Whole Foods has these mini shopping carts that are about half the size of a regular shopping cart. Fairway definitely needs them for their narrow aisles.

Here's a story that highlights the difference in stores. I took a package of cookies from a display and a whole bunch of packages fell to the floor. There happened to be a worker right alongside me when it happened. I started to pick the packages up and put them back on the shelves, but the worker said that he'd take care of it as it was his job. Now I honestly don't look for people to clean up after me, especially when I'm accustomed to living with crap piled up all over the place. I just wasn't accustomed to being treated like that. In fact the nice treatment depressed me, as I thrive on abuse. I went immediately to Fairway and got a large shopping cart and tried to run down a few of the upscale young urban professionals shopping there.

In fairness to the people who work at Fairway, I've never had any problems with them. It's just the miserable people who shop there, who feed my unresolved childhood anger.

[NYCResident]

I can't figure out how people can afford to regularly go to whole foods for their day to day food shopping.. I can understand picking up a few specialty items there, but their prices are easily 20-30% higher for normal groceries. But I guess this is to be expected in city where your average apt is now going for over $1MM..

I agree that the UWS Fairway is a zoo, but pricewise it beats Whole Foods hands down. Best time to go to Fairway is off hours - early in the morning or late at night to avoid the crowds..

[arbeiter]

I'm not fortunate enough to have any of the fancy places near me. There's a D'Ag's on 7th Ave in Park Slope, but D'Ags is highly overrated.

I basically just go to the Gowanus Pathmark or the Atlantic Center Pathmark, and make do. There's also a Met Foods on 5th Ave in Park Slope which isn't too bad

[TonyO]

Newsday

A grocery chain opens near a farmers market, with New York's natural foods in the balance

By SAM DOLNICK
Associated Press Writer

April 16, 2005, 10:02 AM EDT

NEW YORK -- The Greenmarket farmers at Union Square stood behind their bins of vine-ripened tomatoes and organic spinach and eyed their colossal new neighbor.

On the other side of the park, a brand-new 50,000 square-foot Whole Foods grocery store opened its doors recently, proudly displaying fresh vegetables and farm-raised chickens of its own.

With honking buses and one of the city's biggest subway stations between them, the grand opening provides an urban stage for a natural food battle between a New York institution and an international chain. The winner stands to claim New Yorkers' gastronomical appetites and wallets as the prize, but each side swears this town is big enough for both of them.

Farmers markets have flourished nationwide in the past decade, with the number of markets in the country increasing 111 percent from 1994 to 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Last year's National Farmers Market Directory counts over 3,700 across the U.S.

Charlie Touchette, executive director of the North American Farmers' Direct Marketing Association, attributed the rise to a combination of farmers looking for new income in order to survive, and consumers looking for locally produced food.

The Greenmarket Farmers Market at Union Square provides an outdoor venue for farmers within a 170-mile radius of New York City to sell their goods directly to the public. Established in 1976 by the Council on the Environment of New York City, the Union Square market sees 60,000 customers a day during its summertime peak, including many of the city's top chefs, said spokeswoman Gabrielle Langholtz. Greenmarket operates markets in 33 locations throughout the city, but Union Square is the biggest.

Whole Foods Market, a supermarket chain founded in Austin, Texas in 1980, is the self-proclaimed "world's leading retailer of natural and organic foods." It preaches freshness and sells everything from pistachios to poultry to pomegranates in 169 stores in North America and the United Kingdom. The store buys from local farms _ including farms that also sell at Greenmarket _ and imports food from vendors across the country, and the world.

The Union Square branch is their third store in New York City, with several more to open next year.

While rumblings of a corporate giant muscling in on the turf of a local competitor may sound ominous _ think of Wal-Mart's effect on mom-and-pop shops throughout the country _ Whole Foods swears it's a different kind of company.

Christina Minardi, Whole Food's regional vice president, said it works with, not against, local markets.

"We're not trying to go in and put people out of business," she said. "We're trying to partner with people. We don't look at a farmers market as competition, we look at them as really exciting and we ask what can we do with them?"

Whole Foods buys apples, pickles, milk and eggs from several Greenmarket farmers to sell in their stores, and plans to buy even more during the spring and summer.

Touchette said supermarkets like Whole Foods aren't of special concern to farmers markets.

"Competition is generally good," he said. "It makes us all better. Whether it's a farmer or a produce manager in a supermarket, you're only allowed to get away with what the competition allows you to get away with."

Most Greenmarket farmers and organizers are equally optimistic.

"We're excited that this could bring more shoppers to our area," said Gabrielle Langholtz, a Greenmarket spokeswoman. "I have no doubt that you will see lots of customers with Whole Foods shopping bags walking around the Greenmarket and lots of people with Greenmarket shopping bags walking around Whole Foods."

