Special Report: Pure Farmers Market - City Line, Brooklyn, NY

Pure Farmers Market
Opened: June 2, 2024

Owner: unknown

Previous Tenants: Walgreens

Cooperative: none

Location: 1242 Liberty Ave, City Line, Brooklyn, NY

Photographed: June 14, 2024

In Manhattan, an H Mart recently opened in a former Rite Aid. This former Walgreens -- itself previously a Rite Aid -- in far eastern Brooklyn became the Pure Farmers Market, a halal supermarket, at the beginning of this month. The 11,500 square foot space is still being set up for its new tenant, but the majority of the store is up and running.

The interior renovation actually looks to have been pretty extensive, since there aren't really any signs of the former drugstore inside (that I could detect, anyway).

Produce is in the first aisle, which runs along the parking lot on the side of the store. Meat and seafood are on the back wall, with frozen/dairy on the right side in the last aisle. A bakery/prepared foods area is still under construction in the front right corner, and part of the front-end has been carved out for an outside tenant selling clothing.

At the back of the first aisle, there's also a large corner of spices, which they've branded the Pure Spice Market (yes, you can read that sign if you stand farther away).

And a look across the back wall of the store. The case seen to the left here will eventually be for packaged meats, but it hasn't been fully stocked yet, and you can see the aisles haven't all been stocked either. A large butcher and service seafood counter take up the rest of the back wall.

This store does have quite a bit of competition. We're right on the edge of Brooklyn here, so just a block east is Queens. Directly across the street is a smaller halal market called Abdullah Supermarket, and one block north are two more, Deshi Bazar and Mannan Halal. Two blocks east is Golden Farms, a larger mainstream supermarket affiliated with Key Food that has a substantial halal selection and a full halal butcher. Two blocks west is another halal supermarket, Premium Supermarket, and one more block west of that is a very old CTown. But only Golden Farms and CTown have parking lots, which does give Pure Farmers Market a slight advantage -- but from my observations while I was at the store, the majority of Pure Farmers Market's customers walk or take public transit.

The butcher shop is quite substantial, as we see here. It looks like all of the fixtures were new -- nothing looks secondhand to me.

And the seafood counter is tucked away in the corner of the  back wall.

Frozen seafood and some other frozen foods are in aisle 8, the second-to-last aisle...

...and aisle 9 is the last, with the rest of frozen foods and dairy. These frozen cases may be secondhand.

And the future deli-bakery-prepared foods area (at least, that's my assumption based on the fixtures here) in the front corner. I wouldn't be surprised if the setup with the office behind the mirrored windows was left over from the drugstore days, but very little else is.

And a look across the front-end. You can see the framing for the clothing store's windows on the left side.

And looking in the other direction. The bags of rice are stacked in front of the clothing store's space.

This is a very nice new supermarket, but it's in a tough location with all the competition so close by. We'll see how it goes! In the meantime, there's a lot more to see today, so see here for the full list.