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Green Point Farm, Sunnyside Taco on Greenpoint Avenue Close

Green Point Farm (Photo: Queens Post)

May 14, 2018 By Nathaly Pesantez

A grocery store and casual eatery on the same Sunnyside block have shuttered, the Sunnyside Post has learned.

Green Point Farm, a long-time mom-and-pop grocer at 42-04 Greenpoint Ave., closed a little over a week ago, according to neighboring businesses.

Sunnyside Taco (Photo: Queens Post)

A May 4 letter posted over Green Point Farm’s roll-up doors by Elusha Holding Corp., the landlord, says the shop’s owners owe $13,800 for rent for the months of April and May combined. The letter gave the store owners five days to pay the funds or surrender their store.

Five storefronts down, the fate of Sunnyside Taco is less clear. Nearby businesses say the store at 42-22 Greenpoint Ave., has been closed for about a month. The listed number for the business also appears to be disconnected.

The stores are near a section of Greenpoint Avenue that has struggled to fill vacant storefronts for years, with at least four unoccupied stores the next block over.

 

Letter posted outside Green Point Farm (Photo: Queens Post)

 

 

 

email the author: news@queenspost.com

48 Comments

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Sunnyside Local

The Owner of that building was one of the few property owners that banded together to form the B.I.D. and drive up rental prices in the neighborhood. He’s probably getting ready to cash out and put the building up for sale.

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Ker

I’m so sad it closed. Does anybody know what happened to the cat that lived inside?

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rosco p coltrane cooouuu-couutttch

Andy the owner was great, he used to always ask you what you want. I remember him quizzing me on the fat free organic milks I buy for me and my family. I said I like that its cheaper than CTown. He said he would make sure to keep it lower than across the street. He’s a good business man and knows his customers. Thing went to hell after he left. We miss you Andy!

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Sally G

Mayor can rent out the empty stores to the homeless since he is placing them in Sunnyside Woodside LIC area anyway.

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Marie J

I am sure our Councilman won’t care anyway. He has his eyes already on running for Queens Borough President. Really?

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Mr Goldstein

Real crappy low income stores. Get out. Build a hugh condo get rid of useless stores.

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Rikki

Gee, I bet your name is not really Mr. Goldstein. Just using an obvious Jewish name to impersonate a Jewish landlord to stir up anti-Semitism. You are a Nazi. Lets see you print this one!

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Mr Goldstein

Ari Goldstein
Rikki I assume your female. Stick to what you know. Nothing !

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Susana

WTF? More condos = more useless hipsters – who’s parents pay the rents.
Yeah. that’s what sunnyside needs, more coffee and bubble tea shops.
That grocery store was great. Shopped there all the time.

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Saigon

The new people who are moving into this neighborhood are not shopping here. They mostly shop in the city or for their goods. All the mom and pop shops really don’t have a chance. Unfortunately the internet also takes business away from this neighborhood. With the rising prices store front rent only cell phone stores, bars and restaurants seem to do well.

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Super Witty Smitty

That doesn’t sound right- new people are not buying their vegetables and produce in “the city” and schlepping it out to Sunnyside, and there have been “new” people in Sunnyside for many many years. Furthermore, if the old-timers in the area had been keeping their eye on the ball, the business climate wouldn’t be so precarious.

Green Point Farm was always busy but I’ll bet they barely made a profit, with high overhead and lazy neighbors who prefer buying everything at the supermarket across the street.

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Anonymous

So it’s lazy to buy your produce in the supermarket where you already buy meat, dairy, bread, canned food etc? Good to know. You might be Super Witty but you’re not very bright.

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Super Witty Smitty

In our neighborhood, we have small and independent stores that specialize in various food items. If you make the extra effort to patronize them, you will be benefitting our local economy. Buy meat from a real butcher means better quality and less chance of eating mass-produced meat from a factory. If you want coffee, we have REAL merchants that roast and sell quality coffee beans, Go to a REAL bakery and avoid baked goods made by machines, not bakers. Buy your fruits and vegetables from an independent merchant who gets their wares directly from a wholesaler, not from some corporate supermarket.

It’s easy to buy real quality food items in Sunnyside; you don’t even need a car! If you don’t care, drive your lazy self over to a superstore like Costco or Target and buy mass quantities of stuff direct from the factory. Pretty soon, Sunnyside stores will all be nail salons and 99c stores.

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Mr. Goldstein.

I get my vegetables in Jersey. Then Uber them back to my “condo” in Sunnyside.

