Food Bazaar Supermarket
Buckle up, folks, this is a long one. But I will do my best to make it an interesting post, because there's some interesting stuff happening here in Bushwick at the newly-remodeled Wyckoff Ave Food Bazaar! The roughly 45,000 square foot store, originally a Waldbaum's in the 80s, has undergone a much-needed remodel. The outside doesn't look that different, but the inside is changed quite a bit. Let's take a look at a full before and after.
The murals on the outside of this store now wrap around to the back, and there's new signage up advertising that this (along with a few other NYC Food Bazaars) is now open 24 hours.
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I was a bit puzzled by the enormous quantities of bottled water sitting in the parking lot, and even more so by the forklifts driving back and forth across the parking lot. Where were they going? Turns out, Food Bazaar has moved into a vacant former laundromat across the parking lot, which they're now using for storage. There's no real way to expand the supermarket, but it's clear Food Bazaar wanted more space, so they've moved backroom areas out of the building entirely and expanded a bit into former backroom space.
Let's head inside.
The layout hasn't changed significantly, but the decor certainly has. Sale items are still in the first grocery aisle, with separate rooms for produce/seafood and meat/dairy to the right. The rest of dairy lines the back wall, but part of the former frozen foods department in the back-left corner has been turned into a deli and bakery (which, amazingly, this store didn't previously have).
Prior to their recent remodels, this store had service butcher and seafood, but no deli and bakery. The Gates Avenue store, technically in Queens but only a couple blocks away, had service butcher and deli, but no seafood and no bakery. Now, both have butcher, seafood, deli, and bakery, along with hot food.
Floral and "nutz" are at the entrance just before you cross over into the produce room. The produce/seafood room at the front and the meat/dairy room at the back both are refrigerated.
This store certainly wasn't originally designed with appearance in mind, but practicality. It was a big warehouse of meat and produce, the largest supermarket in the neighborhood by a lot -- and the next-largest is the Gates Avenue Food Bazaar. Now, it's somewhere in between the no-frills warehouse and the flagship, higher-end Food Bazaars.
One thing that's abundantly clear both before and after the remodel is that this is an extremely high-volume supermarket. It's piled high with perishables.
You don't stock your vegetable shelves like this unless you're getting the volume to support it.
The seafood department is in the front-right corner of the store, and it's been reworked slightly to be a little less cramped.
The decor here is limited by the lower ceiling (because this is what happens when it's not -- that's Douglaston), but they've managed to effectively scale down the decor and make it work for the space.
As Food Bazaar has been doing in remodels, they added a much larger selection of grab-and-go packaged items here, but still have a full-service counter.
The meat/dairy room used to be fully refrigerated, with packaged meats and dairy items on regular shelving because the whole room was kept below refrigeration temperatures. Now, they've replaced all of the shelving with refrigerated cases.
This is where the store expanded into the former backroom space. This wall, to the right in these two pictures, was pushed into the backroom and the service butcher counter was moved back.
The basic setup is the same, but the aisles are now refrigerated cases rather than regular shelving.
Part of the dairy department is here, along with cold cuts, and the rest goes along the back wall.
These two pictures show the same area, with the butcher counter straight ahead.
Moving into the grocery aisles in the main supermarket...
The grocery shelving wasn't replaced in the remodel, but the aisle markers were.
However, new refrigeration was added for beer, and it looks like a few grocery aisles were extended a little.
Notice here that new black shelving extends beyond where the older white shelving ends.
A portion of frozen foods has moved into what used to be the milk area, to accommodate the new deli-bakery in the back-left corner.
The frozen foods aisle is basically the same. It doesn't look like the fixtures were replaced, as they were relatively new when I took these pictures in 2018.
A new deli, hot food bar, and bakery counter has been added in the back corner.
It's small, but given that the store didn't previously have it at all, it's an improvement.
This row of self-serve baked goods (rolls and bagels) was previously the only bakery section, and these aren't made in-store, but delivered from a local bakery.
Now, they're definitely baking at least some items in-store. This back corner used to be home to the loose baked goods, and is now refrigerated deli and bakery items.
The last few aisles have been shortened a little to make way for the new deli.
And the last aisle has been rearranged a little.
New shelving and new wall decor in the last aisle.
The crowded, hectic front-end has been opened up a little bit, but who knows if it'll stay this spacious or if they'll add back more sale displays.
The flags, of course, are just for the grand reopening.
Looking good! Now to the southern part of Brooklyn for another Food Bazaar remodel...
Now to the Cropsey Avenue Food Bazaar, around the same size as the Wyckoff one but a store that only opened in 2024. The former Pathmark-turned-Stop & Shop is approaching the end of its renovation, though there's still some work to do.
We have some new wall accents in the bakery, but still no signage for it, so it still seems like it's possible it could be relocated. No idea for sure, though.
The produce department has come together, though, and it's taking up the front half of what used to be the right-side grocery aisles of the Pathmark, along with the former pharmacy.
These freezers, which were temporarily holding frozen seafood, have now been turned over to the much more logical frozen fruits and vegetables, along with frozen salt fish (which most often is in the produce department, not the seafood department).
Looking over to the rest of the supermarket. The new layout here is nearly identical to the Wyckoff one, except that dairy is in the last aisle instead of on the back wall and beer is in the front corner instead of a grocery aisle.
Like most traffic signs in New York City, department signage here is mostly a vague idea or suggestion, as apparent from this sign advertising a chicken brand over the sausage.
This back corner, previously home to beer, is now empty with several service cases still to go in. I assume this will become the butcher counter, which the store didn't previously have.
Seafood has been reworked a bit, too, but basically has the same setup as previously. By the way, here's what the store looked like when it was a Stop & Shop.
Now that new freezers have gone in near the seafood counter, the frozen shrimp and other fish no longer have to be over in produce.
The grocery aisles haven't changed much, other than a reset to accommodate the loss of the grocery aisles on the right side where produce and meat are now.
Again, department signage is maybe not the most helpful here, with grocery signage over the cold cuts. Two possible explanations here, though: one, since the store is still being remodeled, it's possible this'll be rearranged eventually. Or second, Food Bazaar doesn't like to use the phrase cold cuts.
There's clearly still more to do here, so the layout will probably continue to change for a little while more.
The deli is still in the back-left corner, but doesn't have a sign. So either it hasn't been installed yet, or the deli won't remain here.
How about a sign for a bacon brand over the milk? Sure! (Naturally, bacon is in the cold cuts case under the Grocery sign. Because of course.)
But as I've said, there's clearly still plenty more layout work to do here, so joking aside, we'll see what happens once the store is fully done. Hempstead, which opened at the same time as this one and which I linked above, has completed its remodel, and Piscataway is currently closed for remodeling. Meanwhile, Carlstadt (also in that link) hasn't seen much work for a while, although it looks like they're currently replacing the registers.
That's all, and thanks for sticking with me through this very long post! There's a lot more to see this weekend, so check it all out here.
Opened: 2001
Owner: Spencer An
Previous Tenants: Waldbaum's (opened 1988) > Big R (closed 2001)
Cooperative: none
Location: 454 Wyckoff Ave, Brooklyn, NY
Photographed: February 13, 2026
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Here's an interesting price comparison. Eggo waffles in the 2018 pictures were $3.59 regular price, on sale 2/$5. Six years later, and post-COVID, they're on sale 3/$10 from a normal price of what appears to be $5.79.
Food Bazaar Supermarket
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: February 13, 2026
Saturday
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