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Special Report: SuperFresh - Manhattan, NY (Washington Heights)

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By Zachary
SuperFresh
Opened: April 4, 2025
Owner: unknown
Previous Tenants: CTown Supermarkets
Cooperative: Key Food Stores
Location: 1214 St Nicholas Ave, Manhattan, NY
Photographed: April 7, 2025
Time for another new SuperFresh! This tiny store (it's just 6600 square feet) in Washington Heights has been in progress for a few years, but recently opened at the corner of Saint Nicholas Avenue and 176th. It replaces an even smaller CTown and a former restaurant next door. As we'll see, the work was very extensive inside. The outside doesn't look particularly interesting, but it is in fact quite different from CTown's exterior.
You enter on the left side of the store to the deli and produce department. These are in the expansion, what used to be Humberto's Rice & Beans, with the rest of the supermarket in the former CTown space. Obviously, everything here is new. In fact, I happened to walk by the store when it was still under construction, and they actually poured a new concrete subfloor for the whole building, so the work was very extensive.
Deli is in the front-left corner as soon as you enter, with produce in the first aisle behind that. A large service butcher counter and packaged meats are at the back of the first aisle, with dairy and frozen in the last aisle on the right side.
It's an attractive little store, and it seems like they worked hard to set it up nicely even though it's a small space.
The Shop Fair diagonally across the street hung a sign a while ago that they were preparing to expand into a neighboring storefront -- likely in response to this store's opening -- but it looks like they're now just using the storefront for storage. They've removed the sign.
The grocery aisles are narrow and tall, which is definitely a choice to increase selection in the small space.
SuperFresh is a great brand -- Key Food Stores purchased the brand from A&P in their bankruptcy 10 years ago -- and the logo is really eye-catching. It's great to see it on more stores, even if they're very different from the original SuperFresh stores.
Shop Fair also has a large service butcher counter.
This store's packaged meat department is quite small, though, limited to just one case next to the service counter and one case over here in the last aisle (which is also frozen and dairy). I suppose it's not that small overall, given the size of the whole store.
I visited on Monday morning right after the store's opening the previous week, so they were restocking across the store from the weekend rush, I'm sure. All new fixtures here -- nothing left over from the previous tenant or secondhand from somewhere else.
Another SuperFresh is in the works, in Queens. The Holiday Farms at 61-50 Springfield Boulevard in Oakland Gardens was sold and is set to become a SuperFresh, according to the Key Food website. The transition is rather messy, though. As of last week, the store still had Holiday Farms branding inside and outside, but had the circular for the Village Market in Floral Park, on Long Island (complete with Floral Park address). Meanwhile, a handful of prepared foods items had Food Emporium stickers on them. Hopefully they can straighten it all out over time. It brings me back to the early days when Key Food was first expanding into New Jersey and the other suburban areas, about 10 years ago, and made some similar blunders that they seem to now mostly have fixed.
Sorry for the blurry shot, but I think this still gives you a very complete look around the small store! Don't miss this weekend's other posts, too.
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