Product prices and quality vary widely for each Greenmarket farmer, where a quarter-pound of arugula and kale can sell for as much as $5 and as low $2. At Whole Foods, the same salad ingredients sell for $2.49 per pound.

Most of the Greenmarket farmers are confident they'll survive, but several admit they're wary.

"I wouldn't say the playing field is exactly even," said Stewart Borowsky, who for 12 years has sold wheatgrass that he grows in Brooklyn. "But my wheatgrass has traveled 16 miles, and theirs has traveled 400 miles."

[irisha]

Hi,

If you would open a supermarket, which area of Manhattan would it be in?

[NYCResident]

Hi,

If you would open a supermarket, which area of Manhattan would it be in?

Easy - downtown.. But I'm biased - I live down here. I moved here from the UWS and was spolied by Whole Foods, Fairway, Citarella, Balducci's.. Supposedly Whole Foods is going to open up down here, but earliest date would be 2007/8, if it actaully goes thru..

[billyblancoNYC]

Wall St., TriBeCa, SoHo, lower Harlem (110s or 120s) or West Midtown near the West Side Highway (but that's a little bit away, maybe).

[NYCResident]

From NYTimes..

A Destination for Serious Eating
By LISA CHAMBERLAIN

ALTHOUGH it has always had a few well-known specialty stores, downtown Manhattan has seemingly overnight become a mecca for food shopping.

Trader Joe's is close to signing a lease for space in New York University's new Palladium Complex, a mixed-use development on 14th Street near Third Avenue, according to a retail broker with knowledge of the discussions. A deal is said to be imminent after being "on ice" for months, but a spokesman for Trader Joe's would not comment on this.

If a store is opened by Trader Joe's, a California-based chain known for its high quality, unusual selection and low prices, it will be the latest in a string of new stores catering to downtown residents.

Whole Foods, which began its foray into Manhattan with a store in Chelsea four years ago, will soon have four of its five Manhattan stores south of Midtown. It recently signed a lease for a space on Warren Street in TriBeCa, not long after it announced that it would open at the new Avalon Chrystie Place development near the Bowery. Just a few weeks ago, it opened a store at Union Square, opposite the Greenmarket, Manhattan's largest, and down the street from where Trader Joe's is likely to locate. Only its store at Columbus Circle is uptown.

At the same time, Balducci's, a legendary presence in Greenwich Village that once drew busloads of tourists to ogle obscure fruits and vegetables, will reopen at 14th Street and Eighth Avenue. It closed its store at Sixth Avenue and Ninth Street in 2003. The new store, owned by the Sutton Place Group food chain, is scheduled to open in a historic bank building in the fall.

Smaller regional chains are also looking for space downtown, according to Faith Hope Consolo, chairwoman of the retail group at Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. Stew Leonard's, based in Connecticut, is looking for space in the West Village or Chelsea area, and Guido's Fresh Marketplace, based in western Massachusetts, wants about 25,000 square feet in the Financial District. "Food is the fashion of this year," Ms. Consolo said. "Last year, it was banks. Now, it's fancy food."

New stores are going downtown - and not to other areas that would seem attractive, like the Upper East Side - mainly because of space, Ms. Consolo said. New mixed-use developments are more plentiful downtown than on the Upper East Side. But even so, it's probably only a matter of time before a new fancy food purveyor moves in there, too.

With Gourmet Garage well established below 14th Street, Citarella at Sixth Avenue and Ninth Street, Jefferson Market on Sixth Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets, and a newly opened Westside Market at Seventh Avenue and 15th Street, where a conventional supermarket used to be, downtown gourmands have an array of shopping options unsurpassed anywhere in New York City.

Conventional supermarkets have neglected the city of New York, said Joanna Pruess, a food writer and author of "Supermarket Confidential: The Secrets of One-Stop Shopping for Delicious Meals." "I don't know what they were thinking, but an entire demographic was just totally ignored," she said.

Fancy food shoppers will go from ignored to courted as competitors enter the fray, based on the success of Whole Foods. The company is averaging upward of $1,500 in sales per square foot annually in its first two Manhattan stores, nearly twice its national average of $800 per square foot, according to Scott Van Winkle, a food analyst and managing director for the investment firm Adams, Harkness & Hill in Boston. The experience of Whole Foods, he said, is "proof that you can plop down a 50,000-square-foot store in Manhattan and be successful." If Trader Joe's sets up shop down the street, he said, the companies will be intense competitors.

Trader Joe's started in Southern California in 1967 and still reflects its roots, with the staff's folksy demeanor and Hawaiian print shirts. Since then, the company has grown to 234 stores in 19 states, opening its first East Coast store nine years ago, according to Audrey Dumper, a spokeswoman. The stores are typically smaller than Whole Foods and are not full-service, with no on-site butchers and bakers. But Trader Joe's competes by offering lower prices as well as distinctive private-label offerings. Passionate cooks and industry analysts alike say that Trader Joe's has some of the best buyers in the business, who scout for items like Pinjur spread - an eggplant, red pepper and garlic puree that Trader Joe's imports from Europe and sells for $1.59 a jar.

