The Market Report

Our next stores in Queens, NY are in Middle Village and Maspeth neighborhoods! Now this group is going to be much shorter than the last (see coverage here and here ), partially because there are fewer neighborhoods we're cramming in here, but mostly because each of these neighborhoods only has two supermarkets. It's also interesting, though, that these two rather suburban, somewhat isolated neighborhoods' stores follow the same pattern. Both neighborhoods have a big-name store (Middle Village has a Met Foodmarket and Maspeth has a Key Food), and both neighborhoods have an independent store owned by the same person as the big-name store (MV's is called Village Barn Fresh Market owned by Bill Fani; the Maspeth Marketplace is owned by Danny Doleh). Anyway, we'll get more into these specific stores here and on The Independent Edition over the next few days, so check back soon!

Alright folks, not only do we have another Food Bazaar tour today (that's right, I've photographed 18 of the 26 Food Bazaars, so what?), but today's store is the original Food Bazaar. Francis An immigrated to the United States from Korea via Argentina and found it difficult to source food from either of those two countries, despite the fact that Elmhurst and Corona had large Korean and Argentinian populations, respectively. So when this Waldbaum's became vacant on the border between those two neighborhoods, it was only natural that An moved in under the Food Bazaar name. Today, Francis An's son Spencer continues to run the chain with a total of 26 stores and at least one more on the way. This store also features a Groundswell mural on the side, which we've seen before at the Junction , Wyckoff , Myrtle , and  Manhattan  Food Bazaars. This one is called "The Seed of Diversity." This panorama is one of my favorites I've taken. Now let...

Today's store tour is just east along Corona Avenue from our last Cherry Valley Marketplace ! While I don't know what the store was built as, I do know that by the 80s it was a Scaturro Supermarket, which used to have a pretty large presence in NYC but currently has only two locations. It later became a Compare Foods , then an NSA (Neighborhood Supermarket Association; a corporation that later morphed into America's Food Basket / Ideal). Many Ideal stores have a very similar feeling to them, and they tend to more or less look the same. This likely comes from the fact that most Ideals are owned by the same person, Andres Ferreira. This particular one has nearly identical decor to the Bravo Supermarket in Dover (which is owned by Nick Gonzalez). As with many stores, the decor is very nice (even though here it's probably 10-ish years old) but where the store really shows its age is the flooring. Produce lines the left side of the store including a nice wid...

We're here towards the south end of Corona to see the third A&E Supermarket Group-owned store in the neighborhood. See my coverage of the southern City Fresh Market here , and a look at the northern location here . Unlike most A&E stores, this one was previously a CTown, so it probably was under different ownership. Nearly all of the A&E stores were previously operated under the Associated/Met/Pioneer/Compare brands. Immediately inside the door to the left, we have a bakery/deli/hot food department. (Great hot food by the way, I had lunch here.) The seating area is at the very front of the produce department, which extends behind the deli area (to the right in the above picture). We can clearly see the store's heritage in the CTown decor still on the walls. Although it's not a huge store, the high ceilings make the produce department feel very wide-open. Customer service is on the opposite side of the entrance from the deli. (This is not CTown d...