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C-Town to Move in to Former Foodtown Location

Photo: QueensPost

Feb. 13, 2013 By Bill Parry

A C-Town supermarket is moving into 41-25 Greenpoint Ave., filling the void left by Foodtown’s closing last December.

C-Town, which is the fifth largest food retailer in New York City, is expected to open by late summer, according to Dennis Wallin, who is the vice president of retail development for Alpha 1 Marketing, the firm that is developing and branding the new store.

“To do it right it will take some time,” Wallin said. “The architect is drawing up plans for a completely new [C-Town] storefront, and once it’s finished the neighborhood will be proud of it,” he added.

There are more than 200 C-Town stores in the Northeast. Wallin called C-Town a reasonably priced chain, one that takes community relations very seriously. Each store is independently owned and operated.

Wallin was unwilling to identify the new owner. However, he said,“The owner has another very successful supermarket in the area.”

Besides brand name groceries, C-Town carries its own Krasdale Foods label. Wallin said the store will feature a deli and bakery section, and will sell prepared foods and organic foods, as well.

Wallin said his company is well aware that nearly 30 longtime employees lost their jobs or were reassigned to other stores when Foodtown closed, “We’ll take a close look at their resumes when we start accepting them in early July.”

He also said that C-Town traditionally hires staff locally, “We’re a good neighbor and we’re in for the long haul,” he said, adding, “It’s a long lease.”

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42 Comments

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resident

I live for 33 years in sunnyside but the ctown in Greenpoint the store manager or manage was horrible I was buying some stuff and a lady went to return a box of coffee guess it was open and they must have tape it he was so rude to her he threw the box on the side made a comment people like that should not work with customers we shop so how do us feel when items are spoil and out of date after seeing that I will no longer go there and I will tell my other friends not to go shop there any more they should fired that man

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healthy

A mini wholefoods would have been better. There are enough yuppies in Sunnyside to afford WHOLE FOODS or trader joes. C town is crap.

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Resident

Ctown is garbage, Bronx heritage ! We rather support associated and fresh and save ! That spot should be something else , we don’t need another grocery store , this people from ctown

doesn’t fit here !

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Tony77

People need to chill about C-Town and ghetto..it’s a grocery store! And from the looks of the outside, it’s gonna be a good one. If the Katz family cared about Foodtown as much as the above emails imply, then he should have renovated years ago! The food and store front looked putrid at best. If this C-Town is ghetto then, I’ll take ghetto over that horrendous FT store front ANYDAY!

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Anonymous

I’ve never seen a C Town that wasn’t a total dump with very low end products. They’re always in shitty neighborhoods. C Town in the neighborhood is nothing to be excited about.

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Karina

What is with that sound that is constantly going on already for two weeks from the supermarket? Is anybody else bothered by it? It is driving me crazy!!!! I would like to complain about it but I dont know where

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Yoda

Any update on when this is opening? Very excited to have a new supermarket in that location!

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Laura

I am very happy about another grocery store opening. I live on 40th street and the the walk to Associated or Fresh n Save is dreadful in the winter. Especially with the way Greenpoint Ave comes to all the confusing intersections (the resident’s know what I mean). I never know which direction a car is going to come flying from. Foodtown was always so convenient because it was on my way home from work and closer to my apartment. I was scared they were going to open another drug store in its place.

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pinalty

c-town is the perfect store for sunnyside neighborhood aka Guadalajara bario . cheap store for cheap people almost 80 % of them .

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Conor

Nice to see the retail grocery spot replaced with C-Town, TM.

Nice to see the corner of Noonan Park lit up in August, TM

Nice to see the real housewives of Woodside protesting child labor, TM

Nice to see the place in line is a C-Town, TM

However, I wandered over there recently and set a match to the property. It was rigged with explosives. The metal frame melted. The C-Town site was blown away. Sucks. My name is C. My people are freezing. Smell you later!

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Listen up!

Just to start off FoodTown never asked for a 40 year lease. Second, through various sources I have found out that the brother of the landlord owns a few C-Town supermarkets. You see anyone with a bit of money can open up a C-Town so what I am thinking is the landlord forced FoodTown out so that he can give his brother a place to open up a new store. I also find it very promising that they would offer former employees jobs but hopefully not all of them because some of them just didn’t seem to care if they worked at all.

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Sunnyside going the wrong way

It is foolish to think that C-Town will pay anything close to what the Katz family offered for Foodtown. But they wanted a 40-year lease for Foodtown and one can infer that C-Town will take a much shorter lease. The landlord can then tread water to see where the value of the underlying real estate goes. I’m guessing the value of that lot will go through the roof in the next 20 years.

Where are our elected representatives when it comes to maintaining or improving our neighborhood amenities? Van Bramer holds a “too little, too late” rally in front of Foodtown for what reason? His publicity? A shoulder to cry on? The rally was completely impotent as evidenced by the fact that no member of the Katz family attended.

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Roxy

C-Town has a reputation for specialzing in low-income neighborhoods in Harlem, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. The nearest C-Town to Sunnyside is probably in the one on Broadway in Astoria, about a block west of the Broadway station for the N and Q lines. I would compare it in size, prices, and stock to Foodtown, but without offering Green Points.
I think C-Town does offer a “member’s card,” which Associated in Greenpoint so far does not.

