Amazon Fresh supermarkets open two more stores on Long Island

Two Amazon Fresh supermarkets opened Thursday morning in East Setauket and Plainview, bringing the grocer’s number of stores in the state to three.

The other Amazon Fresh in the state also is on Long Island, where a store opened in Oceanside in 2022.

Amazon Fresh stores allow shoppers to pay digitally without going through traditional checkout lanes.

The new stores in East Setauket, at 4054 Nesconset Hwy. in Suffolk Plaza, and Plainview, at 50 Manetto Hill Rd. in Manetto Hill Plaza, have Amazon Fresh’s latest brick-and-mortar design, unveiled last year in some Chicago and Southern California stores, Amazon said.

"These openings invite customers on Long Island to experience grocery shopping with Amazon Fresh, both in-store and online. We’re excited for customers to see our wide selection of national brands, high-quality produce, and curated array of their favorite local items and fresh-prepared meals," Hugo Ortiz, Amazon Fresh regional manager, said in a statement.

The stores have salad and hot food bars, grab-and-go sandwiches, full-service sushi and pizza counters and meat departments, and they offer discounts on some products for Amazon Prime members. The stores also accept returns of merchandise purchased at Amazon.com.

The first Amazon Fresh store opened in Woodland Hills, California, in 2020.

There are now 55 stores in eight states.

First views

Before the East Setauket and Plainview stores opened at 8 a.m. Thursday, hundreds of customers lined up outside to be the first to snag freebies and promotions.

Plainview resident Happy Li was the first in line — by more than 10 hours — outside the Plainview supermarket.

"I arrived last night around 9:30 p.m. … So, my family put me to the challenge, and I decided, why not?" said Li, who said she plans to regularly shop at Amazon Fresh because of its affiliation with Whole Foods Market, which is also owned by Amazon, and its selection of fresh foods.

The 42,908-square-foot Amazon Fresh in East Setauket occupies most of the space that a Waldbaum’s supermarket vacated in 2015. The 33,342-square-foot Amazon Fresh in Plainview is in the majority of the space that a Fairway Market exited in 2020.

Marc Solomon, who owns Solomons Fine Jewelry in Manetto Hill Plaza, was in Amazon Fresh in the Plainview shopping center Thursday.

Amazon Fresh is the fourth grocery store in the shopping center since his jewelry store opened 50 years ago, he said. Having a supermarket on the property helps draw foot traffic to his store, he said.

"This [grocery] space is really being used in a magnificent way," said Solomon, who added that he liked the convenience and technology of Amazon Fresh.

Pause lifted

The East Setauket and Plainview locations were renovated to be Amazon Fresh stores at least a year and a half ago, with the chain’s signature gray and light green paint and clusters of large windows on the two storefronts.

The locations are among 14 Amazon Fresh stores that have opened in seven states since June, after Amazon lifted its pause on new store openings.

Disappointed with Amazon Fresh's performance, Amazon announced in February 2023 that it was putting store openings on hold to examine "the economic value" of the concept.

At that point, there were 44 Amazon Fresh stores in eight states and Washington, D.C.

Amazon declined to disclose how many store openings it put on hold, but Jeff Metzger, publisher of Columbia, Maryland-based publication Food Trade News, estimates that it was at least 50.

Amazon rolled out changes to the Amazon Fresh format, starting with revamps of stores in Schaumburg and Oak Lawn, Illinois, in August 2023.

The changes included an expanded grocery selection and lower prices on more items, Amazon said.

Also, the Seattle-based e-commerce giant announced in April that Amazon Fresh would no longer use Just Walk Out technology, which tracked what consumers put in their shopping carts without the need to scan items’ bar codes and allowed shoppers to pay digitally without going through checkout lanes.

Now, Amazon Fresh stores use Dash Carts, which are "smart" shopping carts with screens that show running cost totals. Customers scan the bar codes of products using cameras on the carts, and then exit the stores through Dash Cart lanes that charge them using the payment method linked to their accounts.

The stores also have traditional checkout and self-checkout lanes.

The Amazon Fresh changes included pullbacks in some areas. In April, three smaller Amazon Fresh stores closed — in Seattle; Washington, D.C.; and Arlington, Virginia.

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.