The Independent Edition

Kobacker's Market Owner:  Frank Milano Opened:  1999 Cooperative:  IGA Location: 570 N Main St, Brewster, NY Photographed:  May 2019 Our final stop on the Northern Westchester - Putnam group is this store just four miles from the Connecticut border. It's quite a different story from the DeCicco & Sons we saw yesterday, being just 10,000 square feet, or a quarter of the size of the DeCicco. The store is actually a barrel-roof building, with multiple expansions. It's hard to tell whether that part to the right was originally a barn or if it's just designed to look like that. Heading in, we find an extremely pleasant and well-taken-care-of small-town supermarket. And the barrel roof is exposed inside, with wood beams extending across the approximately 55' wide main store. The barn section to the right holds dairy, beverages, and beer, with produce and the rest of dairy in the first aisle. Meat lines the back wall with deli in the back co...

Red Mills Market Owner:  Junior Zayed Dabashi Opened:  2018 under current ownership, 1960 under original ownership Cooperative:  Key Food Stores Location:  575 NY-6N, Mahopac Falls, NY Photographed:  May 2019 Grand Union stores in Beacon , Mahopac , and Milford were taken over by a Key Food operator whose identity I haven't quite tracked down yet when the stores closed in 2001. This operator sold these stores to fellow Key Food operator Junior Zayed Dabashi, whose family owned Key Food stores in New York City. Well, while Beacon and Milford are going strong (in fact, when I visited Milford it was so packed that Dabashi himself was on a register), Mahopac was bought out by Stop & Shop in 2016, then promptly demolished to make way for a new store we'll tour tomorrow. Shortly thereafter, as luck would have it, Red Mills Market owners Ron and Regina Jedlicka announced they were retiring and selling the business. The Dabashi family quickly jum...

Green's Natural Foods Owner:  Peter Waldmann Opened:  2017 Cooperative:  none Location:  97 N State Road, Briarcliff Manor, NY Photographed:  November 2018 In 2017, troubled natural food store chain Mrs. Green's Natural Market began a small-scale turnaround effort. With the prior CEO gone, new CEO Peter Waldmann led a retreat to the core market area of Westchester County, NY, closing all but five store locations. One store has since closed. A quick visit to this Briarcliff Manor location reveals an unremarkable but fairly busy natural food store. The produce department, like many natural food stores', is all certified organic. The approximately 10,000 square foot store is, however, located in part of a larger building that's almost certainly a former A&P. Pre-posting update:  Yes, this building was in fact an A&P. Mrs. Green's opened here in 2004, transitioning to Green's in 2017. Prepared foods at the back of the store....

Over the next two and a half weeks or so, we'll be wandering through the northern parts of Westchester County before crossing into Putnam County, the next county to the north. As we'll see, this area is mostly suburban with only one large city (Peekskill) and getting almost countryside-like as we head east towards the Connecticut border. Much of this area is also very affluent, especially along the train lines that lead into New York City. While the majority of coverage will be on The Market Report because most of the stores are chain stores, we'll also be seeing three independent stores here on The Independent Edition and one former supermarket on  Grocery Archaeology . Some housekeeping notes... From now on, I won't be tagging these coming soon posts with the names of each town that we'll be covering in the group. Unfortunately, there are simply too many to fit in the tag section. I'll continue to tag them with the region and state. We're introduci...