New Commack ShopRite a must-see for patrons

Jon Greenfield said his love of supermarkets stems from a cooking hobby he started his junior year of high school.

“I was an English major in college,” he said, laughing. “Somehow I went wrong and started doing this.”

He couldn’t be doing too much wrong. Shoppers from all over Long Island came out to marvel at his new ShopRite location that opened in Commack at 7 a.m. this morning.

“Grand Opening” flags flickered in the wind as shoppers filled the store that once housed the Home Depot Expo Design Center.

After years of planning and seven months of construction, Greenfield, who owns two ShopRites in Plainview, said the new 72,000 square-foot grocery store is one of the largest in Suffolk County. It’s already attracting many of his longtime customers who don’t live near by.

“We had to come see it,” said Audrey Baushold of Hicksville. She and her husband Barney, a retired member of the grocery industry, have been shopping at Greenfield’s ShopRite locations for years, and Barney said he had to see this location because of its size.

Greenfield, 59, maintains that his store has the largest selection of Kosher foods on Long Island. Even the bakery boasts the goods.

Vivian and Andy Greenstein, the owners of Wantagh-based ZuckerBaker's Bakery, have been supplying Greenfield’s ShopRite locations with Kosher baked goods since they opened their doors two years ago. They came out for the opening to see the store and to make sure Greenfield has enough baked goods to satisfy the hundreds of customers he would see Wednesday.

Staffing the behemoth was no small task. Greenfield and his son, Seth, 30, moved several employees to the Commack store from their Plainview locations, then created and filled 300 new jobs. The elder Greenfield said the store is still hiring.