"You have the crunchy granola types and the foodies merging at Trader Joe's," Ms. Pruess said. "What you see at Whole Foods is the yuppies; they'll really buy into the expensive prepared food products. And it's much more of a one-stop-shopping destination."

While Whole Foods and Trader Joe's have peacefully coexisted in other markets because they offer complementary products and services, Mr. Van Winkle believes Trader Joe's will have to expand its mission to compete in Manhattan, a fact that Ms. Dumper acknowledges.

"The deal needs to make sense to us to keep our costs under control and still deliver a great product," she said. "We wouldn't venture from that. But we're getting much more committed to carrying basics - all the dairy things, the sugar and flour." Brokers estimate that Trader Joe's will pay around $60 a square foot for space in the Palladium Complex near Union Square.

Why it has taken so long for large fancy-food grocers to take hold in New York City is open to debate. Joe Dobrow, the vice president of marketing for Sutton Place Group, who was once head of national marketing for Whole Foods, said Whole Foods tried for years to move into the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn. "We were intimidated by the logistics," Mr. Dobrow said. "And we were working under an assumption that you need large family sizes and large basket sizes and a suburban mentality to succeed."

All of this competition has already put pressure on existing markets. "If you live on the Upper West Side and trek down to Whole Foods, your perception of food retailing has been dramatically altered," Mr. Van Winkle said. "Some may not make that trek every day, but they'll go once a week and spend $300. Other operators will have to respond."

Balducci's strategy for competing is to offer a shopping experience in a grand historic building and to take prepared foods to the next level under Katy Sparks, a well-known chef who will undertake on-site just-in-time food preparation.

"We're going to use fresh, local ingredients and prepare them for the lunch and dinner rush, just like a restaurant," Mr. Dobrow said. "This will become our signature service." The new Balducci's space has a total of about 20,000 square feet, but the retail area will be only about 8,000 square feet, with a basement-level kitchen, a mezzanine cafe and office space above that.

Even with the onslaught of competition, the market has not reached its saturation point, according to Ron Tanner, editor of Specialty Food magazine. Sales of specialty and natural foods grew by 17.9 percent in 2002-2004, he said, and he expects the growth to continue, with prepared food choices pulling people away from supermarkets, corner delis and even restaurants.

Because of the residential boom in Manhattan, "people have invested a lot of money in nice apartments with shiny new kitchens that they want to use," Mr. Tanner continued. "Stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are geared toward that. And for people who are strapped because they're house poor or mortgage poor, they may need to look at cutting back and cooking at home and still feel that they have a decent quality of life."

[krulltime]

April 24, 2005

Whole Foods nabs site for first Brooklyn store


Whole Foods is expanding to Brooklyn, with its first city store outside Manhattan.

It intends to break ground on a parcel of land at Third Street and Third Avenue, and hopes to open an outlet in 2007.

The site is situated near the Gowanus Canal, in an industrial strip between Cobble Hill and Park Slope


COPYRIGHT 2005 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC.

[TonyO]

NYTimes

Whole Foods's Wine Shop Closes at Columbus Circle

By FLORENCE FABRICANT
Published: May 24, 2005

Whole Foods Market has closed the wine shop in its store in the lower level of the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle after pleading no contest to charges from state liquor officials that it was illegally operating it in a grocery store.

Citing state law that requires wine and liquor stores to have a separate entrance at street level and prohibits them from selling food, the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control fined Whole Foods $5,000 on April 7 and gave it 30 days to sell off its stock. Whole Foods closed the shop on May 9 and surrendered its liquor license to the agency.

David Lannon, Whole Foods's Northeast regional president, said the company expected to transfer and use the surrendered license again for a wine shop occupying 4,000 to 5,000 square feet of space in the blocklong supermarket it planned to open on East Houston Street next year. State law also prohibits holders of retail liquor licenses from owning more than one store. The East Houston Street wine shop will be separate from the supermarket there, with an entrance on Chrystie Street.

Several owners of wine and liquor shops near the planned Whole Foods have asked Community Board 3 to oppose the shop before the alcohol agency. Alan Jay Gerson, the neighborhood's City Council member, said he also opposed the shop.

Anthony White, an owner of Discovery Wines at 10 Avenue A, said Whole Foods's buying power gave it an unfair advantage. "Competition is fine, but we're not happy about the way they can underprice us," Mr. White said. "We're buying cases and they're buying pallets."

Whole Foods owns 169 stores nationwide and 3 in New York City. It plans three more, including the one on East Houston Street. Mr. Lannon said the shop would not disrupt the community. "Everyplace we open we get some community opposition," he said.

