Look Inside: Food Choice Market - Bronx, NY

Food Choice Market

Owner: Luis Franco

Opened: 2014

Cooperative: Associated Supermarket Group

Location: 2244 White Plains Rd, Bronx, NY

Photographed: July 2018 and March 2019

Welcome to our first post here on The Independent Edition! Going forward, we'll be featuring here independent stores, generally with five or fewer locations. This particular location in the Bronx seems to be to be a single-store operation. I don't believe there's any affiliation with the Food Choice Market at 1325 Springfield Ave in Irvington, NJ.

I don't know this location's history, but it likely was a chain supermarket from the 1950s. By 2007, it had become a CTown, matching in design the Associated at 1585 Westchester Ave and, a little oddly, the CTown at 100 Hugh J. Grant Circle. It does appear, however, that Luis Franco owns both this Food Choice and the Associated. (My research suggests that the CTown is owned by a different person.)

The store is located directly under the elevated subways that run along so many of the arteries in the Bronx (Broadway, Westchester Ave, White Plains Rd, Jerome Ave). There is actually a private parking lot two doors down (just out of frame to the left in the above picture).

Heading in, we find a small -- make that ridiculously cramped -- but very nicely updated interior. New flooring, fixtures, and LED lighting mark the produce aisle. What I'm assuming are elevators to the basement are visible to the right, and the store jams more produce selection into all the corners of the first aisle. I'm only noticing the ceiling now, in these pictures. An interesting feature I'd love to know more about the history of.

The congestion does die down a little as we head along the back aisle of the store. They certainly make the best use of the space they have, and we see the new flooring continues across the whole store.

At just over 8,000 square feet, this store isn't tiny, but it is quite crowded. In fact, the parking lot (at about 12,000 square feet) is larger than the store. Nice selection, though.

There isn't a whole lot of competition in this immediate area, so this store appears to do quite well. There's a Bonavita Key Food about 0.3 miles south, and a much larger Fine Fare about as far north, but not much in between. Except, of course, for the Community GreenMarket just next door to this Food Choice Market. (By the way, the Fine Fare is 16,000 square feet. You know you're in an urban environment when that seems enormously spacious!)

The hanging fresh meats sign visible here is probably left over from CTown. If I'm not mistaken, this store didn't have any other decor elements around. It's still nice, and the store has clearly been updated since CTown left.