How Mamdani's NYC-owned grocery stores will work
Manhattan's city-owned grocery store will open adjacent to La Marqueta in East Harlem. Credit: Newsday/Kendall Rodriguez
Government-owned grocery stores are coming to New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Tuesday, with the not-yet-known first location to debut in 2027 and the confirmed Manhattan location in East Harlem set for a 2029 opening.
Opening the stores in each of the five boroughs — nonprofits with cheaper prices for essentials than at market-rate stores — was a key plank of Mamdani’s insurgent democratic socialist campaign. The program will cost $70 million in capital funds, he said. Food prices will be subsidized.
"New York City, it is time for a grand experiment once again," Mamdani said Tuesday morning.
Much remains unanswered about the program, but here's some of what we do know, including that Long Island is unlikely to get government-owned groceries.
Why does Mamdani think government-owned grocery stores are necessary?
The mayor said certain neighborhoods are food deserts, meaning options for finding healthy food are limited, while grocery prices everywhere have soared in recent years.
"Bread will be cheaper. Eggs will be cheaper. Grocery shopping will no longer be an unsolvable equation," Mamdani said.
How much of a discount will the stores offer?
Whichever operator is selected by the city to run a store will be required by contract to pass the savings to shoppers "on a core basket of everyday staples," the mayor said on Tuesday. Pressed on how much the discount would be, the mayor said he did not yet know. He also did not say what those staples would be and it was not immediately clear how the city would select the operator.
The site of the future NYC-run grocery store in Manhattan on Park Avenue in East Harlem. Credit: Newsday/Kendall Rodriguez
Where will the stores be located and when will they open?
Each borough will have a government-owned grocery store. The first one will open in 2027, Mamdani said. The mayor said each borough will have a store by the end of his term in 2029.
What did Mamdani announce Tuesday?
He unveiled details for the Manhattan site — at a city-owned lot near the La Marqueta market at 1590 Park Ave. in East Harlem. The lot is at East 117th Street and Park Avenue. A 9,000-square-foot store will be built, to open in 2029. The La Marqueta site's history dates to 1936, when then-Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia opened what was called the Park Avenue Retail Market to consolidate pushcart vendors under one roof. Mamdani said the cost to build near La Marqueta will be $30 million. That will be the Manhattan store.
What about the impact to existing grocery stores, food markets and bodegas?
Grocery stores have complained that Mamdani’s program will offer unfair competition and harm their businesses. Newsday asked Mamdani about this topic. He wouldn’t provide specifics, or say whether the city has done any analysis, but said generally: "We are confident that this is going to be a critical part of not just the business ecosystem, but also the city’s." Mamdani has noted the city already subsidizes groceries, indirectly at least, through various tax breaks and welfare programs that benefit private grocers.
Billionaire grocery store and oil magnate John Catsimatidis told Newsday on Tuesday that groceries are higher in New York City because taxes and the overall costs of doing business are higher. Catsimatidis, a Republican who met recently with Mamdani at City Hall, said the presence of publicly subsidized grocery stores will be detrimental to privately owned businesses.
"I’m sure it will hurt the neighboring businesses," he said.
What are the chances government-owned grocery stores come to Long Island?
There is hunger and food insecurity on Long Island. But the politics are different from in New York City, and neither county has proposed government-owned grocery stores.
Democratic socialist Mike Adams, of Kings Park, co-chair of the Long Island Democratic Socialists of America's political education working group, who has said Mamdani's victory catalyzed an uptick of local interest in the DSA movement, lamented that government-owned grocery stores are unlikely to open on Long Island.
"I doubt the political will exists for it here, but I'd love to see it," said Adams, who said the group works to help feed the hungry.
Mike Martino, a spokesman for Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine, said there are no plans for the stores and that the county works with charities to help the needy. Victoria McQuade, a spokeswoman for Nassau Executive Bruce Blakeman, sent a statement from Blakeman: "That is the dumbest idea I've heard in a long time."
Catsimatidis thinks — and hopes — the grocery stores aren't coming to the Island.
"Right now, you got a strong Suffolk County, you got a strong Nassau County. So hopefully you don't have the nonsense that's going on in the five boroughs," Catsimatidis said, adding: "I don't think you have socialists in Nassau County or Suffolk County."
Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.
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