Grocery store opens in space New York Sport Clubs left in East Meadow

A grocery store has moved into an East Meadow space that New York Sports Clubs exited after a bankruptcy.

The Super Foodtown opened at 625 Merrick Ave. in a  shopping center March 31.

The store is the second owned by Staten Island resident Mike Said, who also has a Super Foodtown that opened in Hempstead in 2015.

He is leasing the two-floor, 28,000-square-foot space in East Meadow. The 15,000-square-foot main level is occupied by the new store, while the basement is being used for storage. 

The location provided a great footprint, and neighborhood residents were in need of a nearby full-service supermarket, according to Said, 34.

“We’re getting great feedback. People are excited,” he said.

The Super Foodtown is surrounded by homes. The next-closest full-service supermarket is a Stew Leonard’s 1.3 miles away. 

The new store has fresh produce; full-service deli, bakery, meat and seafood departments; and extensive selections of cheeses and grab-and-go items, such as sandwiches, salads and wraps, he said.

It employs 32 people, Said said.

The space was occupied by a New York Sports Clubs location for about 20 years, said Jeffrey Pliskin, president of Pliskin Realty and Development Inc., the Garden City-based firm that is the managing agent and exclusive leasing broker for the shopping center.

After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020, the gym’s parent company, Towns Sports International, which also owned Lucille Roberts fitness centers and other chains, closed 110 clubs. The East Meadow location was among 13 gyms on Long Island that closed.

The East Meadow gym’s second floor had a large cutout in the center, from which a swimming pool below could be seen, Pliskin said.

The renovations of the former gym were extensive, and “it took a lot of work to get it where it is … We had to put a whole new floor in,” Said explained.

The entire shopping center is 38,480 square feet, said broker Marvin Hartman of Pliskin Realty, who represented Said and the landlord, East Meadow Stores Inc.

Super Foodtown is a member of Allegiance Retail Services, an Iselin, New Jersey-based grocery co-op that supports 128 independently owned stores in the tristate area by providing marketing, advertising, technological and operational services. 

The stores operate under 12 different names, including Foodtown, Freshtown, LaBella Marketplace, Brooklyn Harvest, Market Fresh, Big Deal Food Market, Green Way Markets and Shop n Bag.

“Our independent grocers operate family-owned stores which feature products curated for the local population. Mike’s store exemplifies the strength of our cooperative — local ownership, providing great products and service to consumers in their neighborhood,” John T. Derderian, president and chief operating officer at Allegiance, said in a statement last week.

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.