Whole Foods's original application for the license for the Time Warner store did not accurately reflect the store's layout, a spokeswoman for the state agency said. But Mr. Lannon said the plans it submitted were the plans it used. Part of the reason for the ban on such shops was to keep liquor out of the hands of minors.

Whole Foods will use the space in the Time Warner store for an expanded coffee bar, a gelato counter and more checkout lines.

[TonyO]

The Real Deal

Lower East Side draws biggest Whole Foods

January 18, 1:56 pm

Avalon Chrystie Place, above, will open in March. The biggest Whole Foods in the five boroughs will open in 2007 as part of the Avalon Chrystie Place development at Houston Street and the Bowery on the Lower East Side. The rest of the development -- which includes a community center, retail space, and rental apartments -- will open by this spring, and the community center will include the only indoor swimming pool on the Lower East Side. The approximately $14 million center, which is connected to the rental part of the development and not to the retail space, will operate through a partnership of nonprofits University Settlement Society of New York and the YMCA. AvalonBay, a national REIT specializing in rental development, provided about $10 million for the center as part of its bid with the city to build on the site.

[MrSpice]

Eli's Vinegar Factory on Upper East Side:

http://www.elismanhattan.com/vinegar.html

[antinimby]

Where is Whole Foods based out of?

[TonyO]

Where is Whole Foods based out of?

Austin, TX.

[Scruffy88]

You want a good supermarket, go to Western Beef. They are spread throughout the 5 boros. Good large fruits and vegetables sections, the regular marketfair is normal but the meats, fish, and poultry are unsurpassed in quality and price. Started shopping there a few years ago and if i could help it have tried not to go anywhere else since

[stache]

^ Everybody's a comedian...

[TonyO]

NY Times
March 18, 2006

A Tiki Room With Aisles of Discounts Makes Its City Debut

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/03/18/nyregion/18trader650.2.jpg
The foodies lined up for the premiere of Trader Joe's, which opened 10 minutes early.

By ANTHONY RAMIREZ

New York City — sharp-elbowed metropolis of ambition — was having a nice day yesterday. Trader Joe's, a California-based grocer of antic charm and discount prices, opened its first store in the city, in Union Square, to the giddy excitement of the long-since converted and a few startled novices.

A store is a store, and Manhattan has plenty of them: specialty foods, discount foods and everything in between, from caviar emporiums to Bangkok grocers. But foodies have been looking forward to Trader Joe's for weeks, and while the crush may soon lessen, the crowd was cheek-by-jowl for opening day. Everyone was happy, for 40 minutes at least.

Under sunny skies, scores of Trader Joe's fans lined up on East 14th Street an hour before the store's scheduled opening at 9 a.m. They smiled at television camera crews and bounced up and down on the balls of their feet. Some begged for the store to begin business early. It did, by 10 minutes.

But this being New York, with lines for the cash registers already snaking around the store, an annoyed middle-aged woman bellowed to those in front of her — at 9:30 a.m., to be precise — "So, you going to move or what?"

And thus the day went, Manhattan impatience mixed with dried hibiscus flowers, a specialty sweet of Trader Joe's. "It's my favorite store in the world," declared Barry Lapidus, 47, a freelance writer in Brooklyn. "I used to take a train and a bus for two and a half hours to the Trader Joe's in Hartsdale" in Westchester County.

Why?

"Why?" he exclaimed. "They have the best minestrone soup and egg rolls. The egg rolls are better than you can get in a Chinese restaurant."

Loni Sherman, a retired food-service manager who lives nearby in Peter Cooper Village, said her friends were planning a Trader Joe's party, at which mass quantities of Trader Joe's products would be consumed at will.

Steven Arvanites, 40, a Manhattan screenwriter, had never been to a Trader Joe's. "This is like a designer Costco," he said.

Trader Joe's built its reputation, in part, on Two Buck Chuck, a wine that sells for $1.99 a bottle in most places, but costs more on the East Coast. (The nearby wine shop is still being built and will open soon.)

Shoppers love the prices. "Daffodils, $1.49; I'm saving a buck," said Dr. Jacqueline Stevens, a physician who lives on the Upper East Side.

Of course, not everything at Trader Joe's is inexpensive. The organic free-range chicken costs $2.49 a pound, or $12.33 for a whole chicken. Walnut halves, for tossed salads, cost $5.29 a pound.

The Union Square store is the 253rd of a chain based in Monrovia, Calif., that has spread to 19 states. The original Trader Joe was Joe Coulombe, who started a chain of convenience stores called Pronto Markets in the Los Angeles area.

By the 1960's, he expanded the stores' offerings and emphasized in-store labels (more than 80 percent of its products are now Trader Joe-related brands) and health foods.

