Stop & Shop to open two more LI stores Nov. 13

Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. will open the last two of the nine Long Island stores it acquired from the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. on Nov. 13, the company said Thursday.

Those stores, a Waldbaum's in Long Beach and a Pathmark in Franklin Square, closed Thursday for renovations. They are part of a fifth wave of conversions that will also include stores on Staten Island and in Belle Harbor, Queens.

The fourth wave of store openings, planned for Friday, includes Waldbaum's locations in Baldwin and on Hicksville Road in Massapequa, and a Pathmark in Seaford. Other locations opening Friday are in Bayside, Queens, and Closter, New Jersey.

With each wave, Stop & Shop closes former A&P-owned stores for about a week before reopening them under the Stop & Shop banner. During the conversion, pharmacies and banks within the locations remain open.

Stop & Shop, which bought a total of 25 stores as part of A&P's bankruptcy, said it will open the final store, an A&P location in Mount Kisco, on Nov. 19.

"We've completed the conversion process of more than half of the 25 newly acquired A&P stores to Stop & Shop stores," Don Sussman, president of the Stop & Shop New York metro division, said Thursday in a statement. "This has been a monumental task for all those involved."

In its first wave, Stop & Shop opened stores Oct. 16 at the Waldbaum's in East Hampton and Southampton plus locations in the Bronx, Ozone Park, Queens and Brooklyn.

The second wave, on Oct. 23, saw openings at the Pathmark in Greenvale, along with locations in the Bronx, Springfield Gardens and Howard Beach in Queens, and South Orange, New Jersey.

The third wave of openings, on Oct. 30, included the Waldbaum's in Huntington, along with locations in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Howard Beach and Flushing, Queens, as well as Kinnelon, New Jersey.

Stop & Shop has hired about 1,100 former Pathmark and Waldbaum's workers at the nine Long Island stores it acquired from A&P, which is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.