TOUR: North Shore Farms - Whitestone, NY

North Shore Farms

Owner: Nick Katopodis

Opened: December 2018

Cooperative: Krasdale

Location: 153-01 10th Ave, Whitestone, NY

Photographed: December 2019

In December 2018, Long Island chain North Shore Farms opened up shop in half of a former Waldbaum's (which was, let's be honest, kind of weird-looking). The Waldbaum's had closed in the 2016 A&P bankruptcy, and although the renovations took a very long time, they were surely worth it. Only the left half of the former Waldbaum's is the supermarket, with the right half being a CVS. The supermarket is approximately 23,000 square feet of the 40,000 square foot Waldbaum's, but it feels enormous.

Let's get one thing very clear at the start here: it's been a long, long time since I was in a store this impressive. And I've photographed over 1300 grocery stores, so that says something. The presentation is top-notch, but more importantly the products are far higher quality than nearly any other supermarket I've seen recently. Store-made pasta, absolutely amazing baked goods, more cheese than you can shake a stick at. Reminds me for sure of the Garden Gourmet Market in the Bronx, also a Krasdale affiliate.

Produce runs along the first few aisles, with deli/bakery/cheese in the back with meat and seafood continuing on the back wall. There are two sets of aisles, with the rear one containing prepared foods/deli displays for the first few aisles. The rear set continues farther than the front set, with meats and dairy in that corner.

Absolutely perfect. It would be hard to maintain it better than this. And the store was quite busy at the time of my visit.

You remember just how small the store actually is in the grocery aisles, which are somewhat narrow.

One of many cheese cases in the back of the first aisles.

Yep, not bad at all. This island also contains the fresh pasta selection, which is all store-made (and some of the best fresh pasta I'd had in a long time). Deli and bakery are on the back wall in this section.

Bread. Glorious, New York Italian bread. Ah, how I miss it now that I'm living in Massachusetts. And just really, have you ever seen a store with this selection of bread?

The deli is absolutely packed with all kinds of prepared foods, homemade sauces, dips and spreads, you would really have to see it to understand just how huge this selection is.

Okay, unfortunately we need to move on from the deli. Looking over towards the front half of the grocery aisles, we can see a pretty solid international selection, including lots of Greek and Italian foods (the main populations here).

Sushi and seafood on the back wall, with butcher in the back corner. Meats continue along the last aisle.

I was actually a little surprised at how understated the butcher is, being in the far back corner of the store with very little signage to attract people there, and with a rather small counter compared to the rest of the store. I bet the majority of this store's perishable sales go to produce, deli, and bakery.

This picture is looking towards the front corner of the store, but we're only about halfway across the store. A few aisles to the left and you can go to the front set of aisles.

Here we're looking across the length of the store from the center dividing aisle.

Dairy in the front half of the store. Although this store is Krasdale affiliated, there were quite a few Price Rite-branded dairy products, including several advertised in the circular (so it's not just a mistake). I recall that Wakefern wholesales the Price Rite brand products to a few stores, but I was surprised to see them here.

I believe frozen is in the back half of the dairy aisle.

Beautiful front-end, too. The endcap refrigerator displays are quite nice.

And that about wraps up our tour of this amazing store! Side note: shoutout to Cascarino's Pizzeria next door, great pizza and it really hit the spot on this very, very cold December day when we visited this location.