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Food Bazaar on Northern Boulevard Opened Thursday

Dec. 13, 2013 By Christian Murray

Food Bazaar finally opened its massive new supermarket—located on the borders of Long Island City, Astoria and Woodside—yesterday.

The new 42-02 Northern Boulevard supermarket takes over the space that was once a Pathmark Supermarket.

The store features an extensive produce section, bakery, deli, and seafood section–which includes live lobster. The market also has several aisles stocked with foreign foods.

The supermarket is expected to bring back over 200 jobs to the area.

Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer said in a statement that the supermarket will provide the “residents of Long Island City, Astoria, Woodside and Sunnyside with a convenient location to purchase their groceries locally.”

The supermarket will be open 24 hours a day– and will have street-level and underground parking.

The new store will be part of the Food Bazaar chain that operates throughout the Tri-State area. This location will be the sixth to open in Queens.

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ERICKA LEON

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Sunnyside Native

Ruben aka SSPHM14 – if you live on the north side, why do you constantly complain about what the south side lacks?

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Lucky Lu

I definitely would have made the trek on foot for a Trader Joe’s. Won’t do it for “wepa” and high priced confusion. There is already plenty of wepa and high prices to be found in Sunnyside grocery stores.

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Dorothy Morehead

Bill, I didn’t buy fish at Food Bazaar but used to go to Pacific Supermarket at 75-01 Broadway in Elmhurst for fresh fish. They have a good selection and it’s convenient by public transportation or car as they have a parking lot. As I recall, the prices were quite good, too. That said, I defer to Mike Novak and his suggestion. Mike is a great cook and he is much more familiar with seafood than I am.

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Mike Novak

Bill, try the “Woodside Supermarket” aka “U-Mart” on 56th between 31th and 32nd Streets. Its a smaller Asian market with great fresh fish and a nice butcher counter. The Produce is fresh and 1/2 to 1/3 less than Stop and Shop.

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Anonymous

Thanks Dorothy and JOR.
It’s mainly about 42nd Pl being a dark and abandoned road that I would never wish to walk there after dark and also wouldn’t find it pleasant to walk there during the day.
For me it remains Met and KeyFoods and the occasional stop at ss and FoodBazaar when I’ll have a rental car for other purposes.

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Bill

Is the fish any good? The place on QB is disgusting and overpriced. I tried some from the new counter at Key Food and it tasted like a old pennies sprayed with Raid. Chemical-laden poison! The one at S&S looks pretty vile, too.

Does anyone know a place to get decent fish around here?

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JOR

The 43rd Street LIRR underpass area is a perpetual mess. I have made several 311 complaints about the dumping that takes place there and the Sanitation Dept to its credit has responded with clean-ups. The last time I received a call from a DSNY supervisor who told me the Department has conducted undercover patrols there, but the problem is exacerbated because the LIRR has not completed work on the west side of 43rd Street, leaving open a large dirt pit that spills onto the sidewalk and not boarding up large cavity spaces directly under the tracks, where mattresses and other outdoor camp like items are seen. The other phenomena over there is people living in vehicles, which stay parked in one place on the street for days and weeks. Again, 311 complaints eventually result in the vehicle being moved for a few days only to return and stay put as living space for weeks. Perhaps more foot traffic with the opening of the new supermarket will bring more attention and action by the MTA at least to close up the eyesore on the west side of 43rd Street.

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Reality Calling

Went today. Drove in parked lower level right in front of the elevator (top parking was packed), got my groceries in quick time. Huge assortment of produce, diary and cereals. Nice wide layout, and not too maze like actually. Fresh food toward the right and frozen on left. Lots of employees who are actually helpful.

6 bags of stple groceries for $65 — would have been like $85 at S&S. Every cashier was open too which is really nice – asa S&S only has like 3 open with cashiers and rest automated.

Wife and I will head to Bazaar for now on.

