TOUR: Associated Fresh Market - East Harlem, Manhattan, NY

The gentrification of Harlem has brought a lot of controversy, and a lot of controversial projects. One project that I haven't heard any controversy about is the renovation of the ground floor of the residential tower at 1588 Madison Ave in East Harlem. The former Associated Food Holdings-affiliated Uptown Supermarket has been rebranded into a brand-new Associated Fresh Market (and moved slightly to the right, I believe what used to be a courtyard was enclosed and added to the supermarket space; the residence entrance is now to the left of the supermarket).

The new Associated is not a fancy store, although it does sell some organic and specialty products. It's very attractive and extremely well stocked though. (Side note, I visited here on a freezing cold day in an attempt to find lunch; I ended up eating at the Mount Sinai Hospital cafeteria and it was rather good. I love cafeterias and also work for a large foodservice provider in a cafeteria setting. The Cafeteria Report, however, might be a little more difficult to write.) Anyway, back to Associated! You enter to the produce aisle, with a room to the right with grocery aisles, and a few more grocery aisles to the left with deli, dairy, frozen, meat, and a few registers.

It's very hard to pull the square footage from Google Maps for this store, but it can't be more than 6000-ish square feet. It's very small but very complete.

The grocery aisles in the room to the right of produce are not numbered. Look how perfectly every single item is faced!

Back to the main supermarket room, with numbered grocery aisles. The deli lines the back wall, meat in the second-to-last aisle, frozen on the side wall, and dairy on the front wall.

The store sells Avenue A storebrand products along with Full Circle Organics (see the shelf to the left).

Looking along the back wall. Hard to get a better picture of the deli as it was being stocked by a Boar's Head vendor.

Frozen in the last aisle, with dairy on the front wall. You can see the checkouts at the exit/entrance door.

All the equipment in the entire store is brand-new, because the whole store is new. It's a very nice place! We're going to head north on Madison Avenue for the next two stores, so stay tuned!

Associated Fresh Market

1588 Madison Ave, East Harlem, Manhattan, NY
Photographed January 2020