CTown Supermarkets
Opened: July 2024
Today's only post that's not a LIDL (see Livingston and Pelham) is this brand-new CTown in East Harlem, opening in late summer 2024 on the ground floor of a mixed-use building. The space was previously a Duane Reade drugstore which closed in 2018, and it seems construction for a new supermarket here began in 2022. I visited in the summer of 2023 and found the store in progress but not quite ready to open, and it did open about a year later (July 2024).
Here's some 2023 photos of the store in progress. I couldn't get any worthwhile shots of the store's interior, but these signs (clearly indicating a grocery store was soon to occupy the space) had been installed.
Entrance and exit. Today, the entrance is on the left and the exit is on the right.
You enter and make a left to a spacious produce department, with the bakery in the first aisle (and yes, there is a service bakery counter here, and it looks like there is even an in-store bakery, a rarity among smaller New York City supermarkets.) Deli and sushi line the back wall, with cold cuts in the back-right corner. Dairy is in an aisle roughly in the middle of the store, with the meat department in the last aisle. Frozen foods are in the front-right corner.
It's a beautiful supermarket, but it was also nearly deserted. There were barely any other customers in the store when I visited, and Cherry Valley Marketplace -- the store's nearest competitor, a block west and a block south -- was quite busy if not packed. When I visited, I wasn't aware that the store had been open since the summer; I thought it had opened within the last few weeks and was still scaling up. That's possible, but it's also possible that it's actually scaling down to reflect a slower-than-expected business.
Either way, the store is really nice inside and has a large selection -- it's quite a bit larger than the other supermarkets in the immediate area. But it feels like it hasn't quite hit its stride yet.
Storage is in the basement, and you can see there's actually a walkway and conveyor belt to the basement in the middle of the produce department. I'm surprised they didn't rearrange the layout somehow to make this area backroom space.
And I'm not totally sure what's going on here -- this area at the back of the produce department feels a little dead, and it looks like something is covered up here with the baskets of produce on top of it. I hope they're able to get everything up and running, because it feels like there's a lot of potential here that isn't being fulfilled.
As we move into the first aisle, we have refrigerated baked goods and deli items on one side, with the service bakery counter on the other. Unfortunately, only about half of the bakery department was actually stocked. The deli isn't faring much better...
What will be or once was a hot food bar is currently covered with boxes of chips. I don't know whether this had been open and had since closed, or hasn't yet opened. I understand that many stores, especially independents like this, need several months after the soft opening to fully set up. But this store opened in July, and you can see in this picture from July the bakery counter is fully stocked -- when I visited, only the left half was full.
The grocery aisles, though, are well-appointed and extremely clean and orderly. How many other Manhattan supermarkets have aisles this wide and pleasant?
There's a large deli on the back wall, which spans several aisles' widths. There's also a sushi counter, which is set up a little unusually with packaged sushi behind the counter and a clerk serves it. My guess is either that you need to pay at the sushi counter because it's an outside business, or that they want to cut down on shoplifting so you can't pick it up yourself.
The very well-stocked dairy aisle runs roughly up the middle of the store.
Cold cuts and packaged meats are to the right of the sushi counter. There's no service butcher or seafood here, but there is a large selection of packaged items.
And frozen foods are in an alcove to the far right, in a dead-end aisle in the front-right corner.
As you can see, this is a really beautiful store and it's sad to see that it's not quite living up to its potential.
One more strange thing is the branding: many of the signs around the store do say CTown, but the aisle markers and this sign on the front wall say Market Fresh, another Krasdale brand. I don't understand the use of both brands, and I don't know if they're transitioning from one to the other -- which might explain some of the reduced services around the store, if they're switching banners or something like that.
So as we can see, this is a beautiful store and it has a lot to offer. But it also looks like people haven't quite caught on yet, or maybe they simply think there are better options around. (Still, the store is directly across the street from a large public housing complex -- and the supermarket with easiest access to that complex. But it's in a far-eastern part of East Harlem, meaning that maybe it's just not a convenient location for anyone else.) We'll have to see how this store does over time, but there's a great base here and a lot of potential.
Owner: unknown
Previous Tenants: assorted non-grocery tenants
Cooperative: Krasdale Foods
Location: 1999 1st Ave, East Harlem, Manhattan, NY
Photographed: June 21, 2023 and December 11, 2024
In addition to this CTown, don't miss this weekend's other posts at new LIDL stores in Livingston and Pelham!
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