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Food Universe Marketplace - Brooklyn, NY (Flatbush Junction)

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By Zachary
Food Universe Marketplace
Opened: November 2025
Owner: Charles In Park
Previous Tenants: SS Kresge (1970s) > Fal-Mart Pharmacy (1980s) > Rite Aid (closed 2018) > Walgreens (2018-2023)
Cooperative: Key Food Stores
Location: 1559 Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn, NY
Photographed: December 1, 2025
The Food Universe at Flatbush Junction has opened, after extensively renovating a former Rite Aid. Although there have been several different stores in this space in its history, Food Universe appears to be the first supermarket. The store is around 10,000 square feet -- small but a bit larger than I thought it was originally. I don't know whether Food Universe expanded out the back or a previous tenant had the same layout, but the Food Universe is essentially in two parts. You walk into the grand aisle, which takes up the front half of the store. The registers are on the front wall, with sushi, deli/bakery, hot food, and seafood lining the left side walls. Produce is in the center and on the right side. The rear section, which is also around 5000 square feet, houses grocery, dairy, meat, and frozen. It's amazing how much Food Universe has managed to pack into this store, and from the looks of it when I visited, what they have is in high demand. The store was very busy.
From what I can tell, this store is owned by Charles In Park, who also owns SuperFresh stores in Linden, NJ and Baldwin, NY. He's also just signed a lease for a Jamaica store.
This store had its grand opening shortly before Thanksgiving, and unlike some of the other stores I am posting this weekend, it didn't have a soft opening first. As far as I can tell, it's fully open and as ready as it'll ever be, with the exception of the hot food bar which isn't up and running yet.
You enter on the left side of the store in this common foyer for the entrance and exit. I assume this goes without saying, but nothing inside is left over from the Rite Aid/Walgreens that was previously here. Even the facade and storefront got a full overhaul.
The service counters line the left side of the grand aisle, with sushi right inside the entrance.
Hot food bar not yet open, but coming soon.
And seafood is at the back of the grand aisle.
The expansive produce department is the largest department in the store by far, and I'd estimate it takes up roughly 40% of the sales floor on its own. There are six very short grocery aisles at the back of the store. That strategy is almost certainly intentional -- this store is practically across the street from a Target and an ALDI at the Triangle Junction, but neither of those stores has a large produce department, sushi, or fresh seafood. A Fine Fare is just up Flatbush Ave, but its fresh departments are much smaller than this store's.
Here you can see over towards the sushi and deli departments on the side wall of the store, with one more aisle between produce and those service counters.
It's interesting to see how this operator is equally comfortable with a store of this size and a store several times as large, such as Baldwin (40,000 square feet) or Linden (65,000 square feet). The upcoming Jamaica store will be in the middle.
At the back of the grand aisle, you pass through this area to enter the rear room with dairy, frozen, meat, and grocery. As I said, I'm unclear if the Rite Aid/Walgreens included this section too, or whether this was an expansion Food Universe made. If you look very carefully, you can see the man in this picture is actually wearing a SuperFresh vest.
I do love this signage. The store is fun and bright -- not upscale, but pleasant and easy to navigate despite the rather odd layout.
Dairy lines the first grocery aisle in the back, with meat on the back wall. There's also a service butcher counter in the back-right corner. Frozen foods line the right side, with grocery aisles in the middle.
With full service seafood, butcher, and sushi counters, this store has more services packed into the tiny space than some stores I've been to that are four or five times its size.
The grocery aisles have all the basics and a selection of Caribbean foods, but there's not much space to have anything beyond that.
You can see above just how short some of the grocery aisles are. This section is on an angle, so it's not straight behind the main supermarket.
Milk and eggs in a short dead-end aisle on the right side of this expansion area.
There are several other grocers nearby, but a longtime supermarket has recently closed, too. There was an old-school Pioneer supermarket at 3315 Ave H, about four and a half blocks southeast, that became an Associated, then a Key Food, then a Shop Fair before closing in 2019. It became a dollar store, but now that's closed, too. So it's good to have a new one opening up to kind of keep the balance.
Heading back up towards the front of the store, we have nuts (love that peanut sign!) and customer service in the front-right corner. The registers then line the front end.
I have to say I enjoyed this store a lot. It's one of the better reuses of a former drugstore I've seen, although there have been some really spectacular ones. But there's a lot to offer here in a very small space.
Don't miss the rest of this weekend's other posts!

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