First Pathmark Daily grocery store to open on Long Island this week

The Pathmark name will rise again on Long Island, 11 years after the grocer’s former parent company filed for bankruptcy and all the stores closed.

A Super Foodtown grocery store in East Meadow, at 625 Merrick Ave., is being converted to the only Pathmark Daily, a small-format grocery store, in the country, with a grand opening set for Friday, according to Allegiance Retail Services LLC, an Iselin, New Jersey-based retail cooperative that provides advertising, technological and other services to independently operated grocery stores.

The Pathmark Daily concept is a grocery store that is smaller than traditional supermarkets and focuses on value and convenience, according to Allegiance.

“Pathmark Daily answers the need of consumers who want a fast, hassle-free shopping experience emphasizing strong value and quality,” Joseph Fantozzi, chief operating officer and president of Allegiance Retail Services, said in a statement Monday.

Allegiance, which bought Pathmark's intellectual property, including the logo, trademarks and brand name, in 2016, also owns the Super Foodtown name and other brands.

Staten Island resident Mike Said opened Super Foodtown in East Meadow in 2023. 

He is leasing the two-floor, 28,000-square-foot space. The 15,000-square-foot main level is occupied by the store, while the basement is used for storage.

Pathmark Daily differs from Super Foodtown in that it will offer more sales and lower everyday prices, which means lower margins on groceries, Said told Newsday on Monday. But he expects to increase the volume of groceries he sells, particularly as more shoppers seek deals amid rising food costs.

"Everybody is watching every dollar. So, I'm sure when they walk away from my store and they see the value and the quality, that word will spread and I will get more volume," he said.

He declined to say by how much his grocery store's prices will decrease under the Pathmark Daily name, but he said they will be lower than those of major competitors, such as ShopRite and Stop & Shop.

Other changes made in his store include  expanded produce, bakery and health and beauty departments, as well as the addition of "Wall of Values" and "Everyday Low Price" sections that will have featured items that are popular with customers, he said.

Said also owns a Super Foodtown that opened in Hempstead in 2015 but that store will not be converted to a Pathmark Daily because its size, 10,000 square feet, doesn't meet Allegiance's minimum size requirement of 15,000 square feet, he said. 

Nationwide, the average supermarket in 2024 was 42,453 square feet, according to the latest data from FMI, an Arlington, Virginia-based trade group that represents food retailers and producers.

Pathmark Daily will respond to today's shoppers "quickly and with ease" for more-immediate needs, said Donna Zambo, chief information and marketing officer for Allegiance.

"And, so, a smaller-size format that is curated to ... what they need, when they want it for a quick access is really what makes sense," she said, adding that the store also will have an ecommerce component, called Pathmark Daily on the Go, which will deliver groceries to customers.

She declined to say whether more Pathmark Daily stores are in the works.

"Future store plans cannot be discussed at this time," she said.

A known name

The Pathmark name is still well-known on Long Island despite the demise of the grocer more than a decade ago.

When the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., or A&P, in Montvale, New Jersey, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July 2015 for the second time in five years, it owned 296 stores under several names, including 51 Long Island stores — 19 Pathmarks and 32 Waldbaum's supermarkets. 

The 51 Long Island stores were closed by November 2015, but some of the spaces were taken over by other supermarkets. 

A Pathmark store in East Meadow, on Front Street, closed in 2013 when its lease expired. 

The only full-size Pathmark in the country is a 49,000-square-foot store, which opened in Brooklyn in 2019. It is operated by Allegiance member PSK Supermarkets. 

Shoppers at the Super Foodtown in East Meadow on Monday welcomed the news of the new store.

"This [Super Foodtown] store, I found to be very helpful, because I do like special shopping and such here. So, if it stays like this and adds more to it, I think it will be perfect," said East Meadow resident Joyce Scherer, 79.

Jonathan Kaplan, 40, of North Merrick, said he has noticed changes taking place in the store, including more space to maneuver near the produce, but he didn't know until Monday that the store was becoming a Pathmark Daily.

"It just seemed a little more, maybe customer friendly, too ... Now it's not as congested, which is nice. But you can't argue with lower prices, right?" he said.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

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.