Food Bazaar Supermarket
Opened: September 20, 2024
We're coming up on a year that Food Bazaar has owned the store in downtown Hempstead, and some major work is underway to make it more like a Food Bazaar than a repainted Stop & Shop -- which is how it mostly looked when I last visited. You can see evidence of the renovations almost immediately upon entering the store, with some new fixtures going into the produce department and some ceiling work still ongoing.
A refrigerator has been added to the front of the produce department, blocking what used to be a pass-through to the front end. (Check out the Stop & Shop before it closed here.) As you can see, Stop & Shop was in way over their head in this location. It's not that big -- just under 70,000 square feet -- but in a 2020 remodel, they actually reduced the size of the sales floor, chopping off the last several aisles and building a half-wall to close that area. Even despite that change, the store had lots of empty space. Food Bazaar has taken out that wall and reopened the last few aisles. More on that shortly.
The rest of the grand aisle mostly hasn't changed, other than the work you can see ongoing with the ceiling. The lighting appears to be temporary and the refrigeration units are new. As you can see in some of the above pictures, glass panels have been added to close in the refrigerated areas. You can get a rough idea of what this will eventually be like by checking out the Fairfield Avenue store in Bridgeport, CT, also a former Stop & Shop with a very similar layout.
Glad to see that the deli is no longer simply the del...
It wouldn't surprise me if Food Bazaar shrinks the deli slightly to accommodate a larger seafood department, but there's definitely some work going on here.
The row of fish on ice is in a fixture added when Food Bazaar moved in here last fall. It's a very awkward setup they also have at two of their other acquired Stop & Shop locations, and I have to assume it'll be reworked eventually.
Now we start to see the real changes over in the meat department. First of all, notice the framing for those glass panels has gone in separating the meat department from the rest of the store. (You can see the same panels just behind the snowflake at Fairfield Avenue.)
Second, the first few grocery aisles have been removed to make way for the new meat department, which will be in front of the meat counter rather than along the back wall. See the same setup at Fairfield Avenue. I'm not sure what will be in front of the meat department (that area is currently closed off), but it's possible that part of the produce department will be shifted into that location.
Looking at pictures of Fairfield Avenue or any other recent Food Bazaar, you can see lots of wood. Well, here's some of that wood, just not yet on the walls...
Bulk foods and sale items are now in the first grocery aisle after the meat department.
And the grocery aisles have been reset to accommodate the removal of the first few aisles. Food Bazaar has added back the last few aisles, which we'll see shortly. Inexplicably, Stop & Shop's first aisle was aisle 3, and the last aisle was aisle 17, meaning there were 15 aisles (originally, there were 20 aisles before the sales floor was reduced). Food Bazaar still has 15 aisles, although they're numbered 1-15 (what a novel concept).
Food Bazaar has replaced the aisle markers following the reset, too. Previously, they were using the leftover Stop & Shop aisle markers. Below, you can see where the wall used to be -- just look at the break in the ceiling lights.
Frozen foods haven't moved, although they're now in aisles 9 and 10 instead of 16 and 17.
And Food Bazaar has moved dairy out to the outside perimeter of the store again, where it was before the 2020 renovation. The former dairy department is now home to a greatly expanded Asian foods department.
New cases have gone in around the outside of the right side of the store for dairy. It wouldn't surprise me if eventually, dairy goes where meat is now and beer goes into part of the current dairy department.
The last few aisles on the right side are mostly nonfoods, with some assorted grocery items mixed in.
And new dairy cases lining the outside wall of the last aisle.
When Stop & Shop cut off this part of the store, they moved the bakery department out of this corner to its current location in the grand aisle. The former bakery department is now getting a big overhaul, too, although it's not entirely clear just what will end up here.
Some of what we can see here is definitely fixtures that will go into other parts of the store and is just being stored here temporarily. But it looks like Food Bazaar may be building out individual stalls, probably to rent to outside businesses. My guess -- a food court, which is in progress at the Linden Boulevard location and which was recently added to the Bronx Terminal Market location.
Looks like some more shelving (either incoming or outgoing?) in the corner here. It does seem like a food court would be a good use of this space, and in a downtown location like here in Hempstead, it might be a good draw. These seem to be too small for any other businesses, and I can't think of any other departments Food Bazaar might want to add here.
Pharmacy is between that corner and the front-end.
A look at the grocery aisles opposite pharmacy and that former bakery department...
It looks like more stations might be in the works on the front wall here, and this empty space (currently home to a lot of toilet paper and bottled water) could be a reasonable place to put a seating area, if it is going to be a food court.
And here's a random additional refrigerator on the front-end, which I have to assume will eventually be placed somewhere else -- or perhaps it'll all make sense if this corner becomes a food court (it could be beverages?).
It's good to see some real renovation work going on here, and although Food Bazaar is the largest store in town, they do have some stiff competition from a beautiful new Shop Fair just blocks away. But while we're on the subject of Food Bazaar renovations...
...a very quick stop by the Cropsey Avenue Food Bazaar, also an acquired Stop & Shop. This store hasn't seen nearly the amount of work that Hempstead has, and rather oddly, the only change Food Bazaar seems to have made in the past few months is swapping out the store's main sign for a smaller one that's otherwise identical. They've since painted around the logo. I assume there was some issue with zoning or the landlord or something that prompted the switch. That's all for Food Bazaar, but see this weekend's other posts here!
Opened: September 20, 2024
Owner: Spencer An
Previous Tenants: Melmarkets Foodtown > Stop & Shop (2001-2024)
Cooperative: none
Location: 132 Fulton Ave, Hempstead, NY
Photographed: July 18, 2025
Food Bazaar Supermarket
Opened: September 6, 2024
Opened: September 6, 2024
Owner: Spencer An
Previous Tenants: Pathmark (1970-2015) > Stop & Shop (2015-2024)
Cooperative: none
Location: 2965 Cropsey Ave, Brooklyn, NY
Photographed: May 28, 2025
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