Mr. Coulombe, who sold the company, introduced a tiki-room theme, with employees wearing Hawaiian shirts and leis. The chain is now owned by the two billionaires who own the Aldi Group, a food conglomerate in Essen, Germany.

Doug Rauch, Trader Joe's president, said yesterday that the chain had long had its eye on the city. But it was hard to find a spot with high foot traffic that would also not charge ruinously high rent, Mr. Rauch said. Trader Joe's, however, found an agreeable landlord in New York University.

"We were able to work out a deal with N.Y.U. that made sense for them and made sense for us," Mr. Rauch said. "It's a deal that allows us to have the same prices here that we have everywhere else on the East Coast. We haven't raised our prices a nickel for Manhattan." Trader Joe's plans other stores soon in the city, if it can find equally agreeable landlords.

John Beckman, a spokesman for N.Y.U., said the university is charging market rent for Palladium Hall, where Trader Joe's 12,000-square-foot store is located. He declined to be more specific. But, he added, "We wanted to add luster to the Union Square neighborhood."

One thing worrying shoppers yesterday is where Trader Joe's could find friendly clerks in flinty Manhattan.

Jennifer Swanhart, 32, a Trader Joe's clerk, commutes for an hour from Brewster, N.Y., more than 45 miles away, to work in Union Square. Finding suitable Manhattan employees will not be hard, she said, because "there are nice people everywhere."

Frank Iacovello, a senior clerk, noted there is a store dress code. "Anybody who likes to wear a Hawaiian shirt is going to be cool," he said.

Rachel Metz contributed reporting for this article.

[ablarc]

I wear Hawaiian shirts. Will I be mistaken for a clerk?

[MrSpice]

The last time I saw lines like that was in Russia in the early 90s. It's kind of strange to see this kind of excitement about a small grocery store.

[TLOZ Link5]

I wear Hawaiian shirts. Will I be mistaken for a clerk?

Would you rather be mistaken for that or for a tourist?

[ablarc]

The last time I saw lines like that was in Russia in the early 90s.
Those lines were out of necessity.


It's kind of strange to see this kind of excitement about a small grocery store.
This line is out of enthusiasm.

[TonyO]

NY Sun

Whole Foods Bowery Is Proud of Its Meet Market

BY ANNIE KARNI - Staff Reporter of the Sun
July 17, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/58574


Mulling a rack of beefsteak tomatoes at Whole Foods Bowery, Vanessa Rodriguez, a slender 31-year-old woman with light brown hair hanging to her waist, removed her ear-buds as a young man sidled up to her to inquire if the produce was organic. When he followed up with a request for her phone number, she told him politely that the tomatoes were for dinner with her boyfriend.

It wasn't the first time she had fended off an approach while grocery shopping at the Whole Foods on Bowery and Houston Street, she said.

Over samples of aged Gouda and amid aisles of extra-virgin olive oil, New Yorkers shopping at Whole Foods Bowery are turning the grocery into a thriving pick-up scene. The gelato bar, the upstairs café, the chilled, private cheese room, and long checkout lines are where flirting is most rampant in the 71,000-square-foot store that opened last March, Whole Foods employees said.

"I noticed this man come up to me when I was standing in line," a tall, blonde, 22-year-old student who lives in NoLIta, Marya Spence, said. "He opened the door for me as I was leaving and asked me, ‘Is this the exit for the beautiful girls?' He was maybe 40, so it just wasn't a match."

While many pick-up lines fall flat, single shoppers said the floodlit aisles provide a "safer" space to start up conversations with strangers than most bars in the neighborhood. Peeking into each other's grocery carts, they said, could also be more revealing of a person's lifestyle choices than an online profile on a social networking or dating Web site.

"I'm really health conscious," a 28-year-old singer in the band edible red, Collette McLafferty, said. "I want to date health conscious people, and that could be why Whole Foods seems like a good place to meet people."

After chatting with an attractive man at Whole Foods two nights ago but forgetting his name, Ms. McLafferty, who lives on the Lower East Side, posted a message on Craigslist looking to reconnect with him.

"He had dark, curly brown hair, blue eyes, he was well built, probably about 5-feet-10," she said. She is waiting for a response to her posting, she said. Ms. McLafferty, who said she has often been approached by shoppers who comment on the tattoo of a dragon around her upper arm, added that flirting was easy at Whole Foods because of low expectations. "When you go out with the intention of meeting someone, you never meet anyone," she said.

Singles in New York City have a harder time meeting people than in other cities, a doctor and relationship counselor, James Walkup, told The New York Sun. "The stress level here is higher, and people don't take their time to slow down enough to really make connections," Dr. Walkup said.

New Yorkers with little leisure time are using their time running errands to meet each other, he added.

"I make eyes at people," a 27-year-old actor who lives near South Street Seaport, Ari Rossen, said. "It's a hip neighborhood, everyone who shops here is young, and there are plenty of things around to talk about."

