America's Food Basket
Opened: November 2025
When I visited, the store was still very much in progress, and as I said, it's a soft opening at this point, so you'll see plenty that isn't finished in these pictures. The new produce department is looking great and is much more appealing than the cramped setup in the Associated. The rest of the store feels old -- the ceiling and lighting remain from Rite Aid, and I was hoping the rest of the store might feel more like this new produce department. However, given that it's still a soft opening, there may still be work done in the main supermarket.
A service seafood department is at the back of the produce department. Associated has a service butcher, but not seafood.
Meats line the back wall of the former Rite Aid building, with dairy in the second-to-last aisle and frozen in the last aisle. Cheese and beer (not yet stocked) are in the front-left corner, along with deli and a hot food bar.
You can tell right away when you enter the former Rite Aid building that it's much older than the produce side, and it would've been nice to have some fresh paint on the ceiling or something like that. Still, the store doesn't look bad and -- largely because of the major size difference -- has a lot more to offer than the Associated, which is tidy and well-appointed but very small.
The light flooring in the grocery aisles also feels vaguely unfinished, like it's closer to subfloor than finished flooring. But it's not bad at all, and everything is bright and clean.
Frozen meat and seafood in the back-left corner, with the rest of frozen foods in the last aisle. It looks like these fixtures might be a mix of new and secondhand.
One sign there's more to come here in this store: there's no signage of any kind up just yet. No department signs, and more importantly, no aisle markers. I have to assume those are still to come.
Frozen foods in what appear to be brand-new cases in the last aisle.
The beer department, not yet stocked, and the cheese island are in the front corner next to deli and hot food.
I'll have to return to this store once it's fully set up, because it has a promising beginning here but is clearly very far from operating at 100%. In many cases, that's the nature of a soft opening.
I'm not certain who the owner of this store is. We're just a couple blocks over from an Ideal Food Basket, part of the same cooperative, owned by Andres Ferreira. He owns most of the Ideal and AFB stores in the city, but not all. A couple blocks farther east on Church Avenue, there's an AFB at 5311 Church (previously a CTown) owned by David Santana.
Owner: unknown
It's time to return to the America's Food Basket at 4102 Chuch Ave in East Flatbush, which has just opened! I'm unclear exactly when -- it's a very soft opening, with the official grand opening still coming soon. The store was most recently a Rite Aid, but before that was a Bohack supermarket back in the 1960s, later becoming a Key Food. The building is about 10,000 square feet, but AFB has added around another 2500 square feet to the right side of the building by expanding into the parking lot. That section is now the produce department and the seafood department. It's about double the size of the Associated (formerly a Shop Fair) right across the street.Previous Tenants: Bohack (1960s-early 1970s) > Key Food (open by 1977, closed after 1992) > Rite Aid (closed 2023)
Cooperative: America's Food Basket
Location: 4102 Church Ave, Brooklyn, NY
Photographed: December 1, 2025
When I visited, the store was still very much in progress, and as I said, it's a soft opening at this point, so you'll see plenty that isn't finished in these pictures. The new produce department is looking great and is much more appealing than the cramped setup in the Associated. The rest of the store feels old -- the ceiling and lighting remain from Rite Aid, and I was hoping the rest of the store might feel more like this new produce department. However, given that it's still a soft opening, there may still be work done in the main supermarket.
A service seafood department is at the back of the produce department. Associated has a service butcher, but not seafood.
Meats line the back wall of the former Rite Aid building, with dairy in the second-to-last aisle and frozen in the last aisle. Cheese and beer (not yet stocked) are in the front-left corner, along with deli and a hot food bar.
You can tell right away when you enter the former Rite Aid building that it's much older than the produce side, and it would've been nice to have some fresh paint on the ceiling or something like that. Still, the store doesn't look bad and -- largely because of the major size difference -- has a lot more to offer than the Associated, which is tidy and well-appointed but very small.
The light flooring in the grocery aisles also feels vaguely unfinished, like it's closer to subfloor than finished flooring. But it's not bad at all, and everything is bright and clean.
Frozen meat and seafood in the back-left corner, with the rest of frozen foods in the last aisle. It looks like these fixtures might be a mix of new and secondhand.
One sign there's more to come here in this store: there's no signage of any kind up just yet. No department signs, and more importantly, no aisle markers. I have to assume those are still to come.
Frozen foods in what appear to be brand-new cases in the last aisle.
The beer department, not yet stocked, and the cheese island are in the front corner next to deli and hot food.
I'll have to return to this store once it's fully set up, because it has a promising beginning here but is clearly very far from operating at 100%. In many cases, that's the nature of a soft opening.
I'm not certain who the owner of this store is. We're just a couple blocks over from an Ideal Food Basket, part of the same cooperative, owned by Andres Ferreira. He owns most of the Ideal and AFB stores in the city, but not all. A couple blocks farther east on Church Avenue, there's an AFB at 5311 Church (previously a CTown) owned by David Santana.
It's good to see this space, which was a supermarket for so many years before becoming a drugstore, becoming a supermarket once again. Stay tuned to see how it develops as its official opening comes! In the meantime...
Saturday
- Key Food opens stores in Flatbush, Park Slope, and Brookfield
- CTown opens in the south Bronx
- America's Food Basket opens in a former Rite Aid (this post)
Sunday
- Food Bazaar and SuperFresh continue renovating Brooklyn locations
- An independent in East Flatbush rebrands
- Market 32 continues its Worcester remodel














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