Special Report: Antillana SuperFood Marketplace - Morris Heights, Bronx, NY

Antillana SuperFood Marketplace
Owner: Jose Grullon

Opened: October 2023

Previous Tenants: none

Cooperative: Associated Supermarket Group

Location: 1850 Jerome Ave, Morris Heights, Bronx, NY

Photographed: November 8, 2023

Just blocks from yesterday's CTown that just burned down, we are visiting a very different store -- a brand-new Antillana SuperFood. Around a third of a mile east of the CTown, this store recently opened in October, holding its grand opening on November 18th. While I'm not positive exactly how large the store is, it's rather large and I would say is likely the largest Antillana location out there.

The Antillana group has quite a few stores: two Extra Jumbo Marketplace locations in Manhattan (3788 Broadway and 312 Audubon Ave) and one in the Bronx (1384 Nelson Ave), one Antillana SuperFood in Manhattan (3900 Broadway) and six in the Bronx (2285 Grand Concourse -- previously Bravo, 1339 Jerome Ave, 124 W Fordham Rd, 640 Pelham Pkwy S, 1025 Westchester Ave, 1791 Jerome Ave, and 1850 Jerome Ave, this one). Another is under construction at 1000 Westchester Ave, directly across from the 1025 Westchester location. There are also Antillana markets at 490 W 207th St in Manhattan, 123 W Kingsbridge Rd in the Bronx, and 245 E Tremont Ave in the Bronx, but I'm not positive whether those are related. Now this location is pretty close to the 1791 Jerome Ave location, by which I mean directly across the street...

I assumed 1791 would close when 1850 opened, but when I visited, there was no sign of that. I would estimate that 1850 is two or three times the size of 1791, so there's a lot more there. 1791 was fully stocked and packed with meat and produce, so I doubt it'll be closing. Possibly because the CTown recently closed, and because there's not a lot of supermarkets around here in general, Antillana feels there's enough traffic to sustain both -- but we'll see.

Let's take a step inside the new one! We enter and turn right to produce in the first section, mostly towards the front wall. The first section of grocery aisles run front-to-back next to produce, with juice in the first aisle. At the far right side of the store is frozen foods, which then transition to dairy in the back right corner of the store. There's a second set of grocery aisles in the back of the store, which run side to side. At the far back of the store on the back wall is packaged meat, with the butcher counter next to that. On the back wall of the store, from right to left, we have service bakery, deli, and prepared foods. Registers run along the left side of the store from front to back, and beyond the registers is a large HABA and beer department. It's a big place, so let's take a look around!

The produce department is a little segmented because there's this middle section and then also an aisle to the right above, which runs along the front wall of the store. To the left is the back wall of the store, with the deli and other service counter.

Behind the produce prep space we enter the first grocery aisles with juice and condiments here. There's a huge grocery selection here, with a lot of organic and specialty selections -- something that very few other stores around here have.

I was here during the soft opening phase, so the store wasn't 100% ready (notice there are no labels on the aisle markers, for instance) but it was looking amazing. As we see, it's clean, organized, and very spacious.

This store has a much larger than average nonfoods selection, too, which is likely a result of its size. The store is definitely not big by suburban standards, but quite large for this part of the Bronx. I'd estimate it's 15-20,000 square feet -- that's much larger than the 8,000 square foot store across the street or 6,000 square foot Key Food a few blocks away. There's a 40,000 square foot Food Bazaar a mile away or a 47,000 square foot Stop & Shop a little farther, but those are prohibitively far for most people in this area.

The Wall of Values was still being set up when I was here, but you can see there will be plenty here! This is the front wall of the store.

This area, too, was clearly still being set up, but the frozen food department is on the far right side of the store.

Aisle 7 is the last in the front section of the store, where dairy begins. Aisle 8 takes us into the next section...

...and looking back towards the front of the store...

That has to be one of the largest selections of alternative milks in the neighborhood...

We can see that this store feels much larger than many of the small urban stores in this neighborhood.

The selection definitely includes a lot of international items, but there's a large selection of mainstream groceries, too.

And here in the last aisles, we have kitchenwares and meat. You can see the service butcher counter at the front of the aisle. The wall to the right below is the back wall of the store.

I'm sure you can tell there's absolutely nothing secondhand here -- all the fixtures are brand-new. Including the taxidermy...

To the left in the above picture, we have the bakery and deli departments.

There's no in-store bakery, but a large selection of local breads and a large case for cakes and pies we can see here. Up next on the back wall is the deli and prepared foods counter...

And we can see where the produce department meets these service counters. My pictures are not great of the rest of the store, but the registers run from the front to the back wall of the store, with beer (not yet open) and HABA in the alcove beyond that. It's a very large selection.

That's all for this beautiful new store! Speaking of that, we have one more special report with a lot of different stores packed in right here on The Market Report tomorrow!