Cherry Hill Gourmet Market opened its doors to the public for the first time last Tuesday, and you can barely tell floodwaters ever entered its storefront in the historic Lundy’s building (1901 Emmons Avenue).
“We were working night and day, day and night, 24-seven, to get back on our feet,” said owner David Isaev at a grand opening party last week, attended by Assemblymembers Steven Cymbrowitz and Helene Weinstein, Councilman Michael Nelson, and Community Board 15 Chairperson Theresa Scavo.
During the worst of Superstorm Sandy, several feet of water rushed over the Bay’s walls and barreled into the building – ruining the building’s interior, alongside tens of thousands of dollars worth of items and equipment. Cherry Hill provided the video below to Sheepshead Bites, showing the damage after the water receded.
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein, Councilman Lew Fidler and Community Board 15 Chairperson Theresa Scavo joined with representatives of the Lefrak organization and Aldi market today to announce that the German-based grocer has signed on to replace Pathmark at 3785 Nostrand Avenue.
The storefront has sat empty since April 2011 as local elected and the landlord, Lefrak, scrambled to find a supermarket replacement – one of the top constituent demands, the pols said.
“This is a location that has hundreds of thousands of people desperate for a store they could walk to. I know because when I walk around and talk to residents, that’s the only question they want to know,” said Weinstein. “They don’t want to know what’s happening in Albany, they don’t want to know what’s happening in the budget. They just want to know, ‘When can I walk with my cart to go to the store and buy something?’”
YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Neighbors who want a Trader Joe’s to replace Pathmark at 3785 Nostrand Avenue may be happy to learn that Aldi, a low-cost food market owned by Trader Joe’s parent company, will soon serve up fresh produce and other groceries from the currently defunct storefront beginning late next year.
A customer service representative for the international company confirmed to Sheepshead Bites that Aldi is slated to open at 3785 Nostrand Avenue in October 2013.
Aldi, based in Germany, operates more than 1,200 stores in the United States, and is owned by the same parent company as Trader Joe’s. The company has been growing, with plans to add 80 stores this year to its roster of 75 existing operations. They opened their first two New York City locations in 2011 – first in Queens and a second in the Bronx. And, earlier this month, they celebrated the grand opening of a Manhattan location.
M & I International, the “mecca of Eastern European food” at 249 Brighton Beach Avenue, shuttered its doors in September with plans to renovate and enlarge the building, but neighbors are threatening to oppose the construction if the landlord fails to add required parking spaces.
A rendering of what M&I International’s digs will look like when complete. (Click to enlarge)
The plans were revealed during Community Board 13′s meeting last Thursday, where the landlord’s attorney, Eric Palatnik, requested the community’s green light to build a larger than permitted structure that lacks 76 required off-street parking spaces.
“[The owner] would love nothing more than to put 100 parking spaces underground below that property. It would improve the value of his business exponentially … but he can’t. There’s water,” Palatnik noted, referring to the neighborhood’s high water table.
Palatnik said the landlord – the owner of M & I International – hopes to enlarge the two-story structure to four stories, and increase square-footage from 22,800 to 45,600 – or 11,400 square feet more than zoning allows. The two new floors will be used as a daycare and medical office, and the rent will be used to offset the renovation of the building, which suffers from a sloped first floor and varied ceiling heights, as the space has assimilated multiple buildings on five tax lots as it has grown over the years.
Global Wholesale Market at 1414 Sheepshead Bay Road is closing down, numerous readers tell Sheepshead Bites, and, currently, only the fruit-and-vegetable portion of the store is still open.
Global Wholesale Market has occupied the space for more than a decade, serving as a small supermarket for Eastern European meats, cheeses, baked goods and canned and bottled imports, alongside fresh produce.
But about a week or two ago, we’re told, they locked up the interior portion of the structure, leaving only the semi-enclosed produce area.
We stopped by today and an employee confirmed they are closing for good. The interior, it seems, is being gutted, and only a few items remain in the produce section. They will likely close by the end of the month.
THE BITE: Ah, the bourek, an unsung culinary character of Sheepshead Bay that’s probably as prevalent in this neighborhood as beef patties are to Flatbush, or roasted pork buns are to Sunset Park.
We owe thanks largely to the area’s dense population of Turkish Americans living in the area, but also to those whose cultures historically took well to this Turkish pastry, including Eastern Europeans and nations of the Caucasus regions – as well as to Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry.
For the uninitiated, a bourek – or, more traditional, a börek – is a baked or fried filled pastry made of phyllo dough. It comes in several shapes, sizes and stuffings, and is often finished off in the oven with a nice wash and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.
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.”
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.
Quality fresh foodstuffs has once again returned to our end of the borough — Harvest Home is partnering for the third year in a row with Coney Island Hospital to bring us the Coney Island Farmer’s Market (a.k.a., to us locals, the Sheepshead Bay Farmer’s Market).
A stretch of vendors along the Ocean Parkway median between Avenue Z and Shore Road, right in front of Coney Island Hospital, will be hawking their fresh and organic yummy wares — including seasonal fruits, vegetables and baked goods — every Friday, now to November 16 from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. EBT, WIC, and Seniors FMNP will be accepted.
The market, which set up shop on June 15, is part and parcel of Coney Island Hospital’s and Harvest Home’s efforts to support healthy lifestyles, healthy eating and reduce the incidence of chronic diseases.
The International Food market at 2899 Ocean Avenue has reopened under new management.
The market has been closed for months as the new owners sought to renovate the space. I can’t say I was very familiar with the place before, but I can say that it’s very well-lit compared to how it used to be. Also, the girl behind the counter is very skeptical of men with cameras…
