Pathmark Daily
Opened: May 1, 2026
Pathmark! Any longtime tri-state area residents will remember that name, and now it's returned to Long Island (once a stronghold of the chain) with a small-format Pathmark Daily location in East Meadow. Wait, how did Pathmark come back from the dead? And wasn't there already a Pathmark location? And what the heck is a Pathmark Daily? Let's take a closer look. In A&P's bankruptcy, Allegiance Retail -- the cooperative behind Foodtown -- bought the rights to the Pathmark, Green Way, and Food Basics brands. They started using Green Way as a natural brand just as A&P had, but also started using it as a store name. Food Basics briefly appeared on a store in Pennsylvania, but that closed shortly after opening. And in 2019, a Pathmark owned by PSK Supermarkets opened in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Tour that store here. Mike Said, the owner of two Foodtowns on Long Island, has converted one of them to Pathmark Daily -- intended to be a daily shopping trip in a small store rather than the big weekly trip. This store is small, at just around 15,000 square feet.
This Foodtown is relatively new, having only opened in 2023. It was previously a gym, though it was originally built as a Food Fair supermarket. I visited the Foodtown in late 2025, and then the Pathmark this week. 
The store is oriented with its front-end running along the right side wall, with some parking in the front and the rest in the back. The front wall has deli and bakery departments, with meat running along the left side wall and produce on the back wall. The aisles run side to side.
Right away, we can see that...well, not much is different. The most notable change near the entrance is the removal of a cheese island, as cheeses now take up part of the prepared foods case. There are coffee and deli/hot food counters, with a bakery in the corner.
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You can see the relocated cheeses to the right above. With moves like this -- and there are several in this store -- it feels like the Pathmark rebrand might be an attempt to infuse some new life into a struggling store more than a complete rethinking of the operation. A few departments have already been cut back or removed in the store's (rather short) life, which is rarely a good sign of the store's performance.
Again, almost nothing has changed here. While we'll see new Pathmark decor similar to the East Flatbush one in some departments, others retain their Foodtown decor, making for a strange contrast.
As a slight tangent here: Allegiance as a whole doesn't seem to be in the healthiest position at the moment. They've lost Morton Williams to Wakefern (about 15 stores) and Adam Shapiro's four stores to Key Food, the latest in a string of losses and closures with not that many stores being added. After announcing a new brand, Pick & Prosper, to replace the Foodtown brand, now they've dropped both in favor of generic Best Yet from C&S. While competitors seem to be adding stores left and right, Allegiance rarely opens new stores or adds new members (though they've done some). A cynical, but possibly realistic, way to view this is that they're testing whether switching from Foodtown to Pathmark increases sales, and if so, whether they could do so on some or all of the other Foodtown stores. Of course, we don't know the real intentions behind a move like this, but in the context of Allegiance apparently lagging behind its direct competitors like Key Food and ASG, it's a possibility.
Obviously, the Foodtown decor was a bit more upscale than the new Pathmark decor, causing a bit of a collision where both are visible...
I'm also not sure about the flying shopping bag here. The Pathmark logo is already perfection, why mess with it?
Because of the contrasting decor and signage, along with the fact that some items in the store are even still labeled Foodtown, this location struggles with identity. The Albany Avenue location, on the other hand, is distinctly Pathmark.
That said, it still seems to be a good store and seems to be run well for the most part. I'm just a little skeptical that there's a bigger-picture plan here from Allegiance, not the store owners.
The meat department has been reduced to move beer into this case, again rarely a sign of a financially healthy store. The former beer area is now a wall of values.
Dairy looks exactly the same...
..as does frozen.
The grocery aisles are mostly the same, save for the replacement of Foodtown items with Best Yet -- though that's happening at Foodtowns, too.
New aisle markers, though, which are distinctly Pathmark!
Again, though, the rollout of the new brand is somewhat jumbled. Here's a look at one grocery shelf, where the various tags (Foodtown in yellow and Pathmark with the "Price Lock" label) are intermingled -- and let's face it, all of this is just confusing.
Love the Pathmark signage, though! Like East Flatbush, this is a reproduction of the ca. 1990s Pathmark decor package, so an excellent nod to the history.
Spices and grilling items are here on the wall next to the meat department, so the above and below pictures are not in exactly the same spot. The meat department, though, has been condensed to move beer into the case.
Beer was previously next to the front-end on the right side of the store...
...which is now a display of sale items. Again, I get that the intention is probably to emphasize the value side of Pathmark, but it's rarely a good sign to see the meat department being cut back so that beer can fill the space.
The produce department hasn't changed much...
...and in fact most of the decor remains. Some new produce tables in the middle of the aisle.
One notable change: a closed seafood counter at the back of the produce department has been covered over and a Pathmark produce sign has been added. There is already a Foodtown produce sign, though.
Again, it's not usually a great sign that just two years after opening, the seafood department has closed. It's been switched over to produce, but it's still clearly a remnant of something removed...
The front-end has been updated with Pathmark signage.
Opened: May 1, 2026
Owner: Mike Said
Previous Tenants: Foodtown (2023-2026)
Cooperative: Allegiance Retail
Location: 625 N Merrick Ave, East Meadow, NY
Photographed: December 5, 2025 (Foodtown) and May 7, 2026
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I was hoping this would signify a strong new direction from Allegiance. Instead, it seems to be more of an attempt to fix what's already broken, which is a disappointment. That said, though, the store is clean and well-appointed, so I don't blame the store owners or managers. I just can't quite figure out what the endgame from Allegiance is here. Take a look at this weekend's other posts here!
Perhaps some of that makes sense. If they aren't as busy as expected, cutting down on things that won't keep as long (like the meat and seafood) would make for less in the way of losses from spoilage, replacing those with something like beer that can be kept on the shelf longer and the wall of values that is also non-perishable and items that may well sell in larger quantities at the same time if they are good deals.
ReplyDeleteSo, it may show that the store doesn't do as well as was hoped for, but at the same time it is making the store work better with the customers that are shopping there to keep it running at least profitably rather than losing money.