The Market Report

The Food Emporium Owner: Sang Won Lee Opened:  2021 Previous Tenants:  Penn Fruit > Hill's > Waldbaum's > Food Universe Marketplace Cooperative:  Key Food Stores Location:  196-35 Horace Harding Expwy, Fresh Meadows, Queens, NY Photographed:  June 2021 Our second of three Special Reports today is the brand-new Food Emporium in Fresh Meadows! This store was built as one of the distinctive arched-roof Penn Fruit supermarkets, later taken over by local chain Hill's before that chain was bought out by Waldbaum's. In 2016, as Waldbaum's parent A&P went out of business, this store was sold to Key Food Stores Co-Operative. It operated as a Food Universe Marketplace for a few years before being switched over to former A&P, now Key Food, banner The Food Emporium last month. I wrote in my previous post that this store was owned by Shri Persaud, who owns other Key Food stores, but I'm now questioning that (I forget what my source was on that) and I think...

Today's tour is a very early Pathmark. I do not believe, although I could be mistaken, that it dates back to the Supermarkets General ShopRite era. But it's still very old. At about 26,000 square feet, it's almost exactly the same size as the Food Universe we saw yesterday. In fact, it shares many similarities with the Electchester Food Universe. This Pathmark lasted until at least 2007 , though by 2012 it had been taken over by Kevin Kim, a New Jersey-based owner, who opened it as an Associated Supermarket . 2014 saw the conversion of Associated to Key Food Marketplace when all of Kim's stores joined Key Food. Later, in 2018, he sold all of his stores, including this Key Food and the nearby Food Universe, which were both sold to Long Island-based supermarket operator Jin Park. While Park has undertaken almost no renovations or changes at Food Universe, we do see one here. The old overhang/awning area along the side of the store has been enclosed to form add...

Now for our second Food Universe Marketplace in Fresh Meadows. (See the first here if you missed it.) The 25,000 square foot location originated as some chain store, though I don't know which. It later became a Met Foodmarket under the ownership of Cranford, NJ-based Kevin Kim, whose store failures have been well documented in Fairview , Plainsboro , and Belleville (with Garwood and Edison coming soon to the blog). Kim converted the store along with an interior renovation to a Pioneer-affiliated "Natural Foods Supermarket" with a cherry motif and a suspiciously similar look to Cherry Valley Marketplace. Soon thereafter, it was converted to just Pioneer, before switching to Food Universe in 2014. In 2018, Kim sold the store to another operator, Jin Park, along with his Associated-turned-Key Food a few blocks south. Park has not done any significant renovations or changes, and in fact, the store is still branded Natural Foods Supermarket inside. That said, Park runs...

It's the store you've all been waiting for! Or maybe not, I don't know. Anyway, this store started out in the 1950s as a Penn Fruit. It was later converted to Hill's and then Waldbaum's, receiving a light Fresh 2.0 renovation around 2005ish. Owned by Key Food member Shri Persaud, this store joins two Key Foods, two Food Universes, and a Green Acre Farms in Brooklyn that he also owns. Persaud purchased the store in the 2015-16 bankruptcy of Waldbaum's parent A&P. And although the Food Universe banner was originally created to ease the acquisition of approximately 50 former Associated stores across the city, and continues to be used in Associated Supermarket Group conversions, it is also used in other instances, typically for larger, suburban stores in the city. This store is a whopping 30,000 square feet -- nearly double the size of the Bayside Food Universe . Enough talking, let's head in and see the exposed arch roof in all its glory! The first...