Stop & Shop
Opened: 2001-2022
Previous Tenants: Foodtown > Edwards
Location: 34-51 48th St, Long Island City, Queens, NY
Photographed: July 7, 2022
Welcome to the Long Island City Stop & Shop! This is our first of several stores today. And although it's not a particularly exciting store, it does have an interesting story behind it. For some history, I believe this was a Foodtown (a Melmarkets Foodtown, if I'm not mistaken) and was later sold to Edwards which was then converted to Stop & Shop in 2000-01.
The approximately 57,000 square foot store is part of a
multi-story mall with stores on the ground floor and parking on the roof in the Long Island City section of Queens. Stop & Shop has had some struggles lately, especially in the New York City metro area, with quite a few stores closing in the last few years. Most recently, stores in Long Island City, Flatbush, and Little Neck (plus several on Long Island and several across New Jersey) have closed, becoming H Mart, Food Bazaar, and J Mart, respectively. Incidentally, the Little Neck J Mart has yet to open, and the Flatbush Food Bazaar is in its soft-opening stage, having closed only overnight.
We're going to tour the Stop & Shop here and
here's a look at the H Mart after its opening! As you can see, H Mart did very little but freshened the place up a little bit. This weirdly-yellow Stop & Shop was not looking great at the time of my July 2022 visit, but it wasn't totally dilapidated either. This is a tough location, though, not being visible at all from the very busy Northern Boulevard, and just a quarter mile from the
Long Island City Food Bazaar, which is crowded for nearly all of the 24 hours it's open. There's a few other independent and small supermarkets around, too, with the Food is Love Supermarket a quarter mile northeast, a Food Universe half a mile northwest, and a CTown three quarters of a mile northwest. There are, of course, many other supermarkets around too (given that it's New York City) but those are the closest competitors.
You enter on 48th St with the store layout being pretty standard. The registers are along 48th St and the aisles run perpendicular to the street. Produce is on the left side of the store, with deli/seafood at the back of the first aisle. Meats and dairy are on the back wall with frozen on the right side and bakery in the front-right corner.
As we'll see, the store wasn't in bad shape but there was clearly too much space as they were winding down their operations.
The back wall is angled since the store is roughly a triangle.
Very standard grocery aisles, but this is the first Stop & Shop I've seen that has polished concrete flooring with an older decor package. I'm not clear on why they ripped up the floor tiles and polished the concrete underneath when they were so close to closing since
as of January 2022, there was still white vinyl tile. Was it some sort of deal with H Mart, since their stores typically use polished concrete floors, for the work to begin before Stop & Shop closed?
Although I must admit, I do kind of like the exposed concrete with this decor package. Although, of course, I don't really like this decor package.
The closure had been announced at the time of my visit, but the store had not yet begun its closing process (and it finally closed its doors in September 2022, I believe). H Mart opened in October 2022.
Meat department on the back wall. The columns are likely left over from the previous decor package, which would've been the Edwards decor package seen in
Piscataway, for example.
We can see the strong angle of the back wall compared to the grocery aisles in this picture.
And despite the fact that the store wasn't officially closing yet, there was nobody here. That's likely why the store was closing, though.
The frozen foods cases look like they've been updated.
And we can see here the angled dairy/frozen department in the last two aisles.
Bakery is in the front of the last aisle...
I don't believe this store ever had a pharmacy, but there was plenty of space for one...
That's all for this Stop & Shop, and I would say its closure is no great loss especially since it was quickly replaced by another supermarket, and there are so many other choices nearby. Not to mention it was just not a particularly remarkable store as it was. Here's the rest of the coverage we have today!
The store had flooded. Forgot when. Within last three years. Ruined the floor so they pulled it up and polished the concrete
ReplyDeleteOh, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the information!
Delete