Brothers open Hispanic-format grocery store in Brentwood

Two Suffolk County brothers have opened a new Hispanic-format supermarket in Brentwood because there was a need in the community, one said.

With the opening of the new Compare Foods at 1070 Islip Ave., nearby residents can walk to the store to buy fresh food, said Jose Urena, who owns the store with his brother, Ramon.

“Within walking distance, they have fresh vegetables, their meats, their main grocery needs, their dairy products,” said Jose Urena, 42, of Blue Point.

The Compare Foods store, which opened in September, held a grand opening event Thursday.

The 8,000-square-foot store is in leased space in a newly built 12,000-square-foot shopping center. Beside the grocery store is a 4,000-square-foot laundromat that Jose Urena and a different partner own.

The store employs 30 people, Jose Urena said.

The Urenas, who were raised in Far Rockaway, have a long history in the retail food business. They grew up working in their father’s bodegas, said Jose Urena, who began owning his own bodegas 20 years ago.

His only bodega now is Riverhead Deli & Market, which opened in 2019.

It’s easier to run a larger grocery store,, he said.

“When you’re a small bodega, basically the owner has to do multiple tasks. There’s not enough money on the payroll to hire extra people,” he said.

Growing ethnic market

While the Urena brothers own and operate the new grocery store in Brentwood, a Port Washington-based company, Associated Supermarket Group, owns the store name and six other banners: Compare Fresh, Associated Supermarkets, Associated Fresh, Met Foods, Met Fresh and Pioneer Supermarkets. (The last four are not on Long Island.)

Associated Supermarket Group also provides financing, marketing and/or supermarket services to 230 grocery stores in nine states, including 37 in its network on Long Island, such as Associated Supermarkets, Compare Foods, Best Farms, Gourmet Glatt, Giunta’s Meat Farms, Maharaja Farmers Market, Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace and Western Beef.

Several of those chains focus on the ethnic market, which is one of the fastest-growing grocery segments, partly because of the growth in Asian and Hispanic populations.

Nationwide, ethnic grocers’ revenue is expected to increase at an annual average of 2.3% to $55.5 billion, and the number of stores is projected to grow 8.2% to 45,864 locations, by 2027, according to IBISWorld Inc., a market research firm based in Manhattan.

On Long Island, there are three Compare Foods stores, which offer a variety of general market/mainstream items, as well as imports from Latin America, said Michelle Mendoza, spokeswoman for Associated Supermarket Group.

"This applies to grocery, big on fruits, vegetables, meat cuts, etc.," she said.

Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace is a high-end chain of 10 Italian specialty stores, seven of which are on Long Island. Maharaja Farmers Market, which specializes in Indian foods, has two stores on Long Island. Gourmet Glatt, which sells kosher food, has two stores on Long Island, in the Five Towns.

Specialty and ethnic stores have been able to keep growing while mainstream chains have folded because they weren’t able to respond and adapt to changing customer needs, said Zulema Wiscovitch, co-president and co-CEO of Associated Supermarket Group.

“The diversity of Long Island has been growing for a long time, not just in the last couple of years … These [ethnic] stores respond to the changes in their neighborhoods,” she said.

Of the 62,387 residents in Brentwood in 2020, 75.5% were Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. The percentage was 68.5% in 2010, according to the bureau.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.com@ToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.