TOUR: DeCicco & Sons - Brewster, NY

DeCicco Family Markets

Owner: John DeCicco

Opened: 2010

Previous Tenants: Linens N' Things

Cooperative: Krasdale

Location: 50 Independent Way, Brewster, NY

Photographed: May 2019

Tucked away in the back of a large mall that also includes a Home Depot, a Kohl's, and a Michael's is this 40,000 square foot DeCicco & Sons location. I believe it's the largest store, taking over a closed Linens N' Things in 2010. It's certainly the most spectacular (sorry, Ardsley and Larchmont).

This store seems to be a big draw, even though it's a little hard to get to. Brewster has three supermarkets: this one, an ACME/former A&P to the east, and an IGA to the south, which is where we'll be heading next. This store also served as my lunch stop between touring 26 supermarkets, and I sampled multiple items from the hot food bar.

Glazed sesame salmon over sauteed kale, rice pilaf, spinach and ricotta dumpling, and a meatball with homemade marinara. Delicious! Now onto the store. We enter to an extremely spacious produce department with bakery and deli/prepared foods running along the right side wall. Cheese and olives take up the back part of the first aisle, with dairy on the back wall. Frozen foods take up the second-to-last aisle, with meat in the back half of the last aisle and an enormous seafood counter in the front half. In the front corner beyond seafood, there's a cafe seating area and a bar. Yes, a bar. Like, a bar that serves alcohol. We'll see lots of deluxe touches that seem to be going strong here at Brewster that aren't at other DeCicco stores.

Like yesterday's Tops, the first impression is very impressive. As we'll see, it's not actually as dark as it looks here. The whole front wall is nearly floor-to-ceiling windows, which let in a lot of light but also mess with my phone's camera.

Bakery in the front corner, with a coffee shop facing the entrance.

Prepared foods and deli line the right side wall beyond bakery. We start with a pizza counter, then sushi, deli, custom sandwiches, and a chopped salad counter. Hot food and salad bars are in front of the service counters.

This entire wall is deli. I love the building facades above the counters. Charming but not in an over-the-top way. Produce is opposite the grand aisle in the front half. Because the store is narrow and deep, the aisles are divided halfway to the back.

Spacious produce department. I'd estimate that the grand aisle takes up more than 1/4 of the store (and that doesn't include meat, seafood, or the cafe/bar). You can also see the huge windows here.

Here you can see how narrow the store is, and how little space in the front half is taken up by grocery aisles. If I remember correctly, the front half really has only three aisles: produce, beer, and seafood. The back half has nine I believe, with the eighth being frozen.

Next up along the side wall is cheese, including a service cheese counter, and olives...

Looking towards the front wall.

Here you can get an idea of how massive the cheese department is. It takes up the entire right side wall of this picture.

Self-service cheese in the back corner. Seems like there ought to be a light on this sign.

Dairy on the back wall.

Better lighting on this sign.

Gotta love the gourmet products on the shelves right next to Krasdale sugar.

Frozen foods in the back half of the second-to-last aisle, with beer in the front.

Packaged meat with another oddly dark sign in the back corner. Service butcher is about halfway to the back.

I love the building facades here too, plus the vertical "butcher" sign. Gives it a real feeling of a separate storefront! Now we move on to the seafood department, one of the most deluxe I've ever seen.

In addition to the standard seafood and shellfish, this store has a large selection of prepared seafood (things like stuffed fish or pre-made shrimp kebabs and so on). But it also had a hot seafood section, where fried fish, cooked seafood, and other ready-to-eat products were served. You can see closeups of the department here and here. Unlike anything I've ever seen before, in any store.

A look across the front-end, which was actually much busier than it looks (the store was busy with people doing their food shopping on a weekend early afternoon). A customer service representative was actually standing on the front end and directing customers to registers with the shortest lines. Great service! And out last stop...

The bar! Can you believe this is in a small-town supermarket in the Hudson Valley of New York? The people we're seeing here are eating lunch, but it seems that the bar is a big draw for dinner. That's certainly logical: get some great fresh prepared foods, maybe a slice of pizza, and relax with some craft beer in this very comfortable seating area. Pretty nice! Tomorrow's tour over on The Independent Edition won't be as deluxe, but it's a good store nonetheless. Come back soon!