The Market Report

Our final store of the Jamaica North group is also the most impressive. This Ideal Food Basket started in the 1950s as a Waldbaum's. At some later point, it became a Pioneer , switching to Fine Fare and then back to Pioneer . Around 2013, it was bought and converted to one of the flagship Ideal Food Basket stores. And while it's not huge (16,000 square feet), it certainly feels like it, at almost double the size of the CTown we saw yesterday. The store, which is attached to a residential complex, also has a two-level parking garage immediately next to it. There is reserved space on the first level for Ideal, where you can park for free with a minimum purchase. Checkouts run along the side of the store, with one entrance (here) to dairy and customer service, and an entrance to the street to deli/bakery and produce. Produce runs along the front wall, with meat and seafood on the side wall opposite the parking garage. Frozen is in the middle of the store. Now, a note on...

What is referred to as "Jamaica" takes up most of eastern Queens, so we're going to begin with the northern section, encompassing Richmond Hill, Briarwood, downtown Jamaica, and Jamaica Estates. This runs from 130th St to 178th St east-to-west, and Grand Central Parkway at the north to Jamaica Avenue at the south. The coverage we're going to see over the next few days is by no means exhaustive -- the stores I've photographed represent only a fraction of the supermarkets in this densely populated, urban neighborhood. But we will be seeing a selection of nine supermarkets, mostly along Hillside Avenue, the main thoroughfare through Jamaica. Our first post is tomorrow on The Independent Edition !