The Independent Edition

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...

Tropical Farm Owner: Kyung and Cheol Gon Kim Opened:  2016 Cooperative:  none Location:  530 Tarrytown Rd, White Plains, NY Photographed:  March 2019 West on Tarrytown from yesterday's Apple Farm is another small greengrocer shop owned by a husband-and-wife team who also have a produce store in the Bronx. This one, unlike Apple Farm, is entirely Caribbean-focused. You can read more about the store and see a video here .

Apple Farm Owner:  Danny Yoon Opened:  1996 Cooperative:  none Location:  37 Tarrytown Rd, White Plains, NY Photographed:  March and May 2019 Today's tour is a very small perishables-only type store just outside of the city of White Plains. I'd hesitate to call it either a supermarket or a greengrocer, as it features impressive floral, produce, deli, bakery, and seafood departments, all packed into just 4000 square feet of space. This has to be the best example of this type of store I've ever been in. Before we tour the store, I just want to give a quick shoutout to the owner or manager of the store (I have it listed as being owned by Danny Yoon, and I don't know if Yoon was the man I encountered at the store). Either way, on both of my visits, he was present on the sales floor and helping lots of customers. For instance, I wanted some fresh pasta from behind the deli counter but the counter was packed with people getting sliced lunchmea...

Country Markets Owner:  Joseph Friedman Opened:  1989 Cooperative:  Key Food Stores Location:  344 White Plains Rd, Eastchester, NY Photographed:  March 2020 This 16,000 square foot store looked vaguely like a former A&P before its renovation , but I don't know the building's origin for sure. Opening under current ownership in 1989, the store was a CTown for many years. When the store dropped the CTown branding somewhere around 2009, it solidified the store's increasingly upscale positioning. Though it remained Krasdale-affiliated for a short time thereafter, it later became independent and got a distribution contract with Elizabeth, NJ-based Wakefern Food Corp., which runs ShopRite stores. In 2019, the store ended its Wakefern contract and became a Key Food member. The switch to Key Food also brought an interior renovation to the same decor package as the Dan's Supreme stores we've seen recently (I have another Dan's Supreme comin...

As we move north through Westchester county, we'll be stopping in the towns of Eastchester, Scarsdale, White Plains, Ardsley, and Hastings-On-Hudson, generally circling up the east side, across west at White Plains, the large city of central Westchester, and then a few stores to the southwest of the city. For a little bit of a bigger picture view, we're still heading north of New York City through the direct northern suburbs through Westchester and then Putnam counties, crossing the border into central Connecticut and then circling back south along the INT-95 corridor. We'll then finish up New York State before attacking New Jersey. But that's all far in the future, let's stick with central Westchester for now!

Bryn Mawr Market IGA Owner:  Al Cifutelli Opened:  2004 Cooperative:  IGA Location:  146 Lockwood Ave, Bryn Mawr, Yonkers, NY Photographed:  March 2020 The small neighborhood of Bryn Mawr in Yonkers is sandwiched between the Saw Mill River Pkwy on the west and INT-87 on the east. It has one supermarket in that section, which is this Bryn Mawr IGA. The 7100 square foot store appears to have been created from several smaller storefronts, including a 3900 square foot one that was likely the original supermarket. Inside, the store has a distinctive old-fashioned look about it. That's balanced somewhat by the Walmart decor visible here, for the produce department. As we can see, the decor has been retrofitted somewhat. The picture on the sign appears to be taped on, while the aisle markers have some some older category markers added on. Dairy and meat line the back wall, with frozen in the second-to-last aisle and deli in the last aisle. ...