Sammy Abed's new Key Food will be at at 244 Bay Ridge Avenue. There will be parking across the street.
Our long neighborhood nightmare is coming to an end. We won't have to drive to Montauk to buy a gallon of milk after all.
As reported by Bay Ridge Rover and by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, a new Key Food will open on 69th Street, between Ridge and Third this fall.
The new supermarket will be at 244 Bay Ridge Avenue, right next to the old firehouse and on the site of Harry's For the Home. It will be a 13,000 sq. foot store with a parking lot across the street.
The owner of the new store is Sammy Abed, who owns another Key Food out on Kings Highway ( see the Brooklyn Eagle article ).
I hope that Mr. Abed hires some of the crew from the 95th Street Key Food. I always found them to be friendly and helpful. If he plays 1950s- 1960s oldie rock music like the 95th St Key Food did for years, that would be a fun thing too.
There was a crying need for a supermarket to replace the A&P that stood for years on Fourth and Senator. Now, the Key Food era begins. Sammy Abed, welcome to the neighborhood.
Park the car across the street. Maybe they'll need to put a crosswalk and traffic light in the middle of the block here, like there is on 86th Street. If they don't, someone will get run over by the B-1 or B-9 bus.
24 comments:
Thank heavens! I only live a few blocks from this spot.
This will mean fewer trips to my beloved Red Hook Fairway Market.
This is good news - I hope it will be a decent store with decent prices too. It will be practically down the street from me.
It was great years back having my choice of A&P on 4th Avenue and CTown on 69th Street.
How in the world will people cross the street (so narrow already) with shopping carts full of food. And how about the traffic in and out of this "parking lot". Has anyone seen all the express buses that traverse this street? Traffic will be a nightmare!
Yes, that parking facility looks a little tight. Might even make sense to knock that building down and build something that is two level.
It's 241-243 actually, but great job in reporting this.
Hopefully they will fix up that block a little as well.
I'd say I rack about 1-2 hours total per year stuck in traffic on the X37 on that block.
This is good news for the people on that end of the neighb who haven't had a supermarket since the A&P closed on 4th years ago.
But this has got nothing to do with all the old people down in the 90's who were upset about losing Key Food.
Its like replacing an apple with an orange and our local smiling reps need to realize that when taking credit for diversions.
For the older and not so older people that live in the 90s and high 80s, they have lost a very good little supermarket. No question about it.
But they do have the option of going to the nearby Foodtown..which is a very good place too.
And the older people will tend to a lot more flexible schedules that some of us, so they can go there at 10am on a Tuesday when the place is not crowded at all.
The neighborhood as a whole will be better off than before in that the two big supermarkets will be well-spaced, instead of basically right next to each other.
And just as I often drove from 68th St to the 95th Street Key Food, lots of people from the 70s and 80s will now shop at the 69th St Key Food. Which will take some of the crowd pressure off (expanded )Foodtown.
All in all, the neigborhood will be in much better shape than before. We could probably support another big supermarket. If a suitable location could be found....
The old Duane Reade should have been a supermarket. Case closed. End of story.
This is a far from an ideal location given how stressed that artery of the neighborhood is.
I hope our local leaders aren't going to half-ass this and will actually do something about the traffic on that block.
--The old Duane Reade should have been a supermarket. --
You are correct, but we don't have central planning in America.
The A&P that was there before was not so well managed, and the owners of the property chose to lease to the Duane Reade, which wasn't needed, then the American Place, which isn't wanted.
--This is a far from an ideal location given how stressed that artery of the neighborhood is.--
Also correct, but it is by far the best alternative on the table right now. It has the possibility of working well -- a lot of the people that are very local will be able to do just fine with shopping wagons or just carrying groceries in bags.
And that is a whole lot of people, running from say the Bay Ridge Towers to 73rd Street, from Ridge to Fourth.
There could be some more foot traffic that can support other businesses close to that block such as Grandmama's Pizza and other places.
And we can hope that the American Place goes out of business someday, and that it is replaced by a supermarket. I absolutely think that this area could support at least one more well-run supermarket.
Bay Ridge is a big community and a lot of us have been by necessity buying food outside the area - in the Red Hook Fairway, the Borough Park or Cropsey Avenue Pathmarks, even in NJ believe it or not, where a lot of us have friends and family.
There's no reason why we can't have the same kind of large quality and inexpensive markets that any suburb in America has.
I'd prefer to spend as much of my money as possible in the neighborhood, and when this Key Food opens that is exactly what I intend to do.
Phantom,
I hear you. My primary concern is the safety of those shoppers, whether they be carrying their bags home, or to their car across the street.
If they are going to put a supermarket there, something is definitely better than nothing.
But our local officials have an obligation to get DOT on top of this ASAP to make sure it's safe.
I think that the only solution will be to put a traffic light in the middle of the block, like on 86th St, between Fourth and Fifth. Otherwise, there will be problems, esp with all the buses running up and down that block...
You can't replace an apple with an orange.
I was in Foodtown yesterday afternoon and it was pandemonium.
There were cars lined up in the lot waiting for a spot to open up.
It was quite evident that a serious influx of exiled customers had arrived.
You've got two stores worth of people now all crammed into one store. Its simple physics. Like filling a bath tub and then getting in.
One supermarket is not enough down that end of the neighb. No way.
Gotham
I hear you.
For those with cars, the better alternative may be to drive to the Key Food at ( cut/paste from the Key Food website )
Key Food
8772 18th Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11214
718-331-5080
customer.service@keyfood.com
Circular
Map
Hours:
Mon-Sat 8am-8pm
Sun 8am-7pm
That store is pretty close to that end of Bay Ridge....meantime, lets keep agitating for another true supermarket!!
there's still no supermarkets on the entire 5th Ave.. hope that Staples store going to leave soon. The American Place at the old A&P is for distaste shoppers.
Maybe with all the change Obama is promising, he can do something with the supermarket situation in Bay Ridge as well.
I hope this new KeyFood has the Tiger News? I miss the ole newspaper.
the former A&P location is being assessed by NYC for about $2mm.. it is owned by Wharton Realty.. property taxes about $88k.. maybe neighbors of Bay Ridge want to team up and buy the property and start a co-op supermarket.
Does anyone know what they plan to build on the Key Food site on 94th and 3rd?
A Walgreens drug store
The 69th St Key Food appears to be in trouble:
http://www.brooklynrowhouse.com/key_food
I plan to move to Bay Ridge in November and it would be nice to have that Key Food on 69 Street.
What in creation is the holdup?
Arrrrggghhh. This is so frustrating.
"There's no reason why we can't have the same kind of large quality and inexpensive markets that any suburb in America has."
Or that many other neighborhoods in NYC have. I moved here from Astoria where there are like a half dozen supermarkets just steps from the subway station. Now I have a nicer apartment but nowhere decent to shop :(
Keyfood on 69 st is a good start, but we could use a bigger supermarket on Senator St. where the old A&P used to be!
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