The Market Report

Associated Fresh Opened: May 2025 Owner:  unknown Previous Tenants:  Rite Aid Cooperative:  Associated Supermarket Group Location:  2050 Amsterdam Ave, Manhattan, NY Photographed:  June 30, 2025 Rite Aid is all anyone in retail has been talking about lately -- and that includes me, with yesterday's post of a CTown opening in a former Rite Aid. Today, we have two more former Rite Aids, including this 21,000 square foot one in upper Manhattan's Washington Heights neighborhood. Where Amsterdam and Saint Nicholas converge, at 162nd Street, a former Rite Aid was originally slated to become a Key Food but has opened instead as an Associated Fresh. Like the CTown yesterday, the interior here was extensively renovated and looks like a brand-new supermarket. The layout tips us off that there was previously something else here, but really, this is New York City -- I've seen weirder layouts in newly-built stores. Let's head in. We enter to deli, which is just inside th...

Fine Fare Gold Opened: Spring 2025 Owner:  unknown Previous Tenants:  Safeway > assorted non-grocery tenants > Metro Acres Market Cooperative:  Retail Grocers Group Location:  4188 Broadway, Manhattan, NY Photographed:  April 7, 2025 After opening last October , the small Metro Acres Market just across from the George Washington Bridge in Washington Heights has rebranded. I don't know if it's been sold or just changed its name, but it's now a Fine Fare Gold supermarket. Fine Fare Gold is apparently the branding they're using for higher-end stores, and this is the only one currently but another is in progress in Inwood , about 15 blocks north. The store looks basically the same inside, and I couldn't detect any significant difference in product selection. Both Metro Acres and Fine Fare are part of the same cooperative and supplied by the same warehouse -- General Trading -- so I don't really know the reason for the change. Even stranger is that there's...

SuperFresh Opened: April 4, 2025 Owner:  unknown Previous Tenants:  CTown Supermarkets Cooperative:  Key Food Stores Location:  1214 St Nicholas Ave, Manhattan, NY Photographed:  April 7, 2025 Time for another new SuperFresh! This tiny store (it's just 6600 square feet) in Washington Heights has been in progress for a few years , but recently opened at the corner of Saint Nicholas Avenue and 176th. It replaces an even smaller CTown and a former restaurant next door. As we'll see, the work was very extensive inside. The outside doesn't look particularly interesting, but it is in fact quite different from CTown's exterior . You enter on the left side of the store to the deli and produce department. These are in the expansion, what used to be Humberto's Rice & Beans, with the rest of the supermarket in the former CTown space. Obviously, everything here is new. In fact, I happened to walk by the store when it was still under construction, and they actually pour...

Metro Acres Market Opened: October 25, 2024 Owner:  unknown Previous Tenants:  Rite Aid Cooperative:  Retail Grocers Group Location:  4188 Broadway, Washington Heights, Manhattan, NY Photographed:  November 13, 2024 Across the Harlem River and about 20 blocks north of the LIDL we're seeing today at the Bronx Terminal Market , we've returned to Metro Acres Market's newest location in Washington Heights! I first learned this store was under construction by chance , just passing by, then returned to check on the construction . The small store, formerly a Rite Aid, opened on October 25 as Metro Acres' second location. As I pointed out last time, it has the same decor package as the Fine Fare diagonally across the street (and you can see the GWB Market/Mercado in the background of the above picture, the mall built above interstate 95 at the base of the George Washington Bridge, which is home to the Fine Fare). But it doesn't appear to share the same owners as the Fi...