Whole Foods Bowery is actively boosting its reputation as a place for singles to meet, a spokeswoman for the store, Rebecca Ulanoff, said. In August, the store is hosting "Check Out," a singles night co-sponsored by the Web site Gothamist.com. The store is also hoping to attract a fashion-forward, eco-friendly crowd tomorrow morning when it sells Anya Hindmarch shopping totes printed with the message: "I'm Not a Plastic Bag."

"I think it's all a hoot," Ms. Ulanoff said of the store's reputation as pick-up scene. "I've been told that I was pretty when I was walking through the store."

Still, the café's no-alcohol policy puts a damper on how far any flirtations could go, a 23-year-old actor who lives in the East Village, Jacob Pinion, said.

Some shoppers say they avoid the pick-up scene. "I definitely notice it, but I've never done it," Nick Dee, 25, who lives in Williamsburg, said. "I've heard, ‘So you like tomatoes, too?' at the salad bar. I think it's actually pretty lame."

[TonyO]

NY Times
September 15, 2007

Gristedes, a Familiar New York Supermarket Brand, Dwindles

By ANTHONY RAMIREZ
On a recent afternoon at the Gristedes supermarket on a corner of Greenwich Village, the “Welcome to Your Gristedes” sign listing store hours and services was missing many letters, including the “c” in “service.”

The seven aisles were not fully stocked, the juice section was half empty. The linoleum floor in front of the brown-and-serve sausages case had a gash the size of a basketball. There was only one customer, a white-haired woman pushing a shopping cart with effort.

Nathan Rodriguez, the manager of the store, at Hudson and Bank Streets, said sales had been declining “little by little for about a year.” He expressed no surprise that it was one of the stores that management was considering closing.

“Happens all the time,” said Mr. Rodriguez, 55.

Indeed, the number of Gristedes stores has dropped from 78 a decade ago to 39 today (35 stores are in Manhattan), as a once familiar New York City name continues to recede. Most recently, the Gristedes at Central Park West and 62nd Street shut.

Lawrence Sarf, the president of F & D Reports, a retail consulting company in Great Neck, N.Y., that follows the supermarket business, said in an interview that Gristedes would probably eventually shrink to 25 stores.

Yet John Catsimatidis, chairman of Gristedes Supermarkets Inc., has a surprising message: he has no intention of leaving the supermarket business. The reason is oil.

Mr. Catsimatidis is also the sole owner and chief executive of the Red Apple Group, of which Gristedes is a part. It has interests in real estate, aviation and United Refining, a petroleum facility in Warren, Pa., that provides gasoline for nearly 400 gas stations and, as Mr. Catsimatidis puts it, meets “petroleum needs for between Buffalo and Pittsburgh.” Of the privately owned Red Apple’s $3.7 billion in annual revenue, only $250 million, or less than 7 percent, comes from Gristedes, which is all of its supermarket business.

“If Gristedes had to live on its own,” Mr. Catsimatidis said, “it would be very hard. But Red Apple Group is a very strong entity.”

Mr. Catsimatidis, 59, got his start in business when, at 22, he bought his first Red Apple supermarket, at 87th Street and Broadway, with money he borrowed from his father. By 1986, his company was big enough to buy 36 Gristedes Brothers Supermarkets, making it the largest chain in the city, with 75 stores.

“The problem in New York City is you’re going to be left with no supermarkets” because of the rise in basic costs, like rent, he said.

Gourmet stores can simply charge more, he said, but traditional markets get excoriated for price increases. “Shopping at Whole Foods goes hand in hand with paying $7,000 rent for a two-bedroom apartment.”

D’Agostino, Morton Williams Associated Markets, Food City Markets, C-Town, Pioneer and Food Emporium have all trimmed stores, and A.&P. left altogether.

Competition is keen. Gourmet stores like Balducci’s, Citarella, Fairway and Whole Foods steal away well-heeled customers, and new stores like Trader Joe’s attract specialty shoppers. Even drug stores and delicatessens carry supermarket products like cereal and paper towels. And online grocery services, like Fresh Direct, have peeled away yet more shoppers.

Rising rents, especially in the most prosperous neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, cut already thin profits at traditional supermarkets. Mr. Sarf, the retail consultant, said the monthly rent at a supermarket in Gramercy Park recently quadrupled, to $120 a square foot from $30.

Supermarket profits 10 years ago, before the real-estate boom, were high, Mr. Catsimatidis said, exceeding 10 cents on the dollar. Now, profits are down to 3 or 4 cents on the dollar.

“People complain supermarkets are too expensive,” Mr. Catsimatidis said. “You have to laugh. We’re not making the bottom line, and people complain we’re too expensive.”

