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 the store: it might look like kind of a mess, but I can tell you from my own observation that that's only because it's an extremely high-volume store. It's very well taken care of, and decidedly more upscale than any of the other stores we've seen in Jamaica (catering to the more affluent residents of Jamaica Estates to the north). We're going to tour the store starting with the front.
Fantastic first impression. Spacious and beautifully-stocked produce department, and most of the fixtures are quite new.
Beautiful deli-bakery immediately inside the entrance.
Big push on the organic and prepared produce, although it's also just that the store is large enough to offer those options.
Service seafood is at the end of the first aisle. Great tile on the walls.
Packaged meats line the side wall.
We can see some wear on the floor back here, but that's really the only sign of aging this store shows.
Nice grocery aisles, and extremely spacious compared to the other stores here in Jamaica.
Great looking frozen aisle running right down the middle of the store, a holdover from Waldbaum's.
Bulk foods on the front end.
And dairy in the last aisle. Looking good!
Nice front end, with customer service in the front corner. The entrance/exit to the parking garage is just to the left of customer service.
Not only does that wrap up this Ideal Food Basket, it wraps up Jamaica North! If you liked Jamaica, don't worry, we'll be coming back soon for Jamaica South. But we have to circle down there via Long Island (two municipalities, North Hempstead and Hempstead, on the very western edge of Long Island). So be prepared to jump into Great Neck up next!
Ideal Food Basket
175-35 Hillside Ave, Jamaica Estates, NY
Photographed December 2019
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