Damage Report: Heights Gristedes A Charred Mess
Gristedes stores are usually felled due to some combination of neglect and rent increases, but the chain's Brooklyn Heights outpost was shuttered for another reason altogether: fire. Above, a photo of the rubble-filled interior of the supermarket snapped today by McBrooklyn. According to sources, the blaze was probably started by some sort of malfunctioning rotisserie; chicken fat proved to be excellent tinder, as the photo evidences. The store won't be fully up-and-running until July at earliest, but they have reopened the pharmacy so community members can still pick up those prescriptions.
· Inside the Brooklyn Heights Gristedes [McBrooklyn]
Trader Joensing: Work's Begun on TJ's Brooklyn!
Was it really almost a year ago that we were dancing to the tune of a steel drum band as Marty Markowitz and Councilmember Bill de Blasio announced that Brooklyn would finally be getting their own Trader Joe's grocery store? Oh how those halcyon days of July have faded. Time has passed so fast since then, and yet, progress on the supermarket has moved oh so slowly. But after months and months of no movement inside the TJ's site on Court Street and Atlantic Avenue, it looks like construction is finally, finally underway. Tipped off by a Lost City post, we dropped by the old Independence Bank space last night to spot—that stuff you see in the above photo! Workers have dug around a bit, and left some equipment in there. It's not shelves filled with Pirate's Booty and Trader Joe's Triple Berry-O's cereal, but we'll take what we can get.
A mysterious dirt pile, this way. >>
NYU Might Kill EVill Met Food
N.Y.U. is on more than a few East Village residents' shit lists at the moment. Locals are pissed at the school because of rumblings that N.Y.U. is going to price the sort-of creepy Met Food on Second Avenue out of the neighborhood. The Villager reports that at a recent meeting N.Y.U. officials held about the school's long-term development plans, more than 60 riled-up neighbors attended because they were worried about losing the grocery store.
The concern here is that Met's lease is up for renewal, and Mike Schumacher, one of the men that have been running the East Village market for some 20 odd years, said that NYU wanted to triple the rent. "Waving placards saying, 'I shop at the Met supermarket,' neighbors said they depended on Met Food for reasonable prices and a store within walking — or wheelchair — distance from their homes." NYU has promised that even if Met has to go, they'll replace it with another grocery store, but some Villagers fear that that means a Whole Foods or something equally expensive. 'Met Food is a linchpin of our community,' said one neighbor." And what is N.Y.U., chopped liver?
· E. Village food fight pits N.Y.U. vs. grocery [Villager]
Photo via Jeremiah's Vanishing NY
RackedWire: Banana Peeling Out of Greenwich Village, Rumblings of Gourmet Market for LIC
GREENWICH VILLAGE—Is it curtains for the Banana Republic store on Bleecker Street and Sixth Avenue (the one that's transitioning into a Monogram boutique as we speak)? According to this brochure (warning: .pdf) from real estate company Staubach, the storefront at 205 Bleecker is on the market. [RackedWire]
LIC—According to blog liQcity, Long Island City is about to get a fine foods store—"Think Zabar’s, not Gristedes." Does this mean that things are finally looking up over there? [liQcity]
Now Open: Union Market South Slope
High-end grocery mini-chain Union Market opened the doors to its new South Slope location on Wednesday. A report from a reader: "The new Union Market on 7th Ave and 13th Street opened quietly yesterday (Wed). Surely much needed by South Slopers who feel like the poor cousins of the Real Park Slope. I stopped in briefly for a few things, lots of MILFs on hand including a few with baby carriages that were WAY too big for the rather small aisles. Still it remains to be seen if the South Slope demographic can afford the 'line-caught' Chilean Sea Bass at $22 per pound (considerably more expensive than the north Slope competition, I might add)." The next neighborhood to get UM'd is Fort Greene, which can look forward to the upscale offerings this summer; no doubt other nearby neighborhoods will follow suite. But Union Market Bushwick? Well, that's much, much less likely.
· Union Market [Official Site]
