Amazon Fresh announces opening dates for East Setauket and Plainview stores

Two Amazon Fresh supermarkets will open on Long Island this month, after the grocery chain’s expansion paused early last year.

Amazon announced that its East Setauket and Plainview stores will open on Oct. 24.

The stores will offer a wide assortment of national brands, high-quality produce, meat and seafood, a spokesperson said. They also will have a range of prepared foods made fresh in house, such as sandwiches, salads, wraps, burritos and pizzas.

Both locations will use Dash Carts, or "smart" shopping carts with screens that show running cost totals.

Customers can 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.

Located at 4054 Nesconset Hwy. in Suffolk Plaza, the 42,908-square-foot store in East Setauket occupies most of the space that a Waldbaum’s supermarket vacated in 2015. That store will donate surplus food to Long Island Cares, Amazon said.

The 33,342-square-foot Amazon Fresh in Plainview, at 50 Manetto Hill Rd. in Manetto Hill Plaza, is in the majority of the space that a Fairway Market vacated in 2020. It will donate surplus food to Island Harvest Food Bank.

Both stores will be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week.

More than 100 regional brands, including Boylan Bottling Soda, Hu Kitchen and Taylor Provisions, will be available, a spokesperson said.

Prime members also will receive special discounts of up to 50% off on eight to 15 grocery items on a weekly rotation.

The first Amazon Fresh store opened in Woodland Hills, California, in 2020. By early 2023, there were 44 Amazon Fresh stores in eight states and Washington, D.C.

In February 2023, the company announced it would pause the opening of new Amazon Fresh stores while it experimented to try to find a format that resonated with customers.

Since June of this year, Amazon opened 10 of its 51 U.S. stores including in California, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

With Tory N. Parrish