The Market Report

Food Universe Marketplace Opened: 2023 Owner: Teofilo de Jesus Previous Tenants: Grand Union > Rite Aid Cooperative: Key Food Stores Location:  435 Lexington Ave, Clifton, NJ Photographed: September 12, 2026 Welcome back to the Clifton Food Universe! (Scroll down to the bottom of this post to see my previous update.) On that post back in June, I was wondering about the renovations here that left the layout kind of odd and the flooring all broken up. I am very pleased to report that remodeling has continued and the store is looking much better these days. In other words, this remodel ended up being much more extensive than I thought it would be. That's clear here in produce, with new display tables and refrigeration, but also a nice new floor that continues throughout the store. A juice bar, bakery, hot food bar, newly-expanded deli, and seafood line the left side wall with meat on the back wall, and dairy/frozen on the right side. Packaged baked goods are in the front-right...

SuperFresh Opened: May 2026 Owner: Hi Jong Lee Previous Tenants:  Food Fair (open by 1956) > Dan's Supreme (open by early 1970s) > Dan's Supreme Majors (ca. 1980s-1990) > Dan's Supreme Key Food (1990-2026) Cooperative: Key Food Stores Location:  214-14 73rd Ave, Queens, NY Photographed: September 11, 2026 You might recall that back in May, I did a very long post about what's going on in Oakland Gardens, Queens -- one Key Food is changing to SuperFresh, while the other Key Food became a Holiday Farms and then a SuperFresh and is now back to Key Food. Let's check in on that first one, which transitioned from Key Food to SuperFresh as Dan's Supreme Supermarkets (Grobman family) sold the store to Food World (Lee family) back last spring. The new SuperFresh owners appear to have finished their minor renovations here, which are more fix-ups than a major reinvention of the store. Decor didn't change, though some of the fixtures were replaced and the st...

CTown Supermarkets Opened:  September 2026 Owner: unconfirmed; possibly Manny & Robert Pena Previous Tenants:  Grand Union (open by 1966, closed between 1994 and 1996) > CVS (open by 1996, closed 2024) > Fresh Mart (2025-2026) Cooperative: Krasdale Location: 132-22 14th Ave, Queens, NY Photographed: September 11, 2026 We're back here in College Point, Queens , a peninsula kind of in the northeastern part of the borough. There's a handful of supermarkets here, including a large ShopRite, but two Asian grocers had opened up just across the street from each other: a small store called Ai Mart and then a larger, more full-service supermarket called Fresh Mart in a former CVS. Neither actually made it, and both closed earlier this year. Now, the roughly 10,000 square foot Fresh Mart space has reopened as a new supermarket -- a CTown, which is still in the soft opening phase so it's mostly set up but there are a few minor things to continue working on. Here's on...