The ideal size for a city supermarket like Gristedes, he said, is 9,000 to 12,000 square feet, big enough to have wide selection but not so big as to have a crippling rent bill. (Gristedes stores range from about 4,000 to about 20,000 square feet.)

The recently shuttered Central Park West store was 3,200 square feet, too small in Mr. Catsimatidis’s view.

When it closed on Aug. 3, several New York Times readers posted critical comments on the City Room blog (nytimes.com/cityroom). A reader using the name Amy wrote on Aug. 6: “All Gristedes are overpriced and disgusting. Does anyone really care that they’re closing?”

Asked to respond, Mr. Catsimatidis said: “Do we give up the location or do we charge more for the product? Sometimes you give up the location.”

As for the Gristedes store at Hudson and Bank Streets, Howard Buck, a retired real estate investor who said he has shopped there for decades, said he would miss the store.

“If this closes, it’ll be another restaurant,” Mr. Buck said, theatrically rolling his eyes. “That’s exactly what this neighborhood needs.”

Mary Reinholz contributed reporting.

[ManhattanKnight]

^That Gristedes has been a dump for many, many years -- even before it became a Gristedes. Since a pretty decent D'Ags is a short block away, I'm surprised that it has managed to linger even this long.

[bigkdc]

This is just the invisible hand of the free market doing its job. That location can't support a grocery store given competition in the area and fresh direct so it should close. From the sounds of it, the store is probably losing a lot of money so clealy inefficient from all perspectives.

And I don't think anyone in that neighborhood will complain as it is kind of an eye sore since its such a dump and there are good alternatives nearby.

[undertoes]

What the hell's with this Trader's Joe? I see people riding the subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn carrying these bags, it can't be that good

[TonyO]

What the hell's with this Trader's Joe? I see people riding the subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn carrying these bags, it can't be that good

TJ's is a discount, specialty foods store. They have a big following because of the quality of what they sell and the prices they sell at. It's a store for foodies who are price conscious.

[Front_Porch]

Sad that the Gristede's on CPW went away, it was actually a quite nice little store -- better than any other Gristedes I have been in, and easy to get in and out of. Killed by Whole Foods is my guess.

[Ninjahedge]

Which is odd, because it IS quite expensive (compared to normal foods that is).

You can get a lot more specialized foods (like a pretty good brand of premade Indian side-dishes, seasoned fish, mexican food, etc etc).

You go there when you want to find something odd for less than what Amish or comparable places will sell them for.

[MidtownGuy]

For about a year and a half I have been going to Astoria for my groceries. It is a hassle for sure, but the combination of reaasonably priced large supermarkets and smaller specialty shops means I get everything I need within a few block's. The price difference from Manhattan is staggering.
One of my least favorites is Food Emporium. Have you seen what they charge for tomatoes? My God! It's about 3 times what you should be paying.
Manhattan stores gas up the prices because Manhattan people will pay anything, if those tomatoes starting rotting on the shelves the prices might come down a bit.

[Ninjahedge]

MTG - You could also go to Flushing to get some decent prices on stuff.

Thing is, their markets are not the cleanest of clean. they are pretty fresh and definitely cheap though (Queens Chinatown).

[NoyokA]

Or go to 96th Street. Theres some great supermarkets up there, Associated and C-Town to name two. If you're by an express i'd recommend going to pathmark at 125th.

[Front_Porch]

but how do you shop on 96th or Astoria and drag the groceries back without them suffering from being out of refrigeration for an hour?

do you just not buy meat or milk?

I go to Chelsea Market when I can, but I only buy meat I'm going to cook that night, and I don't buy dairy at Ronnybrook because I'm afraid the heat will degrade it by the time I get back to midtown.

ali r.

[NoyokA]

That's a good question. I haven't ventured uptown yet to get my groceries, I'm just remembering when I lived in Carnegie Hill and groceries were much cheaper there. If I would make this trip it would be atmost once a week, I'm thinking of either getting one of those metal strollers that you only seen old-people with, or a large insulated bag which I currently have. There's no question this will hurt my image, but whocares when the savings are sometimes 50% or more.

[Ninjahedge]

Answer:

Pack cold things together.

You will not be able to get Ice Cream or any real perishables that way, but I was able to shop at a cheaper suburban grocery when I was visiting my parents on the weekend a LONG time ago.

Frozen Pasta was finicky in that the ravioli would tend to weld themselves together if you partially defrosted them and refroze, but most other things held together well for at least 30 min.

But, you get a good backpack, put the OJ and milk in it, you could probably put the perishables in there with them. Heck, deliberately pack a frozen cooler brick with you on the way up and use it to help keep things cool on the way home!

You just have to stick to things that you know would be safe for the trip.

Buy the B+J's at your local grocer!! ;)

[Front_Porch]

Ninjah, helpful as always. :)

[Front_Porch]

Ninjah, helpful as always!

[Ninjahedge]

You learn from experience.

