Antillana SuperFood Marketplace
Opened: September 2024
Owner: Jose Grullon
Previous Tenants: Mundo Latino Market > Fresco Farms > Franco Supermarket
Cooperative: Associated Supermarket Group
Location: 1272 St Nicholas Ave, Washington Heights, Manhattan, NY
Photographed: September 25, 2024
Welcome back to Washington Heights! We've seen quite a few stores in this neighborhood, and we're at Saint Nicholas and 174th to check out one of the newest, an Antillana SuperFood taking the place of an independent called Franco Supermarket and, before that, Fresco Farms and Mundo Latino Market, both other independents. At just around 5000 square feet, the store is quite small, but Antillana has nicely renovated it and made it a full-line supermarket.
Antillana has also recently opened a store at 2750 E Tremont Ave in the Bronx, a former Rite Aid. That brings the
Antillana group to seven stores, three
Shop Fresh stores, and three Extra Jumbo stores, although I'm not totally sure that those are all related and that the assortment of
other small stores under the Antillana name aren't related to them.
You enter on the left side of the store to the first room, which has the registers, butcher shop, packaged meats, and deli at the back. Produce lines the front wall to the right, with frozen on the back wall and dairy on the right side wall.
Antillana redid this interior with a light renovation, although some of the bones remain, and it's quite nice. Prior to Mundo Latino's opening around 2015, it was a dollar store. Mundo Latino seems to have been closed by 2016, then Fresco Farms opening around 2016-17, and by 2019, it was Franco Supermarket.
Here's a look at the front wall with produce. As is typical in the Antillana stores, much of the dry produce is displayed outside on the sidewalk.
The grocery aisles are short but well-appointed. The aisle markers didn't seem to be filled yet when I visited, which was shortly after the store's opening.
Here's a look at a cold cuts case on the back wall (which is pretty empty, for some reason), and then the frozen foods beyond that.
The floor is nice, and newly installed by Antillana. So far, the store is bright and clean.
Dairy lines the right-side wall of the store. Below, we're looking towards the back wall of the store.
And now back over to the side room to see the two registers, one of which has a small HABA area behind it. The entrance door is to the left below, and the exit is to the right.
Now, just for fun... let's take a look at Franco Supermarket before it closed!
Franco Supermarket
Opened: ca. 2018-ca. 2022
Owner: unknown
Previous Tenants: Mundo Latino Market > Fresco Farms
Cooperative: none
Location: 1272 St Nicholas Ave, Washington Heights, Manhattan, NY
Photographed: July 23, 2021 and June 21, 2023
I visited Franco Supermarket back in the summer of 2021. The store was a bit strange, closer to a large bodega than a supermarket. Fresco Farms, which predated Franco, appears to have been a bit more upscale. And it looks like Franco eliminated some of the higher-end offerings Fresco had, although signage for them remained.
Franco placed their signs on top of the Fresco Farms signs on the awning, but they didn't change most of the signs inside.
In the first room, where Antillana has the registers and butcher, Franco had the hot food, a small seating area, and a smaller butcher counter. Notice the Fresco Farms signage for bread, and it's clear that some things had been removed from this area.
Franco's butcher counter was at the back. Notice that Antillana kept the tile backsplash but, it looks like, not the actual display cases.
Franco had their produce department in the first grocery aisle.
I don't remember seeing any storebrand products here. You can see the aisles here are not fully stocked and supermarket-style, like Antillana's, but more like a large corner store.
The aisle markers and other signage inside remained from Fresco Farms.
The rest of the store was laid out basically the same as Antillana is now, with frozen on the back wall and dairy on the right side.
But again, you can see the refrigerator cases much less fully stocked than Antillana, with less selection.
Here's a few more photos of the outside from the summer of 2023, when I walked by again and the store had closed.
In fact, one of the Franco signs had come off and it revealed the older Fresco Farms signage below it.
That's about all for this store, and always good to see a space remaining a supermarket! Today and tomorrow will be another few update and special report posts, which you can see here:
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