Stop & Shop announces fourth wave of A&P store conversions

Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. Thursday announced its fourth wave of store openings as it converts 25 grocery stores it acquired from the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., including nine Long Island stores.

The latest openings, planned for Nov. 6, will include Waldbaum's locations in Baldwin and on Hicksville Road in Massapequa, and a Pathmark in Seaford. Other locations to be converted are in Bayside, Queens, and Closter, New Jersey. The stores closed Thursday for renovations.

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. Modifications at all of the stores are expected to be completed by Nov. 13.

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.

Friday the third wave of openings is set: for the Waldbaum's in Huntington, along with locations in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Howard Beach and Flushing, Queens, as well as Kinnelon, New Jersey.

The other Long Island stores yet to be converted by Stop & Shop are a Waldbaum's in Long Beach and a Pathmark in Franklin Square.

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.