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Golden Farms - Hempstead, NY

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By Zachary
Golden Farms Supermarket
Opened: March 20, 2026
Owner: JD and Roy Diaz
Previous Tenants: none; Bohack > Consumers Food (opened late 1970s) > Hempstead Farms > Super A Farms (opened 1996) previously on property
Cooperative: Key Food Stores
Location: 210 Henry St, Hempstead, NY
Photographed: March 20, 2026
Key Food has been on an expansion kick -- practically for the last 10 years, or maybe even more. In fact, it was around 10 years ago that Key Food bought around three dozen stores from A&P, and with that purchase, they totaled around 220 stores. Now, they're around 475 stores. On Friday, independent Key Food owners opened two more stores. In Queens, a former Rite Aid became a beautiful new Key Food Marketplace, and here in Hempstead, a new-build supermarket in progress for several years had its soft opening.
The store is around 20,000 square feet at ground level, with additional storage and prep space in the basement. Produce is on the right side of the store with service seafood and butcher counters at the back of the first aisle, and meats run along the rest of the back wall. Frozen and dairy are on the left side, with deli and bakery in the front-left corner. Friday was the soft opening, so while the store is mostly functional, there are still finishing touches to put on in several departments.
One very obvious one -- I can only hope -- is that several department signs are missing letters. These signs are panels mounted on the walls, and the missing letters are on the seam between the two panels. You can see the trim is also missing in those sections. Below the signs are brackets that appear to be places for TV screens to be mounted.
This store is one of two Golden Farms currently in business. Another is in Brooklyn, and a third in Ozone Park was recently sold and is now a City Fresh Market. A very short-lived location was located in Philadelphia from 2020 to 2021 or so. It looks like each store was or is under different ownership, though some owners might be partners in the various locations. Per a Facebook post, it looks like JD and Roy Diaz own this location.
I'm not sure what the issue is with these signs. It's possible they're secondhand from another store, so there was some issue with the installation or transportation. It's also possible the store just needed to open on schedule, and the signage can be fixed later. Regardless, this store didn't seem nearly as ready to open as the other Key Food that opened on Friday.
As you can see, this store is pretty no-nonsense, but full service.
We're just down the street from the Foodtown in Hempstead, so this neighborhood did already have a supermarket very nearby. Hempstead also has a relatively new Food Bazaar and Shop Fair downtown, about three-quarters of a mile northwest. Downtown Hempstead is also slated to get a newly built, but much smaller, Compare Foods soon.
As you can see, not every department sign suffers from the same missing letters problem. But the signage looks almost homemade, rather than typical supermarket decor.
This store feels more like a warehouse than a typical supermarket, and the building (although it's brand-new) feels almost like a repurposed industrial space.
This is a newly built supermarket, but the property holding this and a neighboring CVS was previously home to a strip mall that had a supermarket anchor. It was originally a Bohack, and when that chain went under in the 1970s, it became a Consumers Food -- one of the relatively few Consumers locations outside of NYC. By the 1990s, it was Hempstead Farms, which was affiliated with Associated Supermarkets, and that became Super A Farms (also Associated) in 1996. Super A Farms closed around 2013. The nearby Foodtown was a CVS that moved to this property around 2014, and in 2016, that spot became an Associated (switching to Foodtown in 2019), so it's possible that was a replacement store for the Super A Farms. In other words, the CVS and the Associated might have simply switched places.
This store wasn't getting the crowds that the Woodside Key Food was to check out the opening, either. But then again, this store is still in the soft opening phase, so there's still time to sort out any remaining issues before holding an official grand opening.
This endless row of drinks isn't permanent -- this case will presumably be beer once they get the license.
The dairy department is in a little bit of an unusual setup, although I like this rounded refrigerator. There doesn't appear to be any backroom space on the ground floor, and in this back corner there's a freight elevator to the basement.

Here, too, because the store is still in its soft opening phase, the shelves aren't fully stocked.
Delica essen is similarly missing a letter right in the middle, and it does look like these signs might've been disassembled, brought here, and then put back together with the part spanning the gap coming later. However, I don't recognize this signage, so I don't know where it would've come from. But overall, it does feel a little like the decor here was done on the cheap in a way that other new supermarkets (including the other two I posted today) don't have.
And at the front, thank you for s opping with us! Again, I can only hope that soon, the missing letters will be added back. It just makes a poor impression. But we'll see what happens between now and the official grand opening, which could be weeks from now.
This store is very well-stocked and is, of course, spotlessly clean. If they can keep it that way, the decor really won't matter.
And just for good measure, some signs around the store (including this one on the outside) have the farmer character from the Farm Country logo. A handful of Farm Country stores are under Key Food, too, although I'm not certain whether they share ownership with this one.
Let's see what happens between now and the grand opening, but this weekend, here's the full list of posts!

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