Food Bazaar taking over several spaces Stop & Shop is exiting, including 1 on Long Island

A regional grocery chain is taking over several spaces being vacated by Stop & Shop supermarkets, including a location on Long Island.

Food Bazaar Supermarket opened at 132 Fulton Ave. in Hempstead on Sept. 20, the day after a Stop & Shop grocery store closed there.

“Hempstead is a vibrant and diverse community, and we saw a strong need for a supermarket that offers a wide range of international foods and specialty products. Food Bazaar is uniquely positioned to serve the diverse tastes and preferences of the Hempstead community,” said Suzanne Kuczun, spokeswoman for Bogopa Enterprises Inc. in Long Island City.

Bogopa is the family-owned parent company of Food Bazaar, which has 32 stores in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

In July, Stop & Shop announced that it was closing 32 underperforming supermarkets in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New York, including four on Long Island, on or before Nov. 2. The closings will leave the grocer with 359 supermarkets in five states, including 46 on Long Island, where the Quincy, Massachusetts-based chain has the largest market share.

The four Stop & Shops on Long Island that are closing — or are already closed — are in Greenvale, at 130 Wheatley Plaza; Coram, at 294 Middle Country Rd.; East Meadow, at 2525 Hempstead Tpke.; and the Hempstead location that Food Bazaar has taken.

Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace has leased Stop & Shop’s Greenvale space and plans to open a grocery store there in the first quarter of 2026, which Newsday reported in July.

Besides the Hempstead location, Food Bazaar stores have opened in two other former Stop & Shop locations — in Carlstadt, New Jersey, and Brooklyn — since September, said Daniel Wolk, spokesman for Stop & Shop.

In addition, on Oct. 18, a Food Bazaar will open in Piscataway, New Jersey, in a space that Stop & Shop  is vacating, he said.

In August, a Food Bazaar opened in a Bridgeport, Connecticut, location that Stop & Shop vacated in early 2024. It wasn’t part of the group of 32 store closings announced over the summer.

Both the grocery chains declined to comment on the details of their real estate agreements, including whether Food Bazaar was buying Stop & Shop's leases.

'They're very solid' 

Food Bazaar specializes in offering products from a variety of ethnic cultures, including Hispanic and Asian, and stocks an extensive mix of perishable items, said Jeff Metzger, publisher of Food Trade News, a Columbia, Maryland-based publication.

“They’re good operators. They’re very solid … Their stores are typically larger than other specialty and ethnic retailers,” he said.

Food Bazaar’s 50,000-square-foot store in Hempstead has full-service deli, meat and bakery departments and a wide selection of organic and natural foods, Kuczun said.

About 110 employees work in the store, she said.

No Stop & Shop employees are being laid off following the 32 store closings, as they will be able to transfer to other Stop & Shop locations, Wolk said.

“In addition, associates will have the opportunity to interview with Food Bazaar if they prefer to remain at the same location that a Food Bazaar is taking over,” he said.

Bogopa was founded in 1988 in Queens by Francis An, who was born in Korea. The company’s name means “Yearning for You” in Korean.

Food Bazaar prioritizes opening in “underserved communities that other major supermarket chains flee from,” according to the grocer’s website.

“While those chains may not be interested in providing these communities with high-quality products at low prices, we make it our duty because we know that everybody deserves to feed their families with high-quality, affordable food,” the website says.

Bogopa has three Food Bazaar stores on Long Island, including one in Brentwood that was acquired from Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (A&P) in a bankruptcy auction in 2015 and a Westbury store that was a Fairway Market, which was set to close, when it was bought from bankrupt Fairway Group Holdings Corp. in 2020.

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.