Co-Op Supermarket (Niskayuna Consumers Co-Op)
Owner: cooperatively owned
Opened: 1943
Cooperative: affiliated with Co-Op Supermarkets
Location: 2227 Nott St, Niskayuna, NY
Photographed: November 2019 & February 2020
Contributor: Lars D.
The Niskayuna Consumers Co-Op, which does business as only Co-Op Supermarket, has been in business since 1943 but this building looks more modern than that. It's been expanded to about 13,000 square feet and unlike many coop stores seems to be a fairly standard supermarket, instead of the more common natural/specialty style store.
Our contributor Lars D., who submitted these photos, reports that the relatively small store is very popular in the town of Niskayuna, in the Capital Region of New York just outside Schenectady and about 15 miles outside of Albany.
The store is located just across the street from a ShopRite that opened in 2011 in a long-vacant former Grand Union. So far, the smaller store has held up just fine against the 55,000 square foot ShopRite, which has nicely renovated the old Grand Union property.
The store looks to be very nicely renovated, though at least based on exterior design, the renovation may predate ShopRite. Notice that the store uses Best Yet storebrand items.
The decor, flooring, and fixtures all look to be relatively new. That wraps up our look at the Niskayuna Co-Op!
A lot of independent/regional chains (not just grocery stores either!) around here order grocery items from C&S Wholesale, so seeing Best Yet product comes as no surprise in these stores.
ReplyDeleteYep, and upon thinking about it, in the NJ-NYC area, we have a lot of C&S customers too, but almost none of them use Best Yet. Instead, the private label brands for the specific stores are packaged under different names (Key Food/Urban Meadow, Foodtown, Avenue A, etc). I know there are a lot of stores with Best Yet in the upstate NY area.
DeleteJust pulled these from their site for reference:
ReplyDelete1947 Niskayuna Co-op moved to current location on Nott St.
2001 Grand Union (located in current Shop Rite plaza) closed, causing immediate sales increase of 40%.
2003 Major remodeling. Spent over $1,250,000 replacing everything in the building. Added totally new façade, floors, ceiling, lighting, wall décor, fixtures, and equipment.
2011 Installed a new roof, insulated the building, added a new furnace and two new vent fans. A $200,000 plus project.
2012 Remodeled and upgraded the interior, floors, décor and signage with an investment of almost $400,000.
So that confirms your thoughts that the outside was done pre-ShopRite (save the roof) - probably helped/funded by that large increase in sales when Grand Union left the area.
Ah, thanks for sharing that. That makes sense.
Delete