Special Report: Wegmans - Astor Place, Manhattan, NY

Wegmans

Opened: October 18, 2023

Previous Tenants: John Wannamaker's > Kmart (1996-2021)

Location: 770 Broadway, East Village, Manhattan, NY

Photographed: October 18, 2023

This is it, folks. The most anticipated and celebrated grocery grand opening in several years, here in New York City. The story first broke in 2021 that a grocer had signed a lease for the Astor Plaza Kmart, taking up just under 90,000 square feet of space on two floors. The 87,000 square foot store opened its doors to the public today, at 9AM, to enormous crowds. You can see my pre-opening coverage here.

I visited the store around 2:00 to find it still packed, with an unbelievable number of Wegmans managers, employees, and all-around representatives around the store. A man with a very high-tech video camera was apparently filming a commercial or some other form of promotion. So let's tour this phenomenal supermarket!

This, by the way, is the largest supermarket in Manhattan, and one of the largest in the whole city. We enter to the food court area, beginning with bakery. Bakery takes up the left side of the first-floor food hall, with prepared foods in the center island and the right side. Then we can descend to the lower floor, with a produce department in the center. In the back on the right side, we move through meat and seafood; on the left side, dairy and frozen. Deli and cheese are in the middle of the basement.

The store contains a standard Wegmans base decor package, but it has been beautifully adapted to New York City. We'll see specific examples soon. The large bakery is the stunning entrance to the store, with bulk cookies at the front and various counters for cakes, pastries, breads, and more behind that.

I hope my pictures, too, capture a bit of how busy the store was!

Let's take a walk around the prepared foods island in the first-floor food hall. Packaged prepared foods are on the front, with the checkouts beyond them...

An enormous sushi counter takes up not one but two sides of the food hall island. This store features something I can't say I've ever seen before -- fish flown in fresh from Japan twice a week.

Each prepared foods option is set up as a combination service counter and grab-and-go. It looks like you could order customizations or just take something premade.

Pizza and several other prepared foods options are on the right side of the food hall. Self-serve food bars are in the middle.

After several years of Wegmans streamlining or reducing prepared foods options -- mostly as a result of the coronavirus -- this store represents a major expansion of prepared foods options. And notice that the department signs here are made to resemble subway signs. I love it!

Pizza on the outside wall seemed to be moving quickly. Their pizza better be pretty darn good for these New Yorkers, but it looked excellent.

Mezze and Asian selections up next around the perimeter.

And here we see where we return to the bakery area, as we complete our circuit around the food hall.

The bakery was truly spectacular, with an unbelievable selection of beautiful breads.

New York City, of course, is home to wonderful bread all over, but this was truly an incredibly impressive selection all in one place.

Looking back over towards the entrance and the front of the food hall.

At the back of the food hall, we're headed downstairs to the main grocery store area...

And what a view we have upon descending into the basement supermarket!

The produce department is another spectacular department -- one of the largest in New York City, I'd have to assume. The selection is unbelievable, too, with a huge assortment of all kinds of produce including organic choices all over the place.

Let's move on to the enormous meat department! Again, the service department is in an island with the packaged items around the outside.

A massive service counter faces a huge case of packaged meats. Things brings me to a key point about this store. Although it's impressive by any standards, I'm not sure if people who are unfamiliar with New York City can truly grasp what a game-changer this store is for Manhattan, where I would estimate the average supermarket is close to 15,000 square feet -- not 90,000.

Fish takes up another island between meat and deli, with an incredible selection along with the specialized items coming in from Japan.

There are enormous selections of packaged fish on the back of the service island.

Let's head back and take a closer look at the produce department. The wooden beams are not unlike what we see in stores like Food Bazaar, and not something I've seen in other Wegmans. That's one of many ways I think this store has created a new, fresh New Yorky decor package.

The selection is truly more expansive than anything else I've seen in New York City, and even in many places elsewhere. I'd be hard-pressed to think of another place with this broad of a produce selection.

Moving on to dairy and frozen...

We pass through an area with two freight elevators opposite the eggs, and then onto frozen foods...

I assume it goes without saying that every fixture in the place is brand-new. Absolutely everything is.

Here's a look (and more here), by the way, at what the Kmart looked like when it was in business. And we can see below where frozen foods meet the grocery aisles -- a surprisingly small (for Wegmans -- still quite large) area -- behind the escalators.

A look at the enormous natural foods section, with freezer cases filled with everything from vegan ice creams to gluten free pizza crusts.

The grocery aisles are split in half front-to-back. There's actually a very large HABA selection here, something we're not accustomed to seeing in New York City.

Look at this giant aisle of seltzer!

Notice that there are no aisle markers here because of the relatively low ceilings in the basement; instead, the shelves are marked with category signs like those below.

Beyond the grocery aisles, we're circling back around to the other side of the escalator to deli and cheese. There is an island -- seen below -- with nothing but blocks of parmesan cheese. A man was doing nothing behind that counter except cutting wheels of parmesan into wedges.

But that's not the main cheese department, which is opposite on the wall under the escalators seen to the left above. Opposite that is a gorgeous deli...

And, of course, the main cheese service counter!

Cold cuts are beyond the deli department, leading back over into produce.

Here's an overview of the deli department.

And let's take one more look over the entrance to the basement before we head upstairs to move along...

A long walkway lined with single-serve refrigerated beverages leads us to the registers. There are around 40 (!!) self checkouts, with maybe 10 staffed checkouts.

As we can see, the front-end (this is just one of three rows of checkouts) is built for major volume but small orders, which sounds about right for New Yorkers.

And this store is getting a lot of buzz. Between enormous press coverage as listed in yesterday's post, unending social media discussion, and even TV coverage on local stations, everyone's talking about it. Here's where the store borders the Astor Place subway station, although there's no entrance from underground.

Speaking of people talking... this brings us to the big question. What are customers thinking about the store? Well... let's see what they have to say! Here's what some told me on opening day.

Market Report Media · Wegmans Astor Place Reaction