Food Bazaar Supermarket
Not much of a change to the outside, and the inside looks pretty similar, too...
Fortunately or unfortunately, the cartoony food characters seem to have been removed from all the new stores. Or have they? I spotted a couple in one of the stores in the Bronx, but I imagine they'll soon depart, too.
Here you can see the cow-inspired Farm Fresh Dairy branding on the cases. Farm Fresh is a Western Beef brand, so it's possible Food Bazaar added the wooden trim to cover it up. On the other hand, they've left Farm Fresh elsewhere (probably since it's such a generic term), so I'm not sure.
If Food Bazaar does remove all the walk-in meat rooms, I'm going to miss them. Where else can you freeze your toes off while choosing hot dogs?
Opened: October 20, 2026
Once home to Gouz Dairy Farm, the building at 1717 Dutch Broadway in Elmont has now become a Food Bazaar after a three-decade tenure as Western Beef. No permanent sign here yet, but as we'll see, there's more work that's been done inside this roughly 32,000 square foot store.
That includes what looks like a full reset in the produce department along with Food Bazaar stickers over the various Western Beef branding, but they've also painted some of the walls and already started installing some new decor.
In this store, the grand aisle is on the right side, with deli and bakery along the right-side wall and produce opposite. Seafood is in the back-right corner, with dairy on the back wall and frozen in the last aisle on the left side. Meat is in a walk-in cooler room in the front-left corner.
This store was remodeled, inside and out, in 2016 so it still feels fairly new. Here's what it looked like before.
I'm pleased to report that, at least so far, Food Bazaar has kept a lot of (not all of) Western Beef's signature semolina Italian breads and the very delicious garlic knots. They've cut some of the breads in order to add their own croissants, bagels, muffins, and donuts to the bread case.
On the back wall, you can see that Food Bazaar has freshly painted it beige while also installing these decorative wood panels. I couldn't tell for sure, but it looks like they're real wood trim around a large decal, which probably makes for easier install than the much more elaborate decor they usually use. I'm intrigued to see how extensive the remodels are on these Western Beef stores cosmetically, because some (like this one) don't need a whole lot. Food Bazaar also has a simpler version (see Trenton) of that decor package, which I suspect is more likely to be what they use in these acquired stores.
I believe the wood trim at the top of the dairy cases here is new, and possibly there to cover up Western Beef branding that was previously there.
Frozen is in this double-wide aisle on the left side of the store, with single-tier cases in the middle. The entrance to the walk-in meat room is in the front-left corner.
There's a number of other supermarkets around, including an Indian supermarket called Sanjha Punjab Supermarket practically next door (I imagine there's very little overlap between that store's target market and this one's). Stop & Shop, CTown, and Key Food all have stores nearby, and there are also a handful of independents. Farmbria, another Food Bazaar store, is about two miles west.
You can see that even though it's an older store, the renovations must have been pretty extensive and the building now feels rather new. I imagine these skylights were probably added in the 2016 remodel, and because that work seems to have been pretty extensive, I imagine Food Bazaar won't need to do a whole lot.
Now let's check out what the Western Beef was like...
Owner: Spencer An
Previous Tenants: Gouz Dairy > Western Beef (1994-2026)
Cooperative: none
Location: 1717 Dutch Broadway, Elmont, NY
Photographed: October 30, 2025
As you might be able to tell from this picture, this Western Beef definitely didn't have enough cashiers when I visited. At least for now, Food Bazaar seems to be in the same situation. I know the front-end understaffing was a common issue with Western Beef stores, but in my experience, it's less so at Food Bazaar. Several of these converted stores had Now Hiring signs up in the front, so I wonder if part of what they have to do now is add more staff. That's all for Elmont for now, but you can see the rest of the conversions here!
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