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Dorothy Morehead

@ Anonymous. Please let the community board and elected officials know about your unwillingness to walk to Food Bazaar at night. I assume it is because of the unsafe road conditions (dogleg turns, hill, dark). I have reported this to the Dept. of Transportation and was able to get some street lights and the Con Wd substation project added sidewalks but it’s still dangerous. And the LIRR does not maintain its property and ignores the homeless population there. I will bring this up at the next CB2 meeting and ask that they address with CB1 which abuts CB2 at the LIRR overpass.

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Julia F.

My husband and I went yesterday. The place is nice, but overwhelming. The items that we usually buy were higher in price than Stop & Shop, but in all fairness, we didn’t explore the whole store.

We left and went back to S&S. I will go back again to explore after the holidays.

The elevators in their garage was removed from the center to way back to your right when you first drive in.

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Anonymous

I went to the market I think I have hearing loss from that DJ and the sirens and he yelling “Wepa” it looked like Major Chevrolet with the clowns loud music and mariachi band store seems to want to attract the Hispanic and Asian market ……………..Wepa

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Sunnysideposthatesme14

Excuse me, I live on the NORTH side and pay rent so low you hipsters would drop a weed filled lung. You all Jelly of this,

That being said, Food Bazaar is crowded and I don’t go food shopping to feel rushed and crowded. Stop and Shop wins. Enjoy your Pig heads and Rabbit

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Sergio

In the parking down stairs they get rid of the elevator. They expect you walk to the parking back and forth.

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sunnysideposthatesme14

The place is a damn MAZE to get around. Too many products, I like Stop and Shops wide aisles , If I ever want some fish heads and teriyake testicles I’ll go to Food Bazaar.

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Theorem Ox

I’ve had a chance to shop at Food Bazaar’s LIC location earlier this afternoon.

For the opening weekend, it looks like Food Bazaar/Bogopa spared no expense for promotions. They got a DJ blasting earsplittingly loud music (probably better suited for nightclubs) at the front entrance. Vendors everywhere distributing food samples. A mariachi band playing in a random corner. I thought there were more employees than actual customers this afternoon.

Hands down, this store seems to stock more varieties of edible foods than its nearby competitors. Something for every palate, albeit with a skew to Latin America and the oddball Korean groceries (not too surprising considering the ownership and top management of the chain). And that will probably end up being this store’s main draw.

The store’s layout needs a lot of work. It’s clear to me that not much thought has gone into customer flow and spacing. It’s virtually impossible to figure out a logical starting and ending point without looking at overhead signs, much less a flowing pattern at this store. It doesn’t help that there’s barely enough room for shopping carts moving two abreast even in the widest aisles.

Can’t help but get the feeling that this Food Bazaar location and labor force will be downsized once the honeymoon period is over unless they manage to find their own niche. In my opinion, the store is too big to be sustained long-term than can be justified. Except at the fringes, the LIC/Sunnyside/Woodside area already has a fair amount of general supermarket competition (and many of them tend to be located in more convenient places or closer to the residential areas). We also don’t have the population numbers (e.g. Flushing) to support a particular store despite the competition.

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JOR

The Sunnyside Post article omits an important aspect to the opening of the Food Bazaar supermarket, which is reported by DNAinfo New York:

“The Long Island City Food Bazaar is the first location to open under the city’s newly expanded NYC Business Acceleration program, which was started in 2010 to assist new restaurants in opening and is now serving supermarkets and grocery stores.

The program works with qualifying businesses to streamline the opening process by helping to schedule and coordinate the many inspections and reviews required by the city.”

The DNAinfo article goes on to report that under the Business Acceleration program, the new Food Bazaar opened 77 days sooner than under the prior regulatory maze.

The Business Acceleration program is another in many innovations by the Bloomberg administration to promote new businesses and job creation for all the Boroughs.

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Sunnysideiswack

Stop and shop is cheap enough, Sunnyside will never have a trader joes because people around here don’t understand qualtiy every time is go to the supermarket or farmers market every one useses ebt. There is a reason why every other neighborhood within 15 min from manhattan has seen prices drastically go up except Sunnyside houses are now starting to make it over a million where everywhere else in Brooklyn was there 5-6 years ago

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me

great addition – well needed – maybe stop & shop will now lower their prices and once again be competitive!

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