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SuperWittySmitty

So, once more there will be three supermarkets on Greenpoint within a 5-block stretch? Is this a good business move? I’ve been finding everything I need at Associated. It’s just only groceries, after all, and the folks that work there seem just as pleasant, to me, as the ones that were at Foodtown.

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AbouttoLosemyHead

I’d like to know who is responsible for the demo that is happening-the landlord or the tenant? There are NO DOB permits posted. Laborers are walking debris out on to the street to a random flatbed truck with no effort made to warn pedestrians of the danger posed to them. Put up some cones!! Or hire a real carting company! and do this at a reasonable hour…not 9 o’clock on a friday night!

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YoungFeller

@Angray
Well if the locals don’t go, I cant see people coming 8 blocks over to visit a C-Town. So, he will have a bit of a nightmare getting it rented again. It can sit vacant for all I care like the rest of that street. If thats the way landlords want to be in this area, to hell with him and them.

P.S. C-Town should be very very wary of dealing with him.

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celticparker

If C-Town is going to pay less than what the landlord was going to charge Foodtown, that’s makes the question of what went on here even more puzzling. Doesn’t a landlord want more, rather than less, money? People around here suffer from an appalling lack of curiosity.

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Original Sunnysider

I have to laugh that the new store will be looking at the resumes of the cashiers. Seriously? A resume for a cashier? When I worked there i filled out an app and got hired on the spot. no resume and I was still a teenager. BTW the owners are cheap a-holes so good riddance to Foodtown and welcome to the neighborhood CTown. Also the baking isle always smelled nasty by the conveyor belt and the basement was dirtier than anything else I’ve ever seen.

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Oppressed Masses

60 Minutes should look into the mysterious disappearance of Foodtown and the emergence of C Town and while they are at see if we can bring back Funky Town.

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ferdia

I wonder how we know…
What rent was increased to for foodtown?
That ctown is paying that amount as has been suggested?
That ct is paying what ft was willing to pay as has been suggested?

There a lot to consider… and very little consideration.

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Angray

@Youngfeller – That will accomplish nothing. The landlord which you are trying to spite will get his monthly rent regardless if you shop there or not. C-town on the other hand would appreciate your business.

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celticparker

I agree with those who have asked how C-Town can afford the apparently exorbitant rent that Foodtown couldn’t. I’m also struck by the new owner’s point that “it’s a long lease.” Was Foodtown pushed out so that this C-Town could come in?

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YoungFeller

I live right beside the foodtown premises and was extremely pissed off as most of the locals that frequented the foodtown were, when the landlord (with links to the other stores blocks away) decided to shaft Foodtown leaving us with out anywhere to purchase and then walk back with groceries within a reasonable distance.

So payback is in order.

In order to spite the landlord for getting rid of Foodtown, Im ONLY gonna shop with freshdirect.com from now on. Ill take the hit on shipping (if there is one) just to spite that person who is involved with this. We should ALL do the same.

Fresh direct and even lowly walmart.com can deliver before 7am (if i remember, for those of us who work)

So at least in my mind, the score is now as follows …
local resident 1 – landlord of former foodtown premises ZERO..

The landlord of the premises & management of C-town should note, that not a foot will I step in to that store. EVER.

This is 2013. We are not powerless in this.
Who wants to join me in doing this?

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Old Woodsider

I believe these are supermarket scams in which they file bankruptcy to reopen under different names, ie.. Pioneer was on 46th and 47th ave then closed opened again as 5 star, same crap from before, same horrible manager who just sits and does nothing. Then you have Dynasty 46th and Q blvd which then became Key Food. Remember money has to keep moving in these places….

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O'shea

@SP thanks for the timely info.
Will this store provide me with the hot and delicious French baguettes Susie and goss used to make ? Can i buy fresh make it yourself organic peanut butter, Murray’s chicken, numi teas, goji berries, sweet stonyfield ice cream, and natures path cereal?
At the least it will create non unionized jobs to fill the ones lost. Guess who will be working those jobs?

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86Mets

I’m also wondering how C-Town can afford the rent that Foodtown was willing to pay but was turned down by the landlord.

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SunnysidePostHatesMe

What a bunch of horse shit. So the owner refuses to work with Foodtown to keep it going , gets them out, only to allow another same quality Supermarket? And nobody is smelling the horse shit?

You telling me C-Town has the money to pay the rent that Foodtown didn’t have? C-Town is gonna bring the business that Foodtown didnt?

The New Owner is clearly working with the landlord. Sleeper terror cell or drug smugling or money laundering RIGHT UNDER YOUR NOSES

wake up people!

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celticparker

I’ve heard the phrase “the neighborhood will be proud” a few times already in connection with the opening of a new supermarket, both before and after it was identified as C-Town. Sounds like someone is trying to convince us of something. . . .

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susan

yeah! as for the old Pathmark – I think I read some time ago it was going to be a Food Bazaar – not 100% sure

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Tywin Lannister

C-Town is never a supermarket a neighborhood can be proud of. They’re cheap and ghetto. Take a look at where C-Towns are located: all in terrible neighborhoods. I am very disappointed

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Oppressed Masses

Great news, maybe they will put in a C Town Fresh store which have a large, outstanding produce section. I hope the new C Town will advertise in the Sunnyside Post!

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King Of Queens

Anyone know what’s going on with the Old Pathmark store on N.Blvd. betwen 42 and 43 streets.

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