Fruit, nature’s oldest weapon, struck again yesterday when an enraged customer at the Avenue Y Stop & Shop is accused of hurling avocados at a defenseless employee, according to a report by the New York Daily News.
Joe Testa, the 45-year-old crazed grocery patron, allegedly bruised the face of a female Stop & Shop employee after an intense argument broke out around 3 p.m. He was charged with a misdemeanor assault following his attack.
The employee was taken to Lutheran Medical Center where she was treated for bruising. She was later released.
Now… how do we fit an “Orange you glad he didn’t use a durian fruit?” joke in here?
Aldi Food Market, slated to replace the defunct Pathmark at 3785 Nostrand Avenue next October, will be only half the size of its predecessor, but local pols say that it will still fulfill their promise of bringing in a notable anchor tenant to revitalize the commercial corridor, restore shoppers’ options and revive jobs in the community.
Sheepshead Bites has learned that the former Pathmark location, which occupied 35,000 square feet, is being subdivided into two storefronts, with Aldi filling 18,000 square feet of the property. The second tenant has not yet been signed. Both will have Nostrand Avenue storefronts (as opposed to Pathmark, which had its entrance on the south side of the building), and rooftop parking will remain at the location.
After 30 years in business, Brighton Beach’s Met Foods supermarket is closing its doors in just two more weeks, leaving neighborhood seniors distressed about future food-shopping endeavors.
The supermarket, located at at 100-120 Brighton Beach Avenue, is being replaced by a modern two-story office and retail complex. Rather than housing a different convenience store, the new complex will be open to a variety of vendors that will be able to sublet office-sized space, with retail on the ground floor.
But Brighton Beach locals are unenthusiastic about the change. Many Met Foods customers are worried about the inconvenience that this close will cause on the elderly population residing in the community.
“The first picture is my grandparents, my dad, and my uncle in front of the store my grandfather ran in 1962. The second picture (Ed. — below) is the same spot, 50 years later (note the giant tree that grew in that time!).”
144 Neptune Avenue today. Photo courtesy of Saul Braksmajer
What I love about the top photo is that you can see that they have advertisements for Green Stamps in the window, as well as products such as White Rose Tea; Schaefer, Schlitz and Rheingold beers, and — something I’ve never heard of — dual filter cigarettes. They also sold giant Lipton mushrooms, which, as I previously mentioned, I’m not much of a fan of.
Does anyone recall shopping at this grocery store? Share your memories in the comments!
YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: After more than 30 years serving the community, Brighton Beach’s Met Foods supermarket at 100-120 Brighton Beach Avenue will close down to make way for a modern two-story office and retail complex.
The supermarket lost its lease to the building to a new tenant who plans to redevelop the property and sublet it out, Arsen Atbashyan, the owner of Commercial Acquisitions, which brokered the lease, told Sheepshead Bites.
Atbashyan negotiated a 49-year land lease, signed near the end of 2011, that gives the developer rights to construct a two-story building on an 18,000-square-foot footprint, with 30,000 square feet of retail and office space available.
Atbashyan said he’s expecting to sign some big brand names as tenants.
“We are currently in the process of just starting the marketing process and at this time no tenants are on the hook,” he told Sheepshead Bites. “But we do expect national tenants to come on board as the marketing goes on.”
Before there was Balducci’s, before there was the Chelsea Market, and even before there was Whole Foods – there was The Orchard and its owner Daniel Spitz, pioneer of the gourmet fruit and vegetable movement in New York City.
Established in 1957, The Orchard and its owners were the first to fly pineapples from Hawaii to New York City. They were even the ones to provide pineapples for the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter.
Daniel Spitz, the owner of The Orchard at 1367 Coney Island Avenue in Midwood, got some recognition on Thursday for his years of work and entrepreneurial spirit. He opened the store with only $500 in his hand, which he had earned previously from working on the streets as a local delivery man. Now at 84 years old and after 55 years in the fruit business, he was honored for his achievement and his rise from rags to riches.
BrightFarms is a 100,000 square foot Brooklyn rooftop farm operation located in Sunset park, and happens to be the largest rooftop farm in the world. The BrightFarms’ Brooklyn greenhouse grows up to one million pounds of local produce per year.
The partnership between A&P and BrightFarms helps develop a new produce supply chain—one that is thousands of miles shorter. Customers will soon have the opportunity to purchase locally-grown lettuce, tomato and herb varieties at their neighborhood A&P, The Food Emporium, Pathmark or Waldbaum’s.
Although it is not yet confirmed which stores specifically will be the recipients of BrightFarms’ local produce, A&P assures shoppers that it will be distributed widely throughout their metro-area family of stores.
“Partnering with BrightFarms is a phenomenal opportunity to provide our customers with the freshest, local, and most sustainable produce in the supermarket aisle,” said Sam Martin, the president and CEO of A&P, in a media release.
We predict that pretty soon you’ll be hearing buzz words like locavore in the produce aisle of your local Walbaum’s.
Here’s some hard-hitting news for you: Waldbaum’s at 3100 Ocean Avenue now requires a 25-cent deposit to use their shopping cart, reports reader nolastname.
Nolastname asked management about the development, and they said that too many shopping carts have been stolen recently. But nolastname has her own thoughts on the topic:
“$.25 is not going to stop someone from stealing a wagon that is worth a couple hundred,” she wrote to us. “I figure one or more high end cars got scratched/dented and are suing Wally World for not keeping the wagons contained.”
More than one year after Pathmark made its last sale from its 3795 Nostrand Avenue location, the building remains vacant, political leadership to bring a new supermarket to the site appears to have dried up, and residents are fuming about the lack of nearby options to shop for their families.
