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Special Report: Foodtown - Staten Island, NY

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By Zachary
Foodtown of Clove Road
Opened: April 2025
Owner: David Shehadeh
Previous Tenants: Mignosi's Supermarket > Olive Tree Marketplace
Cooperative: Allegiance Retail Services
Location: 1490 Clove Rd, Staten Island, NY
Photographed: May 8, 2025
At least three supermarkets on Staten Island have recently changed their name. In Rossville, a longtime Mignosi's Supermarket became an Ideal Fresh in 2022 and just held its grand reopening after an extensive renovation. In Rosebank, a Top Tomato became a Food Dynasty after a sale and also just completed a big remodel. And here in Rosebank, the Olive Tree Marketplace became a Foodtown in mid-April. But as we'll see, this unfortunately didn't come with a major renovation.
I'm not sure of this store's entire history, but for a long time, it was a Mignosi's, founded by the family that now runs the Foodtown in East Stroudsburg (but who later sold it). In 2014, it was taken over by the Shehadeh family and reopened as an Olive Tree Marketplace affiliated with Key Food. Olive Tree left Key Food a bit after that, becoming an independent and then joining Shop Fair. If I'm not mistaken, upon leaving Shop Fair, Olive Tree then joined the Associated Supermarket Group, and at some point in either 2023 or 2024 left that group to join Allegiance Retail Services, the cooperative behind Foodtown and other stores. Last month, the store officially switched from Olive Tree Marketplace to Foodtown. Exterior signage was updated, but not all of it -- as you can see in the above pictures, there are still several references to Olive Tree on the signage. On the back of the store facing the parking lot, Olive Tree logos still show up on some of the posters, and the Olive Tree Marketplace sign above the entrance has had its logo removed so it now simply says Marketplace with an empty oval sign frame (which you can see below).
Yet more branding confusion shows up at the entrance: the signs on the doors themselves welcome customers to Olive Market.
Inside, the store has barely changed at all, although it's been reset and looks better than it did in its Olive Tree days. Still, that may change over time, if it was simply cleaned up for the grand opening of Foodtown, which happened in mid-April.
A different Shehadeh had owned a Foodtown in Howard Beach, Queens, that switched to Shop Fair after about a year and then closed shortly thereafter. It's now a furniture store. As far as I know, no other Shehadehs have connections to Allegiance, and their other stores in Brooklyn have switched from Shop Fair to Associated. (This store, in Bay Ridge, is now a CTown after originally opening as an Associated, then becoming a Key Food, then an Associated again, then Olive Tree, then an unrelated dollar store, and then a new Associated and then CTown under new ownership.)
One notable change at the back of the store is that part of the deli counter has been replaced with an upright refrigerator, now holding packaged cheeses.
This section to the right on the back wall was originally seafood and sushi, then became an extension of the deli counter. Now, it's an extension of the dairy department, which runs down the last aisle.
It's hard to tell for sure, but it looks like Foodtown here is shooting right down the middle as a fully mainstream supermarket. When Olive Tree first opened, it was much more gourmet-angled. And for clarity, since I know it's complicated with a lot of different stuff I've mentioned so far: ownership didn't change at this store at any point, and it's been under the same owners since 2014. The switch from Olive Tree to Foodtown was purely a change of brand.
And for all my nitpicking about history here, today this store is quite clean and well-maintained, and it seems to be a perfectly viable local supermarket.
Frozen foods and beer in the front corner...
This store has a small walk-in beer cooler with sliding doors, which you can see above. And a look at the front-end, where the aisle markers are still branded Olive Tree...
Doesn't it seem like, if you're going to go to the trouble of holding a grand opening under a new brand, you'd spring for a couple new signs to actually remove all of the old brands inside and outside? The aisle markers, for instance, have Foodtown decals over the Olive Tree logo, and that would be sufficient. I would think you'd want to avoid drawing attention to the old brand. But we'll see what happens in the future. To be honest, I definitely didn't expect this store to make it as long as it has, especially given that both other Olive Tree locations closed rather quickly after opening. Still, all the best to them -- even if there are a few things I would've done differently. Check out this weekend's other posts here!
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