All raw meats need an extra plastic bag, and make sure none "escaped" in transit (one load of chicken stayed in my trunk for a week. I had to tear-gas my car to get rid of the smell!!!!).

Anyway, I hope it helps!

[MidtownGuy]

MTG - You could also go to Flushing to get some decent prices on stuff.

I have to admit, I've never been to Flushing. I have to go check it out.


If you're by an express i'd recommend going to pathmark at 125th.

I used to go there. It's big and good for bargains. I guess I started going to Astoria instead because of the specialty foods I pick up in the neighborhood like some mediterranean specialty foods and good cheap vegetables.
It's all in a 3 block radius just 1 block from the N stop so it isn't too bad.


do you just not buy meat or milk?
Nope, no meat because I'm a vegetarian, and milk or ice cream I just buy here in my neighborhood. Other things last fine on the 20 minute ride from Astoria back to east midtown.

Another bonus I get by doing it in Queens: There is a diner on 30th that has the most delicious food!! I go there for lunch before hitting the grocery store. The first time I went, I thought I stepped into a glorious time warp or something... for a Manhattanite the food seemed to be priced at 1985 levels :eek: Now the waitresses know me in there, and I think they would be shocked if they knew I come all the way from Manhattan for that delicious eggplant parmigiana. Less than 10 dollars for a 3 course meal, I leave stuffed like a turkey and it keeps me from buying too much needless crap at the supermarket.

[TonyO]

I've never been to an Amish Market, any thoughts?

September 20, 2007 Edition > Section: Real Estate > Printer-Friendly Version

Amish Markets Spread As Owners Plan 13 More Stores

BY BRADLEY HOPE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
September 20, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/63031

The city will soon be awash in Amish Markets if a plan by the grocery chain's three owners comes to fruition.

The Amish Fine Foods company has seen strong growth over the last three years and is aiming to open 13 more stores in the metropolitan region within three to four years, bringing the number of locations to 30, a co-owner, Sean Eren, said yesterday.

The latest addition will be a 20,000-square-foot market at the East Coast building in the Long Island City section of Queens.

"Thank God, we are doing well," Mr. Eren, who is from Turkey, said. "We plan to expand throughout the region."

Only six of the chain's stores are called Amish Market, but Amish Fine Foods also owns several other higher end grocery stores, including Zeytuna and Zeytinia, that will soon be renamed to include the Amish Market moniker. Mr. Eren, who said he wants people to be able to connect with the brand on a wider level, said the company took in about $10 million in sales last year.

Like Mr. Eren, the other two owners are from Turkey. The chain's name comes from the original store, Amish Farmers Market, which bought all of its produce from Amish farms in Pennsylvania, Mr. Eren said. Eventually the store, which was founded in 1991, expanded and began offering different products, but the name stuck. The stores still carry many products from Amish sellers in Lancaster, Pa., Mr. Eren said.

The growth of Amish Fine Foods comes at a time when traditional supermarkets like Gristedes are losing market share to big name chains such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.

"The lower-end grocery stores are old, even unappealing," an executive vice president at Robert K. Futterman & Associates, David Rosenberg, said. "Meanwhile, the consumer expectation level is greater and broader from the scope of products. These specialty and higher end stores have a fresh look, a fresh appeal."

And with rents rising for commercial property and competition intense not only from stores like Amish Market but also Rite Aid and Duane Reade, the traditional grocery store is being pushed out, Mr. Rosenberg said.

Another co-owner of Amish Fine Foods, David Selek, said the company is paying more attention to marketing and appearance to stay competitive.

"We are presenting the merchandise in a different way, focusing on our Mediterranean background," he said. "I think the customers' standards are getting higher."

The company also has expanded into New Jersey and upstate New York, though the owners say they want to expand more into the boroughs outside Manhattan. No store has yet opened in Brooklyn, but the company is actively looking for opportunities.

The chain also is trying to build up customers by offering products that cater to smaller niches within the city. For example, all the stores will soon have a gluten- and wheat-free aisle.

"A lot of people are allergic," Mr. Eren said. "Those people add up."

September 20, 2007 Edition > Section: Real Estate > Printer-Friendly Version

[Ninjahedge]

I will have to get teh name of the supermarket we go to when we are in town, but it is right next door to a good set of restaurants too (Pho Bang I think, and two others. One place serves a tasty Roti Canai, although as a vegan, you might not be able to eat that sauce, I do not know...)

Ah, I think it is in Elmherst, but I can't seem to get the address. I will have to ask the wife.

But both are good!

Back to work!

[czsz]

Eh, I'm not sure I would ever make the trip to Queens or far uptown for groceries. Something about fresh food and the atmosphere of the subway doesn't quite gel for me.

The exception might be the Fairway at 136th...it's even worth the (sometimes necessary) cab ride home!