TOUR: P&C Fresh - Ithaca, NY

P&C Fresh

Owner: Gregory Young and Myles da Cunha

Opened: 2011 (under current ownership)

Cooperative: none

Location: 315 Pine Tree Rd, Ithaca, NY

Photographed: August 2020

Welcome to one of two remaining P&C Foods stores! Once a major group in the Finger Lakes and Southern Tier (along with the northeastern PA region), Penn Traffic went under in 2011 and sold most of their stores to Tops, including Skaneateles, but three remained under a new company run by former Penn Traffic executives. Two are still in business today, with one location in Cortland and one here in Ithaca.

Of course, you would hardly know it given the fact that the sign on the storefront is nearly invisible from most directions. I'm sure it gets plenty of business despite that, though, being just to the east of the affluent Collegetown neighborhood and immediately south of the campus of Cornell University.

I never got the chance to photograph a pre-bankruptcy P&C, but having visited this modern one, I must say I was very impressed. There's an excellent selection of products in this 42,000 square foot store, ranging from an impressive selection of Asian foods to local products (even ice cream and apples from Cornell's agriculture programs -- and when I say local, I mean about 1000 yards away).

You enter to the grand aisle with produce and deli/prepared foods on the right side. Bakery is at the end of the first aisle with meats along the back wall. Natural/organic are to the left of the entrance, with checkouts on the front wall and dairy/frozen at the far end.

I'm a big fan of this decor. It's custom-made for the P&C Fresh design with the leaf motif recurring throughout the store.

Nice lighting, too.

Natural foods department in the front. You actually exit through this department when you're leaving the store.

Moving down the first aisle towards the back of the store, we encounter the large deli department.

Bakery is next along the back wall. Their selection was quite impressive but unfortunately I didn't buy anything.

Cold cuts, service meat/seafood, and packaged meat finish out the rest of the back wall. I really like the decor but I am not a fan of the flooring. I wish it had been updated to match the decor.

The grocery aisles, however, transition to a neutral white tile.

Clearly, most of these cases are much older than the decor we see on the store's walls.

Moving into the grocery aisles, we find a surprisingly large Asian section. There's also a very significant HABA department, although this P&C does not have a pharmacy.

Beer in the second-to-last aisle, with additional selection in a walk-in cooler on the front wall.

Dairy takes up both sides of the last aisle, with frozen in the front corner.

Here's a look across the front end from the frozen department, and a look from produce towards frozen.

That about wraps up our tour of this store, which I liked a lot! Our next stop will be over on Grocery Archaeology tomorrow looking at a store in Geneva at the top of Seneca Lake.