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Anonymous

My wife and I shopped in this store for years. The quality went down about four years ago and completely tanked with the current owner. We stopped shopping there because of the decrease in quality, not the prices.

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Lou M.

I totally agree with you. The former owners were very nice people. In fact my Aunt would come in from the city to buy there. When Foodtown closed and was under renovations before becoming C Town, that is when I noticed the decline in quality. I think they started purchasing lower grade produce to carry them through the “tough times” when the big market across the street was closed. Most people, myself included had to go up to Green Valley or Key Food on 46th Street and with that started buying produce at the big 46th Street fruit market. When C Town opened, Mother’s Farm didn’t up the quality of their produce and never regained their former business. As for the new owners, what a mess that was from day one!! I hope the shop can be salvaged but a condo there, is probably where we are headed, but we really don’t need one. There is more than enough going up around here already.

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Me

This makes no sense, why would anyone shop in the city and carry their stuff?
If anything, the supermarket on 46th street, which is open 24/7 is booming with business, by the way.

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South Side Johnny

I pass by the 46th Street supermarket and it doesn’t seem to be doing that well. It’s pricey than Green Valley and it’s deserted after midnight.

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Rikki

Maybe if there were good places to shop in Sunnyside people would shop here. We need some big box stores!

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South Side Johnny

That’s the last thing we need. Big box stores put independent merchants out of business and attract traffic jams and pollution. Big box stores have ruined neighborhoods all over America; we certainly do not need them in Sunnyside. What we need are people who patronize local merchants. Supermarkets and big box stores are focused on profits, not their neighbors.

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A.Bundy

i for one enjoy spending my entire paycheck at whole foods in the city for a quarter loaf of bread and non-gmo organic tap bottled water.

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Suncoast

I’m new to the neighborhood and I shop at Key Food and C-Town, the local liquor store and a market on Queens Blvd. But I know others who use Fresh Direct. Wish there was a Trader Joe’s in Sunnyside.

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SuperWittySmitty

Actually, there is but the location is secret and you won’t know about it until you’ve lived here a few years. The other Trader Joe’s are so crowded that they’ve declined to publicize the particular store. I shop at the Sunnyside Trader Joe’s once a week and love it, especially their Tomato & Basil Hummus. The store is not crowded, well-stocked, and not too expensive. Plus, if you bring your own shopping bag, you get a discount.

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joe

Nooooo that place was my jam! I’d scritch that dirty cat behind her ears and make semi-decipherable smalltalk with the sweet cashier a few times a week. Couldn’t beat them for price on produce so long as you were planning on consuming it within the next few days. I was in there last week and their shelves were particularly empty, so hopefully they were able to sell some stuff off to help themselves with whatever’s next.

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Truth

If each of these places had advertised in the various Queens Post publications, (i.e., Sunnyside Post, Astortia Post, Greenpoint Post, etc), this wouldn’t be happening.

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Jimmy Van Bummer

This whole block is owned by Nelson…..Nelson you know you can’t take it with you.

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Fr3esca

“Legal Fee $3000? ” And rent of $6400 is crazy for a place like that. Wasn’t this place recently sold, though?

In regards to last sentence of the article
“The stores are near a section of Greenpoint Avenue that has struggled to fill vacant storefronts for years, with at least four unoccupied stores the next block over.”

They don’t market these places properly. It’s not just greenpoint, walk around sunnyside, there are tons of empty storefronts, I don’t know why they can’t just rent them for cheaper instead of keeping them vacant like this.

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LIC Building LLC

Sunnyside Taco is not out of business. New owners purchased the business about a month ago, they are completing renovating the business.
They are currently waiting approvals and permits from the city. Hopefully they will be open within a few months.

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BoneySoprano

Hopefully their guacamole is green and not the brown stuff I got from the previous owners.

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stephen l null

Why has our councilman Levin remained silent year after year and done nothing to pass legislation to stop the closings? Follow the real estate money, city hall for sale

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Nico

so sad. I home they found a home for Naomi the cat. The place wasn’t the same since Andy and his wife left.

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Dee

Where did Andy go? He seemed to disappear overnight! I’ve missed him and wondered what happened!

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Adam

I was told by people I saw in the restaurant a week or two ago that Sunnyside Taco was closed for remodeling?

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Adam

I walked by Sunnyside Taco the other day when the door was open, and the people inside said it was closed for renovations?

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Native New Yorker

$6,900/mo for as large of a commercial storefront as that seems reasonable. I don’t think the landlord jacked-up the rent.

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Anonymous

The supermarket across the street (now C-Town then A&P) was there when this location itself was a supermarket (Grand Union).

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