What Happened to Manhattan’s Supermarkets?

Broker Faith Hope Consolo, who’s placed countless retail businesses in some of Manhattan’s best neighborhoods, has lately turned her attention to Harlem. She’s happy to note that restaurants and national retail brands are blossoming uptown, but that – outside of a Whole Foods opening on 125th Street – full-size supermarkets are nonexistent since the Pathmark closed there last year. And it’s not just a Harlem phenomenon.

“Supermarkets all over New York have been disappearing from the landscape” Consolo said. “Gristedes, Food Emporium, all are being displaced by specialty food stores or people driving to Costco.”

Morton Williams still thrives with locations in higher-rent neighborhoods, but food coops and farmers’ markets are filling most of the void.

“D’Agostino, which thrived for years and years, is almost out of business” Consolo said. “The profit margins are too small”