Morton Williams Fresh Marketplace
Owner: Morton Sloan
Although I’m not sure, I’d estimate that the store is around 12,000 square feet. It’s an unusual layout, as with many Morton Williams, given the cramped Manhattan locations they tend to be in. You enter to this hallway with bakery, baked goods, and candy, and yes, it does look like there’s an in-store bakery. To the right is a room with deli/prepared foods, sushi, cheese, produce, and meat/seafood — basically the grand aisle. To the left are the grocery aisles, beer, dairy, frozen, and checkouts.
And as we can see, the store is gorgeous! It’s quite small and particularly cramped given how much is packed into the small space. It has all the service departments of a much larger store.
Floral and produce are in the front and on the right side of the grand aisle, with deli and meat/seafood at the back. This is a much larger floral department than I was expecting.
I really like the flooring here, but I must say, I don’t care for Morton Williams’ merchandising with the green paper between all the produce and the paper grass around the baskets. That makes an appearance in a few other departments, too, and to me it just makes the displays look messy.
Morton Williams has long been a very expensive supermarket, which their new Allegiance affiliation seems to have helped with. Previously, they were independent and supplied by Wakefern with ShopRite brand products. Now, they use Foodtown and Best Yet (C&S supplies Allegiance) and Green Way (Allegiance) and Full Circle (C&S) natural products.
The meat and seafood area was quite crowded, so this is the best I could do. There are packaged meat cases to the left of the service counters, between this and the cheese department. Speaking of…
I’m less bothered by Morton Williams’ high prices as they have angled their new stores much more upscale, as we can see from this beautiful cheese display.
By the way, the new Key Food we saw a few weeks ago is around 20 blocks north of here — far enough that they’re not so much competitors.
We do see a few questionable decor choices, as the sushi counter is to the right of the sign, and there’s a “bakery - deli” sign over what is distinctly just the bakery. The deli gets its own sign, though, and I really like this decor package.
In the front, we walk back towards the entrance and bakery area…
All traffic is funneled through this area, the only way to get from the grand aisle to the main supermarket.
I did my best to get pictures free of people, but it was very crowded. And, of course, the store is just small.
In the first grocery aisle is beer and the beginning of the dairy department.
The dairy department then continues across the back wall.
The grocery aisles are uncomfortably narrow, but that’s the sacrifice you make for the notably wide grocery selection here.
The carts are also extra-small to accommodate, but could you even get two of them past each other in an aisle?
On the back wall…
The last aisle has bread on the outside, then kitchenwares under the dairy sign at the back. A couple of these signs just need to be moved a few feet over… or accessorized with an arrow.
Frozen foods, paper and cleaning, and pet food is in the front left corner in its own alcove.
Management was definitely prepared for opening day — everything was perfectly stocked throughout the store. The blue price tags are from Allegiance, and there are a few other types around the store from various other distributors.
Frozen foods and cleaning on the front wall…
And a look at the very crowded front-end. To their credit, there was a head cashier or manager doing an excellent job of directing traffic.
Now back outside before we call it a day…
This is an impressive and extensive if cramped and expensive supermarket. My guess, though, is the Upper West Side Target customer isn’t the most price-conscious.
Competitors include a Trader Joe’s about four blocks north at 72nd Street, a large Fairway at 74th, a Citarella gourmet market at 75th, a Whole Foods 10 blocks south at Columbus Circle, and of course the famous Zabar’s at Broadway and 80th. Check back for more updates on construction photos, but that’s all for now!
This was the first time I heard about the store in progress, with signage in the windows.
I was back in November to check out the store's progress, and it was very close to completion.
I could only get one interior progress picture, and here we can see what's now the produce department and the deli/prepared foods area behind it (notice the Salad Bar signage).
The exterior signage was ready to go, save for a few instances of the Opening Fall 2023 signage still hanging around.
The store is very wide and actually takes up a whole city block.
Here's an overview of the whole space. This corner has pet products, cleaning, and frozen foods.
December 1, 2023
A couple more progress photos, with work very obviously going on but winding down as the store got very close to opening. Here's the floral island with the deli counter behind it.
Owner: Morton Sloan
Opened: January 26, 2024
Previous Tenants: non-grocery tenants
Cooperative: Allegiance Retail Services
Location: 2015 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan, NY
Photographed: January 26, 2024
Welcome to the newest Morton Williams! This store opened just this morning on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, on Broadway between 68th and 69th Streets. It’s the latest opening for Allegiance, which has also recently opened a store in Bloomingdale, NJ, and two Foodtowns in Brooklyn — more on those soon. In advance, please forgive any formatting issues on this post, as I’m actually writing it on my phone from a Starbucks a few blocks away. I’m hoping to update this post tonight or tomorrow with progress photos from the construction and fix any formatting issues. But for now, our tour!
UPDATE: Progress pictures!
May 23, 2023
November 29, 2023
And just to the right of that one we see again the produce/salad bar area. That's all for this store, and I'm really happy with how extensive this coverage is!
As a longtime NYC resident, it's interesting that many former supermarket spaces that cycled through serving as pharmacies (CVS/Walgreens/Duane Reade) and bank branches in recent years, are now changing back to supermarkets.
ReplyDeleteI can only assume that post-pandemic retail space economics has made this possible.
I don't know for sure if this new Morton Williams was ever an A&P...but I can say this for sure: many A&P locations were located on the ground floor of white brink apartment buildings built in the 1950s/1960s...in fact, I bet if you look around in your photo archives, you'll find some A&Ps fitting that description! Also, when these spaces served as banks and pharmacies, many of the old supermarket elements, such as conveyor belts down to the basement storage areas and side street truck delivery doors, were never removed.
But whatever the case may be, this is a good trend considering that Manhattan has way too many people being served by way too few supermarkets.
Absolutely, it's such an interesting trend. I've been seeing that more and more across the five boroughs and a few in the suburbs. There have been a few farther in the past, but the rate of drugstore-to-supermarket conversions has absolutely increased with all the closures.
DeleteAs for this location, you're right that it's definitely an A&P-like setup! Looking at street views, prior to about 2022, the block was divided into a half-dozen or so different storefronts. It's certainly possible, though, that the space was originally all one, then divided, then combined all over again.
Judging by your username, I'm guessing you're from Flushing? I had a great time back in 2022 spending a day walking around Downtown Flushing visiting stores there, but I need to spend more time in the areas surrounding Flushing. I really like those neighborhoods and there are such interesting supermarkets out there. Plus, as you said, interesting re-uses.