Stop & Shop to take over Rocky Point Foodtown store

Supermarket operator Foodtown plans to close its Rocky Point store Sept. 5, and it will be taken over by Stop & Shop, representatives for both companies said.

The Super Foodtown of Rocky Point, at 245 Rte. 25A, occupies the space of a former Waldbaum’s supermarket. Stop & Shop plans to reopen the store under its name at the end of September, a company spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Stop & Shop has interviewed all active workers at the Foodtown in Rocky Point, Stop & Shop spokeswoman Cindy Carrasquilla said. Hiring is still in process, and the new store team will be “onboarded” in the next few weeks, she said.

The Rocky Point Waldbaum’s lease was bought in November 2015 by Mount Vernon-based PSK Supermarkets, Inc., a retailer-owned cooperative that operates Foodtown, from the bankrupt Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., the parent company of Waldbaum’s and Pathmark. PSK Supermarkets paid $19.4 million for the lease in Rocky Point and the lease of a Pathmark in Manhattan.

Foodtown operates five other stores on Long Island.

Stop & Shop, which said it has 49 supermarkets on Long Island, has a store about 2 miles from the Rocky Point store, on Route 25A in Miller Place.

In October and November 2015, Stop & Shop took over nine former Waldbaum’s and Pathmark stores on Long Island. The former Waldbaum’s locations were in Baldwin, Long Beach, Huntington, East Hampton, Southampton, and on Hicksville Road in Massapequa. The old Pathmark stores were in Franklin Square, Seaford and Greenvale.

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The nine former A&P-owned stores were closed for about a week, underwent renovations and reopened under the Stop & Shop banner.

Stop & Shop hired about 1,100 former Pathmark and Waldbaum’s workers at the nine stores.

All 51 Waldbaum’s and Pathmark stores on Long Island closed by November 2015, following A&P’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in July 2015. Most of the stores have been taken over or are expected to be taken over by other supermarkets, including 10 by Best Market, six by Key Food, at least four by ShopRite, and one by King Kullen. About 10 stores remain vacant.